This paper builds on writings in psychology and philosophy to offer an “ecological” description of jazz improvisation. The description is grounded in the analogy of navigation through a complex environment, an environment that comprises the harmonic and metrical scheme on which the improvisation is based coupled with broader stylistic norms. The improvising soloist perceives this environment in terms of its “affordances,” that is, the possibilities for action that it offers (Gibson, 1979). While navigating the improvisational environment, the soloist also seeks opportunities for artistic display—motivic development, conspicuous risk-taking, and so on. Errors in improvisation reflect the soloist’s misperception of the environment’s affordances. Learning to improvise is a matter of refining perception through repeated experiences of improvisational success and failure. To bring the description to life, I offer evidence from an exploratory study of improvisational errors. The ecological description leads to new interpretations of the referent (the conceptual frame for a solo), improvisational learning and memory, and temporal coordination between soloist and ensemble. It counterbalances the prevailing computational view of improvisation, oriented around input, processing, and output.

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This article presents a new aesthetic of the improvised jazz solo, an aesthetic grounded in the premise that a solo is an act indivisible from the actor (the soloist) and the context. The solo's context includes the local and large‐scale conventions of jazz performance as well as the soloist's other work. The theme on which a solo is based serves not as a “work,” but as part of the solo's stylistic context. Knowledge of this context inheres directly into proper apprehension of the musical surface; it does not constitute a separate plane of appreciation. I begin by examining the improvisational error. This examination supports the position that the solo is an act, not a work. From this position, I detail a new aesthetic of the improvised solo, grounded in the soloist's virtues. In a successful solo, the soloist's actions display a balance of two aesthetic “virtues”: compositional skill and a commitment to the spirit of improvisation. Compositional skill manifests in a solo as coherence. The improvisational spirit manifests as courage, spontaneity, and related qualities. These virtues often come into conflict; each soloist negotiates this conflict differently.

In jazz improvisation, the meter of the original theme is strictly preserved, and the middleground harmonies are maintained, while the original melody is varied freely, especially with respect to its grouping structure—where phrases begin and end. This poses problems for theories of phrase rhythm that rely on a tonal definition of the phrase. In this paper, I propose a new approach to jazz phrase rhythm. First, I divide a melody into segments on the basis of four criteria. Then I classify each segment on the basis of its relationship to the meter and to surrounding segments. The result is a hierarchy of metrically defined phrases. Phrase rhythm <em>consonance</em> and <em>dissonance</em> are the alignment or misalignment of phrases with the meter. Skilled soloists manipulate phrase rhythm as they would any other element of a solo. I conclude with an ambiguous example, to demonstrate how phrase-rhythm analysis can present competing interpretations of the same passage.

"I now understand improvisation as the real-time yet pre-heard-and even practiced-choice among possible paths that elaborate a pre-existing structure, using familiar patterns and their familiar combinations and embellishments. "-Steve Larson (2005, 272) Introduction [1.1] Charlie Parker was a master improviser. His extraordinary oeuvre carries an implicit question: how did he do it? How did he create such well-crafted melodies in the very act of performance? This is "the problem of improvisation"-a problem for both the improviser and the analyst. (1) Inspired by the epigraph from Steve Larson, this paper posits one kind of solution for Parker's improvisations on the twelve-bar blues. I suggest that Parker developed two different sets of "possible paths" through the blues: phrase structures, to solve the problem of how to place phrases against a fixed meter; and melodic paths, to solve the problem of creating coherent melodies against a fixed harmonic structure. I call these paths schemata of phrasing and melody. ABSTRACT: This paper proposes a schematic approach to analyzing Charlie Parker's improvisations on the twelve-bar blues. Schemata are pre-learned, recurring solutions to the problems of high-speed improvisation. Phrasing schemata solve the meter problem: they are templates for the chorus-level organization of phrases. Parker employs five phrasing schemata, each of which organizes the blues' twelve measures differently. Melodic schemata solve the harmony problem: they are stepwise paths that Parker follows in the two different "Zones" of the blues' harmonic structure. Drawing on a small repertory of versatile schemata in both domains, Parker can compose intricate, varied melodies in the act of performance. After presenting the schemata, the paper concludes with a schematic analysis of a three-chorus solo.