Beyond Jamming: A Historical and Analytical Perspective on the Creative Process

Abstract

The process of the jazz jam session was analyzed from a historical and social perspective based on literature reviews, oral histories, interviews, and survey results. The analysis produced seven factors that facilitate the successful outcome of a jazz jam session. The factors include individual competence and knowledge of the field, practicing improvisation as the ability to overcome self-consciousness, establishing a mentoring system and role models, democracy and collaboration, leaders and sidemen, community support, and a continuous evaluation system. Each factor was defined and exemplified towards a model for group creativity with suggestions for further research and applications.

The Jam Session Model for Group Creativity and Innovative Technology

“…In order to identify the factors and analyze the jam session model, Herzig and Baker (2014) collected data based on literature reviews, personal interviews, video analysis, and survey data. A preliminary survey conducted in 2009 with 178 participants indicated that most jazz musicians are initially attracted to the art form through recordings, live performances, and role models because of its unique process of improvisation and self-expression.…”

“…The model was first proposed by Herzig and Baker (2014) within a project that documented the creative process of the jazz jam session from a historical, social, and musical perspective, and offered applications for group creativity. While there are scholars who have researched the creative process of jazz musicians and general creative thinking techniques (Cameron, 1956;Weick, 1990;Barrett, 1998;Meyer et al, 1998;Moorman and Miner, 1998;Hatch, 1998;Becker, 2000;Dennis and Macaulay, 2003;Sawyer, 1992Sawyer, , 2006Holbrook, 2008), Herzig and Baker (2014) used an in-depth historical and social perspective based on personal interviews, surveys, and a variety of historical documents to build a comprehensive model. The analysis of the jam session process revealed seven factors that facilitate group creativity and innovation.…”

“…This study builds on the original seven factor model developed by Herzig and Baker (2014) through literature reviews, surveys and in-depth interviews with jazz musicians. These factors include: Individual competency and knowledge of the field, practicing improvisation, establishing mentoring systems and role models, democracy and collaboration, leaders and sidemen, community support, and continuous evaluation systems.…”

“…Building the jam session model (Herzig and Baker, 2014) and exemplifying the factors with multiple case studies from the world's most innovative companies (Forbes, 2015), this study enables the transfer of the jam session model to a variety of business and technology applications. We propose that the jam session model facilitates group creativity and organizational innovation and can be applied to facilitate creative group interaction in any field as an analysis and training tool.…”

Untitled

“…Further comparisons with the jazz model are discussed in the areas of improvisational behaviors (Hatch 1998;Hatch 1999;Weick 1990;Hadida, Tarvainen, and Rose 2015), product innovation (Kamoche and Cunhae 2001;Kamoche et al 2003;Akgün et al 2007), organizational innovation (Crossan 1997;Bastien and Hostager 1998;Pasmore 1998;Holbrook 2008), actors within an organization (Kao 1996), strategic decision making (Eisenhardt 1989), market orientation (Dennis and Macaulay 2007), service performance (John, Grove, and Fisk 2006) and leadership within organizations (Walzer and Salcher 2003;Newton 2004). Herzig and Baker (2014) developed a seven-factor model for group creativity based on the jazz jam session. The seven factors are individual competence and knowledge of the field, practicing improvisation, establishing a mentoring system, democracy and collaboration, leaders and sidemen, community support, and a continuous evaluation system.…”