Phrase Rhythm in Standard Jazz Repertoire: A Taxonomy and Corpus Study

Charlie Parker has been much appreciated as an improviser, but he was also an important jazz composer, a topic yet to be studied in depth. Parker’s compositions offer insight into his total musicianship as well as provide a summary of early bebop style. Because he left no working manuscripts, we cannot examine his compositions evolving on paper. We do possess occasional single parts for trumpet or alto saxophone of pieces written for recording sessions and four Library of Congress lead sheets copied in his hand, and, as an introduction, I show examples of such manuscripts. The article continues by exploring what we can infer about Parker’s compositional processes from those instances where he made revisions to improve or create the final product. In particular, there is one instance of Parker revising a work already completed (“Ornithology”), one instance of Parker combining two pieces by another composer into one of his own (“My Little Suede Shoes”), and two instances of Parker composing in the studio where we can hear his revisions immediately (“Red Cross” and “Blues (Fast)”). The middle part of the paper explores Parker in these creative settings. Parker’s methods sometimes differ from traditional composition and suggest that we reconsider the usual distinction between improvisation and composition. I conclude with observations on Parker’s procedures, proposing refinements to ontological models of musical works to account for jazz compositions.

show abstract

Referents in the Palimpsests of Jazz

Smither

2024

MTO

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Jazz analysts have long struggled with the ways in which tunes can be accounted for in analyses of musical structure. When analyzing the utterances jazz musicians make in an improvised performance, it is difficult to disentangle the musical elements related to what Jeff Pressing termed the “referent”—the improviser’s conceptualization of the tune—from those more freely improvised in the moment. Complicating this problem is the fact that standard jazz tunes themselves are not fixed structures with essential, immutable musical components; no definitive version exists of any given tune. Instead, tunes are flexible and malleable, permitting infinite variations. In this article, I develop a methodology that provisionally disentangles jazz improvisations from the tunes on which they are based. I begin by theorizing the structure and function of various tune-referents before outlining a theory of referent defaults. I then present two case studies, one on melody and one on harmony, that examine the relations between different performances in order to arrive at a postulated referent for use in further analysis. Finally, I draw on anthropologist Timothy Ingold’s concept of textility to illuminate the nuanced ways that jazz improvisers engage with referents.

show abstract

scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

Contact Info

customersupport@researchsolutions.com

10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614

Henderson, NV 89052, USA

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Blog Terms and Conditions API Terms Privacy Policy Contact Cookie Preferences Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Made with 💙 for researchers

Part of the Research Solutions Family.

Phrase Rhythm in Standard Jazz Repertoire: A Taxonomy and Corpus Study

Cited by 3 publications

References 5 publications

Prolongation and Its Limits: The Compositions of Wayne Shorter

Prolongation and Its Limits: The Compositions of Wayne Shorter

Four Studies of Charlie Parker's Compositional Processes

Referents in the Palimpsests of Jazz

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About