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Here four views of tradition might be noted to illustrate this point. These correspond to the evolutionary trajectory delineated earlier that proceeds from modernist to postmodernist, with two stages included, to integral phases of development. As shown in Figure 5.1, the modernist perspec-tive, which characterizes the conventional model, views tradition in terms of a linear, chronological sequence of developments, which includes a

Figure 5.1. Four Perspectives of the Jazz Tradi

strong sense of canon, or emblematic repertory, and thus advocates musical training that follows that timeline and corresponding mastery.

Although this approach is often endorsed as securely grounded in tradi-tional practice, a more nuanced look suggests that few if any jazz masters actually developed according to this sequential trajectory. Here it must be emphasized that the modernist assessment is relative to the respective line; modernism along the jazz line differs significantly from that along the classical line in that the first engages the majority of musicians with improvisation and composition—albeit in largely style-specific approach-es—while the second excludes the processes altogether.

A second, astructural postmodern (review chapter 3) view of tradi-tion departs radically from the first and, consistent with poststructural sociocultural theory, rejects the privileging of structural considerations—

as in stylistic norms—and instead emphasizes the exploration of new pos-sibilities and the evolution of a personal voice that is reflective of the circumstances of one’s time and place. Naturally, advocates of the mod-ernist approach are quick to claim that without grounding in the past, musicians will lack the grounding needed for contemporary exploration, while the astructural postmodern reply is that the evolution of the jazz tradition has always been driven by an exploratory thrust, and this needs to be an important aspect of musical training even at an early age.

A third reading of tradition, recognizing the partial validity in both modern and postmodern views of tradition, provides a synthesis. Ground-ing in the past is a necessary part of growth; robust creative, contemporary exploration is equally necessary. But the first does not necessarily precede the second in a linear fashion, rather the two approaches must inform each other from early on in the course of artistic development. The more the personal voice emerges, the more one has access to an interior framework for meaningful embrace of the past, which in turn enables present-based exploration and individuation. What has eluded modernist thinking is that the capacity to fathom the treasures of the past is directly predicated on the degree of individuation that has been achieved. What has eluded astructural postmodern thinking is that the degree of individuation that is achieved is directly predicated on the degree to which one has apprehended what has come before. Modernist insistence that, in this dynamic interplay, past grounding must precede present exploration reflects an incomplete under-standing that has been inherited from the Eurological perspective.

Once the aspiring artist is grounded in this dynamic emulative-exploratory, present-past interplay, a conduit for connections to the realm of consciousness is in place. At this point, a fourth, integral understand-ing of tradition comes into view, which is closest to the pathway of the great jazz innovators.

Conventional jazz studies, where emulative approaches have over-shadowed the exploratory thrust, is thus constrained by a modernist view of tradition. Although the process deficiency underlying this modernism is nothing compared to that found in overall musical study, because jazz studies includes primary creative processes of improvising and composing while the broader field does not, both share the same underlying tendency to inhibit creativity. Here the modern/postmodern/integral evolutionary sequence is applied in a quadrivium manner, where jazz education and musical studies are assessed relative to their own capacities for parts-to-whole development. From a quadratic perspective, jazz study might be placed at a high modernist stage due to its inclusion of the primary creativ-ity that overall musical studies excludes. Most important is that both have severed themselves from the diversity of the broader musical landscape.

One need not look far for guidance from leading jazz artists as to how jazz studies may break free from its modernist moorings. Yusef Lateef supports the importance of the emulative when he affirms the cen-tral importance of individuality in the jazz tradition: “That’s the nature of this music, African American music, to sound like yourself. This has been presented to us by people like Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane, and on and on.”²⁵ Lester Bowie, trumpeter and pioneering figure in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, echoes these sentiments when he emphasizes that “innovation, creativity, moving forward, being contemporary (and) maintaining the individual voice have always been essential aspects of the jazz legacy.”²⁶ Art Farmer hints at how the exploratory works hand-in-hand with the emulative: “You heard someone play something you liked, you thought about how you wanted to sound, and you went home and worked on it.” Douglas Ewart further underscores this point. “In trying to forge new ground,” as he describes the aspirations of musicians in Association for Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) circles, “cats were not in any way trying to undermine”

the past.²⁷ In other words, while musicians may consciously strive for “a true departure from what had gone before,” this does not mean a lack of reverence to the work of the masters. The same interplay of creative inten-tion and respect for the past is evident in the words of AACM cofounder Muhal Richard Abrams: “We were deliberately breaking some rules. To us, Bird and them were people who broke ground. We copied them religiously, but that was not the end; we didn’t sacrifice our individualism to do it.”²⁸

Pat Metheny provides a particularly compelling articulation of the emulative-exploratory interplay that is key to movement toward an integral understanding of tradition when he urges that students regard the past and mastery of “the fundamentals of the music as central and essential,” yet that they also capture the “the emerging sound of [their]

OWN generation of musicians.”²⁹ What has been overlooked is the explor-atory component, which Metheny emphasizes needs to be cultivated during the time when it is ripe in students’ development. Noting that musicians early in their development have access to “a certain kind of energy that is really valuable, rare” and which often inspires music that sounds “nothing like anything that has ever been heard before,” he urges that students “listen to THAT with the same attention and curiosity that [they] reserve for [their] heroes on records.”³⁰

If anything, the intention to explore and find one’s voice in the present enlivens, rather than compromises, receptivity to the repository of treasures that are to be found in any artistic tradition. Accordingly, the common notion of aspiring musicians engaging exclusively in extensive emulation of their distant predecessors before dealing with the music around them—the thinking being that exploration of new possibilities is neither valid nor productive without mastery of the past—is largely unfounded either theoretically or in actual practice. Yes, aspiring jazz musicians have always engaged in rigorous study and practice to gain the extraordinary skills needed to excel in this demanding art form. But more often than not, the primary sources of inspiration, as well as learning resources (e.g., books, exercises, repertory) derived as much from current musical artists and developments as those from the distant past. John Coltrane, a seminal jazz innovator, was exposed to a variety of technical resources of past and contemporary origins—including scales and exer-cises from diverse musical traditions—early in his training.³¹ Instead of isolating themselves from the musical pulse of their time and place and approaching tradition in a linear, chronological manner (e.g., one begins with the 1930s, then proceeds to the ’40s, etc., eventually reaching the present), artists have more commonly approached tradition in a nonlinear manner where creative exploration and rigorous emulative practice went hand-in-hand.

And in many instances, exposure to some cutting-edge, present development has a transformational impact that borders on a kind of spiritual awakening, which thus renders the exterior, musical experi-ence as a gateway to interior grounding that points toward an integral approach. David Liebman, as a teenager hearing Coltrane—who by then had clearly emerged as one of jazz’s major innovators—describes this kind of experience in quasi-religious terms.

My first, really great experience with jazz was going to Bird-land when I was 14. I saw Mulligan and Count Basie. But then I saw Coltrane. And that was a definite revelation. . . . I

mean that was the impetus and inspiration to want to play the saxophone in that kind of way. . . . I didn’t know what jazz meant at the time; I had no idea of what he was playing. But the power was incredible, and it took me right away. I was 14, and I already was convinced that this was an amazing thing that was happening.³²

Coltrane himself reports a similarly inspirational experience when, at age 19, he first heard Charlie Parker, whose bebop excursions were then at the cutting edge of the genre. The experience, as “Trane” recounts,

“hit me between the eyes.”³³ Again, we see the all-important transfor-mational impetus of a present development in the evolution of one of the most extraordinary musical innovators of the twentieth century. This developmental trajectory was equally true of Parker himself—to continue this line of thought through the lens of the jazz saxophone lineage—who in his teens idolized and emulated Lester Young, a leading innovator at that time. Parker did not, upon hearing “Prez,” shut himself off from the work of the present master and first seek those influences from which Prez evolved. Rather, he went right to Prez as the most immediate source, further exemplifying the centrality of the present as a lens to tradition.³⁴ I believe it is not unreasonable to conclude this has been more the rule than the exception with most artists.

And when musicians glimpse this kind of impact in the music of others, it is only natural that they seek this in their own music, at which point, aspiring artists engage in intensive emulative and exploratory work not only with the intention of gaining requisite skills, but to cultivate an individual voice that will reflect the inner-outer totality of their being and similarly have a transformational impact on listeners.

The significance of a present-based entryway to tradition is that it comprises engagement with musical materials in more fluid forms—

in other words, configurations of elements that have not yet crystallized into the codified, normative structures that comprise much academic study—and therefore provides a robust conduit for movement of aware-ness toward first-second-third-person synthesis. Here is where improvisa-tory study that includes both style-specific and trans-stylistic, or rigorous adherence to idiomatic harmonic and rhythmic parameters along with wide-ranging excursions, is essential. It is difficult to imagine that Col-trane, in his legendary practice regimens, did not regularly launch into territory yet uncharted—how else would his ground-breaking activity manifest? While the importance of these improvisatory flights tends to be diminished in conventional education circles—with their perhaps

being dismissed as self-indulgent, undisciplined lapses in focus—I believe they serve as essential moments where rigorous, systematic skill acquisi-tion, which again is all-important, is integrated into the individual voice.

Robust second-person creative exploration may even pave the way for deeper grounding in third-person technical and theoretical dimensions by unearthing ideas in undifferentiated forms that require specific kinds of practice and study to be molded into shape.

At this point, present-based exploration and rigorous craft develop-ment become part of a creative infrastructure that promotes receptivity, if not overt pursuit, to first-person interior development, which is keenly evident in the jazz tradition. Charles Lloyd, Mary Lou Williams, Alice Coltrane, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Charles Gayle, John McLaugh-lin, Kenny Werner, Paul Horn are among the many jazz artists whose engagement in interior spiritual practices as directly informed and organi-cally linked to their creative work is well known.

Nonetheless, whereas the evolution of the jazz tradition, just as with the classical tradition, was driven by this integral, self-transcending thrust, which is nothing less than the cosmic evolutionary thrust toward differen-tiated wholeness, jazz studies, like classical studies, has departed from this core aspect of tradition. What is ironic is that adherents to conventional models in both fields tend to defend their position in the name of uphold-ing tradition. Restoration of both the parts-to-whole creative scope and complementary whole-to-parts consciousness aspect of the jazz tradition to jazz studies yields a first-second-third-person template that serves as both catalyst and prototype for integral paradigmatic change in music, education at large, and the overall knowledge base.