La observación científica y las técnicas de observación

Examining the aspects of jazz practice that are selected and recontextualised in theory and improvisation texts, school and university syllabuses, and case studies of jazz teaching affords insight into the kinds of knowledge involved in the jazz field of pedagogy, giving a sense of what is taught and what is learnt. The same insight may not necessarily be reliably gleaned from what actors in the field say, be they musicians or other commentators, because, as Section 4.3.1 highlights, there is often a dichotomy between jazz rhetoric and the reality of jazz education. It will also be shown that the practices of teachers and students cannot be assumed from textbooks or syllabus documents in isolation.

The most famous examples of jazz improvisation textbooks and methods are the publications of Jamey Aebersold, David Baker, and Jerry Coker, sometimes collectively referred to as the

‘ABCs of jazz education’ (Herzig & Davis, 2011). Aebersold is best known for ‘play-along’ sets, such as How to play jazz and improvise (Jamey Aebersold, 1967), Major and minor in every key:

learn to play jazz (J Aebersold, 1981), and Maiden voyage: fourteen easy-to-play jazz tunes (J

Aebersold, 1992)—compilations of lead sheets or exercises and supplementary suggestions for student improvisers such as scales to fit each chord accompanied by recorded backing-tracks for practicing along with a rhythm section. Baker and Coker are known for method books such as

developing improviser (Coker, 1991). These include chord-scale and other parts of jazz theory,

examples of idiomatic and formulaic patterns, modes and exotic scales, and so on, foregrounding techniques and specialist knowledge. Knowers and knowing receive little emphasis other than in general advice such as Baker’s suggestion to students that ‘the player must bring something of his personality to every musical situation!!!’ (1983, p. v) or Aebersold’s note that ‘listening to jazz masters … provides stimulation for your own imagination and gives you a “feel” for how the song can be played”’ (1992, p. ii). These brief comments stand out as exceptional amidst thousands of words about specialist knowledge such as ‘practice procedure for memorizing scales and chords to any song’ (J Aebersold, 1992, p. iii) or ‘Achieving variety with the bebop major scale’ (Baker, 1983, p. 48). Coker (1964) writes, introducing his first method book, that improvisation depends on a performer’s ‘intuition, intellect, emotion, sense of pitch, and habit’, foregrounding epistemic relations and social relations, but then explains that he will focus exclusively on the intellect as it is ‘the only completely controllable factor’ and that if ‘the approach seems cold and calculated, remember that most artistic accomplishment requires academic training’ (pp. 3-4), emphasising epistemic relations and de-emphasising social

relations—a knowledge code. These authors thus acknowledge the predominant knower code of the performance field but establish the knowledge code of their approach (ER+, SR–). In

addition to methods there are also jazz histories and analyses that focus on the musical features of various styles, such as Hard bop (Rosenthal, 1992), Jazz (Giddins & DeVeaux, 2009), The

birth of bebop (Scott DeVeaux, 1997), and studies such as those by Berliner (1994) and Monson

(1996). The content of these kinds of text can be seen as emphasising epistemic relations— foregrounding specialist knowledge (ER+), and downplaying social relations—minimising the importance of knowers or ways of knowing (SR–), a knowledge code (ER+, SR–).

Syllabus documents, like textbooks, afford insight into the jazz field of recontextualisation, showing what knowledge from the practice field is selected and how it is pedagogised. They can also highlight the dichotomy between criteria from performance and the educational logics governing pedagogy. For instance, explaining the philosophy underpinning his program, the director of one Australian university jazz school proclaims:

Jazz is an artform where the practitioner must be spontaneous, creative and free from the constraints inherent in many other forms. It is about individual expression in the moment, responding in real time to influences sometimes so subtle, that upon later examination it is arguable that they ever existed outside the performer’s mind.

How could you possibly teach such an activity? How would an institution look, feel or behave that purported to give qualifications in the performing of something that even the experts cannot define. (Morrison, n.d, para. 1-2)

Knowledge is downplayed mainly by its absence, but also in the idea of jazz as mysterious. Morrison strongly emphasises knowing, such as ‘individual expression’ and ‘the performer’s mind’—a knower code. Morrison then shifts briefly into stronger epistemic relations, explaining that while ‘great skill and much knowledge’ is required to play jazz, ‘danger lies in the

regimentation of the delivery of this information creeping into the music itself’ (para. 3),

conflating pedagogy and practice. He elaborates by describing authentic jazz learning in ‘a world full of jazz clubs and jam sessions, in a culture where people took the time to sit for many hours discussing how they felt about music’ (para 7), weakening epistemic relations and re-asserting the importance of knowers. Morrison explains that in his school ‘we understand that jazz is a performing art of the most personal kind, yet with deep traditions and a multitude of skills required to reach one’s potential’ (para. 8). This expresses a knower code downplaying

techniques, skills, and knowledge (ER–), and emphasising personal qualities of musicians, self- expression, and cultivating a jazz gaze (SR+).

In contrast to this position, syllabus materials for the program emphasise knowledge and downplay knowers or knowing, such as in this sample of an improvisation class outline:

Extensions of basic jazz improvisation techniques are studied in order to develop the student’s facility in the technical and stylistic aspects of improvisation. The altered scale will be introduced and chord/scale relationships and their application to improvisation will be discussed. Ensemble repertoire will be used to provide a basis for improvisation. (University of South Australia - school of Creative Industries, 2020)

The aim of the class is ‘To develop the student’s facility in the technical and stylistic aspects of improvisation’ (U of SA, 2020). Illustrative of this program’s course descriptions and similar syllabi, this emphasis on techniques and specialist knowledge and an absence of knowers or knowing can be analysed as stronger epistemic relations and weaker social relations—a knowledge code (ER+, SR–). In this, there is a code clash between the knower code of the institutional philosophy and a knowledge code in the syllabus. This may highlight the recontextualisation of jazz knowledge as it is pedagogised in preparation for teaching and re- purposed according to institutional imperatives, indicative that Morrison’s rhetoric from the practice field is not the same as the syllabus from the pedagogy field. However, syllabus documents are not the same as teaching. How pedagogy might be enacted cannot be assumed from those texts without seeing what actually happens in the classroom.

Even if textbooks and syllabus documents emphasise knowledge and minimise knowers and knowing, it does not necessarily follow that somewhere there are classrooms of students sitting in disciplined rows trying to learn jazz by reading method books and memorising formulae. There may be, though it seems unlikely given the range of experiences involved in the

biographies of the musicians in Table 4.1 as well as in more recent studies such as Dyas (2006, 2011), Goodrich (2005, 2007), Kelly (2013), Libman (2014) and Murphy (2009) showing that jazz education in universities and schools includes a variety of experiences. As well as theory these studies, encompassing university and high school programs, described students involved in ensemble playing, jam sessions, entry-level professional performing outside of school, listening to live and recorded music, and similar diverse experiences curricular and extracurricular, formal and informal. Understanding of the breadth and variety of learning involved in jazz, of

knowledge and knowing, is further demonstrated by Paul Berliner’s famous (1994) ethnographic study of how jazz musicians learn to improvise reveals a richness of technical and social

learning.

Three of these studies Goodrich (2005), Dyas (2006), and Kelly (2013) involved observations of jazz teaching in American high schools and reveal something of the private face of jazz

improvisational aspects of jazz were left mostly as the students’ personal responsibility. Where Goodrich emphasised the significance of peer mentoring and self-teaching and downplayed the private lessons the students took outside of school, the program he described emphasised both knowledge aspects of jazz, such as accurate score reading in big band, ensemble precision, and other procedures and ‘knower/knowing’ aspects such as self-teaching, and cultivation: ‘the moment students enter the band room … they become immersed in the world of jazz. Inside these walls a jazz community is both created and connected to the surrounding music community’ (Goodrich, 2005, p. 213). This can be analysed as an élite code (ER+, SR+) of stronger epistemic relations and stronger social relations. Kelly (2013) described a similar curriculum in the program he observed, where the typical student ‘plays in groups, has school and private lesson teachers, listens, learns technique(s) and theory, and hangs. No one source for learning jazz has all that he needs’ (p. 196), emphasis on both knowledge and cultivation as a jazz knower—an élite code. Like Goodrich, however, Kelly predominantly found band teachers who paid ‘little attention to the nuances of jazz’ (p. 191) such as improvisational aspects. Dyas (2006) described what could similarly described as an élite code enacted in the jazz teaching at two specialist music high schools but with improvisational aspects of performance also taught explicitly in the classroom by specialist jazz teachers. These case studies are important, because they offer rare empirical examples in research of jazz educators’ enacted pedagogy and their stronger epistemic relations demonstrate a specialist technical aspect of jazz in education that is minimised in jazz discourse. Interpreted using specialisation codes the curricula described reveal an élite code in these examples, contrasting with the knowledge code enacted in textbooks. An implication of this is that enacted jazz pedagogy cannot be seen in or understood by looking at method books or syllabus documents in isolation.

4.3.3 Summary

This section has shown the ‘reality’ of jazz pedagogy, the private face obscured in public jazz discourse. The 281 biographies of formally trained famous musicians in Table 4.1 and in Ake’s ‘Table 11.1’ (Ake, 2012, pp. 244-247) show that formal music education and specialist jazz training have always been part of learning to play jazz. It shows that ‘school’ learning and jazz education are not new and are historically authentic practices that have helped nurture many of the most celebrated jazz players. The illustrative examples of Aebersold, Baker, and Coker, show

that jazz improvisation method books predominantly emphasise knowledge and minimise knowing and can be understood as manifesting a knowledge code. The example of a university jazz school revealed a clash between the knower code, reflective of the practice field, espoused in the director’s statement of philosophy and the knowledge code of the syllabus, showing the distinction between the public face of practice and the private face of pedagogy. Like the biographies in Table 4.1, empirical studies of jazz teaching and learning indicated code clashes, between first, the public knower code of jazz performance (Section 4.2), second, the knowledge code of recontextualisations such as textbooks, and third, the élite code enacted in teaching and learning in those cases. Having seen the private face of jazz teaching and learning, and the contrasting dominant public face of performance and the extent to which it minimises the

importance of formal education, raises the question of what relationship the pedagogy fields have with the practice fields, how jazz education is portrayed in public discourse, and what influence that might have on perceptions of the status of jazz education. The following section shows how discourse from the performance field works to reach into and shape the field of pedagogy.