Jazz and the Ambiguity of Influence, Part 6: On Swing and Getting to That Place
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| Jason Moran |
When we talk about influence in jazz, or in any of the arts for that matter, we are talking about something that is subjective and unquantifiable. Yet it usually is perfectly obvious when some attempt at the art form either succeeds or not, as well as which successes inspire others to emulate them. In jazz, we might say that a performance excels to the extent that it manifests that ineffable but readily-apparent thing called swing. "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing," as the saying goes. In a particular sense, swing refers to the main idiom of jazz in the 30s and 40s. Yet in a more fundamental and general sense, swing means the music is really working and that it presents an imperative, often but not always sensed in the body, which demands a response from the listener. Was it Louis Armstrong who said that if you can't feel the swing, "Jack you dead!"?
We might say, then, that jazz is both a pragmatic and an idealistic endeavor. The way I put it is that what you want to do is to get to that place. That place is a magical place, so whatever it is that helps you get there is what you want to do. And, in my experience, it's the doing, and not the race or nationality of the doer that matters. Let me share an anecdote from my brief and -- I was going to say undistinguished but that's needlessly self deprecatory -- playing career. I mean, I was no virtuoso but I had my moments. There's one I episode always go back to in my mind. Our reggae-groove band (I played trumpet) had a gig at sort of a neighborhood bar with a stage in one of the black neighborhoods of Denver. At one point I started playing a figure that I felt would deepen the band's groove. There were two middle-aged African American gents sitting not far from the stage and as I played I heard one of them say, "That'll work." I've never forgotten that. What I was playing worked! That is the highest praise. For a brief time anyway I helped the band get to that place that you want to get to.
A quick note on my influences. Basically every note I ever played was based on two sources: Blue Mitchell's work with the John Mayall band in the early 70s and all of Miles' Harmon mute work from the 50s. I could also add his jabbing phraseology on the rock-oriented Jack Johnson LP of, what, 1969? Both are practitioners of what I call the Stir the Drink style. You play clear phrases and figures that work with and against the groove. These inspire the rhythm section to respond with their own figures and patterns, and then everyone keeps morphing their figures to increase the intensity. You leave a lot of space around your phrases, too, so everyone can hear what's happening and consciously create and respond. In a non-jazz context the master of this is Dicky Betts of the Allman Brothers. He has a vocabulary of phrases that he deploys by turning them inside out and flipping them around and repeating them as things heat up. Oh, I should add that one of the very best examples of this is Sonny Rollins' solo on "St. Thomas." I studied that in high school and that was big for me.
Generally speaking you can get to that transcendent "swinging" place by either going in or going out. I'll illustrate with two live piano performances that have stuck in my mind. The first was during a solo performance by the late Mulgrew Miller on a side stage at the Newport Jazz Fest many years ago. He started improvising on "Summertime" or some standard like that, and he got so far inside the groove that it was as if the music was playing him and not vice versa. He was responding to the movement that he himself had created, with just minute adjustments to the placement of the notes really strengthening the swing. To stay in that place, you've go to empty your mind and "choose" with your subconscious. The other memory, offering a great instance of "going outside," was a Jason Moran solo during a performance by the Charles Lloyd Quartet in Cambridge at the Regatta Bar around ten years ago. At one point he started playing figures that strained against the main rhythm and harmony. He kept pushing in this direction while the rhythm section joined him only part way, maintaining connection with the original blueprint of the song. What happens is that when all the players maintain their commitment you reach a place or plateau that while being "wrong" in relation to the song ends up being "right" in an unexpected and invigorating way. This essentially was the Grateful Dead's method. Listen to a live Dead concert and what's cool is how the audience was so attuned to getting to that "outside" place. They knew it and responded when it happened.
Ultimately, what makes someone a source of influence is that they get to that place in especially unique, imaginative, and even challenging ways. Louis Armstrong stood out early on because of his bravura style and his ability to construct solos in a sculptural manner that only intensified the swing. Monk took swing and groove to new levels but employed dissonance and oddly shaped melodies that somehow served as slingshots for the soloists. Bird and Diz added a level of technique and virtuosity and maximal note employment that was a game changer for everyone. Well, except for Armstrong. He said that they sounded like scrambled eggs. But, as Wayne Shorter told it in the movie Round Midnight, it might be scrambled eggs but it's how you scramble them that counts! In the end, the greatest players are the ones that think of a place that no one ever thought of to get to before. Case in point: Ornette Coleman, one of the key inventors of free jazz, that form unmoored completely from preset rhythm and harmony. Many people never learned to love Ornette's place, but I did. Call it an acquired taste, like whiskey or strong, black coffee -- things that swing in their own way.
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