Stretch developed across a web of activities that continuously modulated one another. This process was one of constant dialogue between academic research, practice-led research, and research-led practice. We entered the web through spectral theory and focused our attention on the technique of stretching and compressing spectra. We transported this theoretical context from classical composition to the workings of a small jazz band. There, it was a “foreign body,” whose introduction led to a complex reconfiguration of the band’s practice, and even to the design of new keyboard instruments. Both the stretching of spectra and the workings of a small jazz band were not yet (or scarcely) explored in spectral jazz. The reconfiguration they caused pushed the boundaries of this budding subgenre.
Grip
We explained that resistance drives this reconfiguration: resistance between instruments and players; between instruments and a theoretical model; and between players and the theoretical model. Extending that metaphor, we would like to propose that resistance enables what we call “grip:” the ability to meet and play with resistance, to handle an object without letting it slip. We could then say that players, theoretical models, and instruments “found grip” with the resistance they offered each other.
The players learned to productively integrate the resistance of their instruments, of spectral theory, and of countless other entities present in their music making. Pirro met new keyboard configurations with a different approach to improvisation, and Comerford’s improvisations slowed down in the face of the challenge put up by a new theoretical framework.
The instruments and the theoretical models in their turn found grip on each other and on the players. Pirro adapted a whole electronic lutherie to his keyboard and to spectral theory, and in face of that resistance an ensemble of software and interfaces afforded functional configurations. Similarly, spectral theory stretched to adapt to the jazz practice of the players. For example, it found grip on “outside notes;” on rhythmical frameworks drummer Mora Matus relies on for his practice; and on the traditional dynamics of a jazz quartet. And during the composition process, jazz changes and chorus form co-adapted with the gradual harmonic transformations Pirro found in the spectral works that inspired him.
Grip is what makes resistance productive. It makes lasting connections with resistant entities possible. Instruments, theory, and players all resisted each other in our research-practice cycle, and they all met resistance with grip. They form a network of entities that affect and modulate each other.
Black boxes
The theories of sociologist and philosopher Bruno Latour are a handy reference for these kinds of networks, which he and thinkers like him refer to as actor-networks. Latour calls a human or non-human entity that exerts agency as part of a network an actant.1 Actants that translate and transform meaning or force are mediators. Actants that only transport meaning or force are intermediaries.2
Marcel Cobussen points out that musical improvisation is a complex event in which many actants, both human and non-human, interact.3 Instruments, theory, and players are a few of the vast number of actants at work in the practice of Pirro and his quartet, and all three are mediators. Moreover, like any actant they are “black boxes” that, when opened, consist of more actants.4 Each player in the band comes with their own theoretical framework, methods, cultural norms, etc.; each instrument consists of many parts; each theory consists of more theories, practices, literature, and so forth.
For intermediaries, the contents of the black box don’t matter much in an account of what this actant “transports.” Latour uses the example of a properly functioning computer: though it is a complex assembly of parts, it reacts perfectly predictably to my keystrokes while I’m typing this text. “Defining its inputs is enough to define its outputs…an intermediary […] can be taken as a black box that counts for one. Mediators, however, can never be counted as one… Their input is never a good predictor of their output; their specificity has to be taken into account every time.”5 In other words, the contents of the black box matter very much if we want to account for their agency.
Latour points out that traditional sociology (“sociology of the social”) only believe in social aggregates that consist of “many intermediaries and few mediators.”6 It paints over the inner complexity of mediators with grand narratives. We suggest that slogans like “if you can’t sing it, you can’t play it” or “play who you are” do the same. They paint over the myriad of mediators that make a jazz performance what it is and depict them as intermediaries for the intentions of a self-sufficient individual consciousness.
Introducing the foreign body of spectral theory increased resistance between theory, instruments, players, and many other actants at play in the development of Stretch. Through that resistance, we questioned the universal validity of some of jazz’s old mottos. We wanted to strip the paint and show a network with many mediators and few intermediaries.
This kind of project is not entirely new in the practice and study of improvisation. For example, David Borgo refers to the writings of George E. Lewis and to an interview with Evan Parker to show that the agency of technology and musical instruments has long been a concern amongst improvising musicians.7 But it is only in recent years that scholars like Borgo and Cobussen started analyzing these and similar concerns through the lens of Actor-Network Theory—of which Latour is the most prominent exponent.8 Their discussions cover a wide range of focal points, but from what we have found (experiments with) music theory is not yet one of them.9 By diligently tracing a network of actants at work in a boundary-pushing spectral jazz experiment, we then opened a few black boxes that hitherto remained closed in public discourse. We exposed modulations (instances of “resistance” and “grip”) that took place when we introduced a new theoretical framework in extemporary music making, and we showed how such a framework can be one amongst many mediators.
Usually, one cannot tie a big bow around accounts like these (assiduous tracings of a network of actants). But that is exactly the point. Their value does not lie in big conclusions, but in the descriptions of many connections and modulations. These seeming minutiae are utterly relevant for those already involved in or wanting to try their hand at bringing spectral theory into the nitty gritty of their own jazz practice, and for those engaged in similar experiments with other theoretical frameworks. Perhaps, in their many small ways, they will even help change some of the discourse on how jazz is made.
Jazz ideals
Could we build a new ideal out of the methods employed in this study? Invoking Latour's network, its formulation could look like something as “Keep the network open,” embrace unpredictable transformation by its mediators. Of course, this “new” ideal is nothing new to the jazz community.
On the one hand, it is true that many accounts of jazz musicians express the importance of proficiency, fluency, and mastery. Many even see mastery as the ultimate goal for jazz players.10 On the other hand, purely “technical” mastery is not valued as an ideal in itself. On the contrary, it is often criticized. As David Ake writes in his 2010 book Jazz Matters,
The seasoned audiences of jazz music like to see the struggle between jazz musicians, instruments, and repertoire. Jazz players value creative situations in which the improviser is not in full control of their instrument, because full control usually implies well-learned ‘licks’ and automatisms. “Being one with the instrument” might be something that jazz players strive for across their entire career, but this is not the ultimate goal of a musical performance.
We could say that, alongside an ideal for perfect mastery and connection to the instrument, a contrasting ideal for the value of the instability of the network of jazz music making also exists. Maybe “Keep the network open” is something that jazz players and audiences across all generations were pursuing all along. Ours is just another stone on a cairn along the way.