2. The process of the Artistic Research
2.1. Analyzing recordings and videos of the masters
As mentioned in the methodology I collected videos of live performances of singers and instrumentalists of the past and of today, in order to analyze their phrasing and the amount of interplay they were creating during their playing. For the sake of economy, I isolated a fragment from every video or recording, to showcase my point but there is all the info required and the YoTube link, if anyone wishes to watch the whole video of each performance.
Betty Carter (performing live at The Montreal Jazz Festival 1982) is singing “What a little moonlight can do” among many other songs. I isolated this song because it’s one of the pieces that reveal more clearly her loose and spacious way of phrasing the lyrics of the song. Also she is scatting and her phrasing of her solo clearly stimulates interplay, as she is very rhythmical and leaves quite a lot of space for her band to comment and participate in her story-telling. (Video sample is included along with extended analysis upon certain spots, where her interaction with the rhythm section is very obvious.)
Carmen Mcrae (performing live in Tokyo Japan 1986) is singing “No more blues” with a relaxed but at the same time syncopated phrasing that’s swinging amazingly. She’s mostly back-phrasing the theme of the song but it doesn’t seem she has to rush at all, to catch up with the form. Her singing brings a relaxed but not loose sensation rhythmically. Her scatting is accurately syncopated just like her interpretation of the theme, making small rhythmical phrases, leaving space for the band to interact. (Video sample is included along with extended analysis upon certain spots that prove the above.)
Introduction
1.1. Phrasing and Interplay
Phrasing is one of the elements of music that jazz musicians use in order to create opportunities for various rhythmical approaches in interpreting a theme and in improvising on the form of a piece.
The jazz vocalist also uses phrasing in order to be creative when singing the melody of a song and while improvising. On the other hand, as jazz music is constantly evolving, I have been noticing that interplay, in other words the instant elaboration of musical ideas that are being exchanged on the spot among the members of a band, is constantly increasing, to the point that it has evolved into a form of musical conversation between the instruments.
I see that instrumentalists tend to get very adventurous, “messing up” with the rhythmic values or stretching the harmonic boundaries of a piece, responding to the ideas that are exchanged on the spot. As I desire to be part of such a creative interplay during my improvisation and also while I’m singing the theme, I’d like to be able to offer new musical suggestions and at the same time be capable of perceiving and elaborating the ones that are being offered by the other musicians of the jazz combo. I want to investigate in what way can the element of phrasing become the means towards this goal of mine. To what extent can the use of phrasing, be the tool that will lead me to become an adventurous player in the musical game of interplay, in which I will not feel threatened to take risks and get more creative?
Moreover I believe that deepening into phrasing would be beneficial to any musician, that’s interested in finding ways to develop their ability to differentiate the way of interpreting a theme or enrich their rhythmical ideas in improvisation. Such a quest would increase creativity and bring out originality in one’s playing the theme or improvising on the form of a piece. The idea of phrasing can be liberating and can create immense possibilities for the musician that wants to go deeper into exploring interpretation than just delivering the notes that are written on the lead sheet.
In addition to that, practicing interplay or in other words, finding ways to become more elaborate of what’s been “served” on the spot during the course of playing can only be extremely beneficial, as such a procedure forces each musician to get out of “their own world” or comfort zone and pay attention to what their fellow musicians are contributing on the specific moment.
1.2 Stating the issues
Taking into consideration that the singer has to cope with lyrics while interpreting the theme of a song, rhythmical phrasing is somehow limited in relation to how much can words and sentences be displaced within the bars, either stretched out or tightened, loosened up or syncopated, back-phrased or anticipated. When a horn for example is playing the theme, the notes of the melody can be displaced and interpreted with more freedom than when lyrics are involved. The singer must always keep in mind that lyrics should be phrased in such a way that words will succeed to deliver the story efficiently and this story must be perceived by the audience effortlessly.
From my personal experience I have noticed that singers tend to stick to a certain way they are singing the theme of a song and they’re not experimenting enough changing their almost fixed and established way of phrasing the lyrics. This becomes even more apparent when they’re asked to sing the same song in a different tempo. For example if they need to sing a particular theme in a fast tempo, whereas they were used to doing it in a “medium swing” time feel for example, then they will most likely feel uncomfortable and how lyrics will find their way into the most natural interpretation, becomes a big issue.
On the other hand, during improvisation the singer tends to lock on the form of the piece and sometimes very “near” its melody, because of the fear of losing the sense of it, if the soloing phrases become more advanced rhythmically, due to the additional fact that singers only use their ears to navigate through the harmony. So everything becomes a bit more risky when it comes to scat singing and it’s more likely to feel threatened when deciding to take more risks.
1.3. Research question
So what are the elements of phrasing that the vocalist needs to develop, in order to become an adventurous performer, being able to participate in the process of risk taking that the interplay often requires, without the fear of losing the sense of the form of the piece, while singing the theme or improvising?
1.4. Motivation
I first got in touch with the term phrasing when I began studying jazz in 2001 back in my hometown Athens. My first teacher in jazz music, saxophone player Sylvios Syrros, introduced me to the value of the phrase as a unique musical gem that needs to be taken good care of. So from that moment on I began and still try to think “in phrases” when I improvise.
There are a lot of ways that a musician enters the world of jazz improvisation. Listening to the masters, transcribing solos, picking up the “language” and practicing timing, groove, harmonic progressions, etc are the very basic steps to start getting acquainted with jazz. Thinking “phrase-wise” can lead one step further though in my opinion.
Later I realized the great importance of listening closely to one another while I was playing in a jazz group. Back in 2007 I listened to Wayne Shorter’s “Beyond the sound barrier” album and even though it seemed pretty incomprehensive to my ears at first, I was fascinated by the nature of that conceptual musical conversation that was involved between the musicians. That particular time was the moment that the term interplay really hooked me.
After that experience, I began to realize that there are many “layers” and levels of interplay of course and that I needed to start investigating and analyzing this creative process step by step.
With this research I’m aiming to explore the way(s) that phrasing can be the tool of a jazz vocalist in order to create new musical suggestions instantly and stimulate the process of interplay within a jazz group.
1.5. Theoretical framework – contextualization
The term phrasing was created to verbalize the procedure of creating a phrase, which is described as “the smallest structural unit, consisting of a number of integrated musical events,…” according to Arnold Schoenberg’s detailed definition in his book “Fundamentals of Musical Composition”.
The “phrase” according to Arnold Schoenberg, plays a fundamental role in the construction of a theme. And as jazz improvisation is widely considered to be an instant form of composition, this notion is totally applicable!
The basic elements of a phrase are its length, its direction, its rhythmical character, its interpretation. The same melodic phrase can be interpreted in so many different ways rhythmically, that it offers the player immense possibilities of alterations and variety. This finding opens new pathways towards exploring one’s imagination and creativity.
So, phrasing is one of the most popular words in jazz music! It’s been used in every day life-practice of any jazz musician and it’s of key importance to the actual identity and recognition of a musician as being a jazz musician. When one is referred to the qualities-skills a jazz musician should definitely have, then jazz phrasing is one of the fist elements that’s been mentioned.
Articles on jazz phrasing, chapters on jazz bibliography and quotes of many jazz greats of the past and of today all sum up to the idea of phrasing as the key element of jazz playing. Jazz bassist Viktor Wooten has written a whole chapter in his book “The Music Lesson” about phrasing and its great importance.
Articles about jazz phrasing and thinking about musical phrases as musical statements have been widely offered on online journals about jazz.
- - (jazzadvice.com)
https://www.jazzadvice.com/thinking-about-musical-phrasing-for-improvisation/
Music is the space between the notes-Claude Debussy
https://www.jazzadvice.com/how-to-phrase-like-a-pro/
https://www.jazzadvice.com/exploring-space/
As it is widely known, jazz musicians are constantly alert and they’re interacting throughout their playing. Even though they follow a certain “form” they are free to “comment” or accompany as they judge would be the most appropriate way, in order to bring out the most interesting “course of events” that their musicality and taste can offer into the music at a particular point. This exchange of ideas and comments is described by the term “interplay” among jazz musicians.
Books like “Saying something – Jazz improvisation and interaction” by Ingrid Monson, “Thinking in Jazz – the infinite art of improvisation” by Paul F. Berliner or “Interaction, Improvisation and Interplay in Jazz” by Robert Hodson are examples of the growing interest about the musical conversation among the instrumentalists of a jazz band and the importance of listening to each other and interacting. It is a great insult if jazz musicians comment on the fact that a colleague of theirs is not “listening”.
Despite the fact that extended literature and articles have been referring to and praising phrasing and interplay, nevertheless there hasn’t been a previous research connecting these two elements. There has been no prior reference regarding how can phrasing “cooperate” with interplay and how can musicians and singers in particular, use phrasing in order to become more elaborate, adventurous and thus participate more in the group’s musical interaction.
1.6. Description of methodology
Analyzing: While analyzing recordings and live performances of jazz singers of the past (Carmen Mc Rae for her dynamic phrasing, Betty Carter for her loose and spacious phrasing, Mark Murphy for his adventurous phrasing, Anita O’Day for her rhythmical freedom of stretching in a tight way, Shirley Horn for her talkative and loose phrasing) and of today (Dianne Reeves for her legato interpretation, Dee Dee Bridgewater for her syncopated phrasing, Sheila Jordan for her relaxed phrasing in her bass and voice duets, Kurt Elling for his tight phrasing) I’m investigating the amount of interplay they create with their phrasing, when singing the theme of the song or improvising. I chose these singers because they all have contributed their unique phrasing, scatting style and sound identity to jazz singing.
I’m also analyzing recordings of Miles Davis Quintet (with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams) from their live performance in Germany in 1967, Wayne Shorter Quartet (with John Patitucci and Brian Blade) from the live performance in Paris in 2011, Greg Osby’s album “Invisible hand” (BlueNote1999) with Andrew Hill, Jim Hall, Gary Thomas, Scot Colley, Terri Lynn Carrington, in order to observe the ways these groups use phrasing to increase their interplay.
Experimenting: I’m forming several ensembles myself, playing with different musicians (in duet, trio and quartet) and making recordings of our sessions, in order to find out, in what way can a more adventurous rhythmical phrasing (in the theme and the vocal solo) stimulate interplay and influence the musical conversation. I will compare my latest recordings with old recordings of mine, to evaluate to what extent I have developed my phrasing skills in order to engage myself into a more elaborate interaction with the band.
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