Saying Something

Based on extensive personal interviews with some of the most impactful musicians in jazz, Dr. Monson demonstrates how the supremely interactive nature of jazz improvisation is based on the oral and aural traditions of African American vernacular speech. It therefore demonstrates the way that music, language, and other aspects of culture intrinsically form a unified complex whole.

In this book Monson shows how the best jazz performances, those that flow with a “groove,” are like great conversations: musicians listen carefully to each other and respond, sometimes taking another’s idea and adding to it, so that the result expresses both individuality and a collective sensibility. Through what she calls “intermusicality,” such musical conversations also span across time, because when musicians improvise on “standard” tunes like “All the Things You Are,” they draw on and respond to previous canonical recordings of those compositions, and experienced listeners hear such echoes as well. In these multilevel musical conversations, musicians model ways… show more.