Focus: the fuel for better jazz improvisation

In my last post, I wrote about how much of a developing player’s improvisation is made up of major and minor seconds. But as I continue writing my book on focus, I’ve been thinking about something bigger.

There seems to be a common thread running through the improvisation of many beginner and intermediate players. Their musical thinking tends to happen in very small units.

Often, that smallness shows up in the narrow intervals they play. Sometimes it shows up in the length of their short phrases or in how little ahead they’re imagining as they improvise. Different symptoms, perhaps, but all pointing to the same underlying habit.

Take intervals. Much of a developing player’s improvisation is built from major and minor seconds. Scales up and down, down and up, up and down.

But the same thing happens with phrase length. Many ideas begin and end within a measure or two. A small fragment. Another small fragment. Then another. Not much in relation to each.

That makes perfect sense when you think about it. When you’re first learning French, your conversations aren’t long stories filled with twists, turns, and thoughtful observations. You don’t yet have the vocabulary for that. You speak in shorter thoughts because that’s all you can do right now in the language.

Improvisation is much the same.

I learned so much from listening to Sonny Rollins. Maybe the biggest lesson was hearing the long arc of his solos. They often sounded almost composed. A theme, a variation, a short statement leading into a much longer reply, then back to the theme. There was a continuity to his improvising that made each phrase seem connected to what came before and what would come next.

Consider this about focus: The long French-told story and the long arc of a jazz solo both require deep concentration. Playing jazz well requires enough command of the jazz language that your musical reactions can move beyond simply trying to survive each chord/bar/key/form as well as going beyond trying to find the next correct note.

Do you spend too much of your mental energy looking at the next chord and mentally searching for notes that fit? The range of that focus is very small. Maybe one or two bars at a time. When your attention never extends beyond the next chord change, you can’t create the kind of longer musical arc that makes a solo feel connected and purposeful. A story.

Listen to your own soloing. Is it made up mostly of short, disconnected phrases? Maybe those phrases are scale fragments. Maybe they’re little memorized note combinations that work for a moment but don’t seem connected to anything larger. It’s range-of-the-moment jazz improvisation. Small-ball jazz.

By contrast, skilled improvisers have a longer-range idea in mind. Not necessarily a plan in the strict sense, but a sense of direction. And their musical muse is leading them along. And as everyone knows, any muse worth his salt can tell a great story! The player’s phrases connect. One idea leads naturally into another. The solo develops rather than simply tossing out notes measure by measure.

I received a Loft playing evaluation submission that included a recording of someone blowing over Just Friends. As I sometimes do, I recorded an example of my own playing over the tune because I think a sound file is worth a thousand words. The recording of my noodling through Just Friends is below. My intent is to maintain my focus throughout the improvisation so that various lengths of phrases connect the long arc of the solo to tell a worthwhile story.