Madhav Chari a Jazz Pianist and Composer says “Make friends with the music, and do not worry about the “structure" of the music: just taste it for now."
Jazz music is one of the most important artistic contributions of humankind in the modern era, and one of America's greatest contributions to the world of art.
One of the guiding features of jazz music is improvisation: the art of spontaneously creating sounds in real time. Improvisation within jazz music is not an “anything goes" approach and has guidelines and principles. This process of improvisation is analogous to improvisation in Hindustani and Carnatic music. In all these forms of music improvisation is structured (and the sound itself is structured according to particular musical grammar and vocabulary), there is a strong rhythmic basis to all the sounds that are created (and definite protocol in terms of rhythmic articulation or the way rhythm is projected), and there is a dynamic interplay of the different musicians on the bandstand (in other words musicians should be listening to each other). Within jazz music there is also a dialogue between the musicians in real time known as “call and response” and this is similar in principle to the saval-jawab idea in Hindustani music.
However, the similarity ends there: the way in which jazz musicians organize sound is very different from carnatic or Hindustani musicians. To use a metaphor of language, the grammar, vocabulary and structure of the language and its idioms is radically different from carnatic and Hindustani, and is more closely related to western classical music and music forms from west and central Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Jazz music is one of the most important artistic contributions of humankind in the modern era, and one of America's greatest contributions to the world of art.
One of the guiding features of jazz music is improvisation: the art of spontaneously creating sounds in real time. Improvisation within jazz music is not an “anything goes" approach and has guidelines and principles. This process of improvisation is analogous to improvisation in Hindustani and Carnatic music. In all these forms of music improvisation is structured (and the sound itself is structured according to particular musical grammar and vocabulary), there is a strong rhythmic basis to all the sounds that are created (and definite protocol in terms of rhythmic articulation or the way rhythm is projected), and there is a dynamic interplay of the different musicians on the bandstand (in other words musicians should be listening to each other). Within jazz music there is also a dialogue between the musicians in real time known as “call and response” and this is similar in principle to the saval-jawab idea in Hindustani music.
However, the similarity ends there: the way in which jazz musicians organize sound is very different from carnatic or Hindustani musicians. To use a metaphor of language, the grammar, vocabulary and structure of the language and its idioms is radically different from carnatic and Hindustani, and is more closely related to western classical music and music forms from west and central Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
