ABSTRACT
Improvisational practices are yet to find a satisfactory voice within academia – frequently falling victim of mythology, canonized dogmas, or sweeping generalisations – and this chapter attempts to readdress improvisation as a (‘straight forward’) technique-come-practice beyond romanticized ideologies. It will illustrate how improvisational practices are analysable through forms of self-reflection, and that musicians – given the right tools – can both access relevant knowledge and mediate this to us in a discursive, comprehendible context. Also, drawing on my own experience, I accentuate the motivation behind improvisational conduct as the adrenalin-fuelled excitement of a live setting. I see this as similar to the tightrope balancing act of an aerialist, which again inspired the double-meaning book title: Jazz on the line symbolizes the tight-rope negotiations (between contexts, idioms, people, etc.) which improvisers perfect through their art, as well as the creative urge to push jazz in new directions. Through the term jazzaerialism, the chapter discusses the enablers of this symbolic balancing act – from embodiment, architecture, and compositions to monuments and rituals – in conjunction with a strict focus on improvisation as contextual performativity. Various interviews are interweaved into all of this, and juxtaposed with biographical voices and recordings from the past, the chapter historicizes jazz performativity as an ongoing (tight wire) process through time and space.
