I’ve noticed that when talking about improvisation, I am likely to use descriptors like “uninspired wanking” or “can’t improvise his way out of a paper bag” and so on. This might seem like a copout, a way of avoiding talking about why someone’s solo sucks.
In a way, it is. I don’t want to spend half of my review talking about why someone’s solo sucks, especially when poor improvisation tends to have the same characteristics, no matter who is perpetrating it.
Essentially, poor soloing is unmindful. It is a conditioned response instead of active engagement with the other musicians or the form of the music.
For example, when Larry Coryell plays endless repetitions of a pentatonic scale on the Randy Brecker composition Rocks, it sucks because it’s mindless. The scale doesn’t have a specific relationship to the composition or what the other musicians are playing. It’s uninspired wanking. Compare that to any of Robin Ford’s solos on The Yellowjackets’ debut album, and you’ll see the difference. Robin Ford is using the convention of pentatonic blues solos, but he’s altering them to fit the harmonies. Big difference.
Now let’s take “can’t improvise his way out of a paper bag.” This refers to someone who is trying to engage the harmonic material of a composition, but doesn’t understand harmony sufficiently or can’t react quickly enough to say anything germane. Instead, they substitute half-baked cliches from solos they have heard dozens of times or licks they’ve practiced endlessly.
Now, mind you, I sympathize with these musicians up to a point. I was one of them. When I was studying at Berklee School of Music, I studied at least eight hours a day. I struggled to learn harmony, to internalize it so that I could engage the music actively while I improvised. The results were painful. That’s why I stopped playing music.
Now, I know a lot of you are thinking “quitter.” Sure, I quit. At that point, I had playing music seriously for over ten years. If I hadn’t progressed to a reasonably high level by that point, there wasn’t a lot of hope that I would be able to play with musicians I admired, like Wayne Shorter. Besides, it’s tough to keep on playing when you hate the sound of your own instrument when you play.
Anyway, back to the topic of improvisation.
Masters of improvisation have internalized theory to the point that it’s second nature to them. In addition, they are so fluent on their instruments that playing their horn is no different that speaking for them. Two examples of this are John Coltrane and Michael Brecker. Now, Michael Brecker didn’t truly become a master until around 2003 or so, on Wide Angles. Before that, he often relied on certain licks and ways of approaching certain harmonic sequences. After that, he was essentially composing in real time.
Now, you don’t necessarily have to be a virtuoso in order to compose in real time, but you are certainly more limited if you aren’t. An example of this is Carla Bley, who is certainly not a keyboard virtuoso by any stretch of the imagination. Her solos are almost childlike in their simplicity, but she’s so smart, she manages to use her lack of facility as a strength. She uses absurdly simple figures, seldom even venturing into eighth notes, but manages to mirror the structure of her compositions and even imply sophisticated chord structures. I’d much rather listen to her than some joker who mindlessly recycles bebop cliches.
So, there you have it. I think when I generalize about sucky improvisation in a review, I’m going to start referring readers to this little article. It’ll save time and keep me from getting bored.
