updated: 1/11/2004

Opening Up the Jazz Ensemble: A brief history of Graham Collier

This is not a book...

...is an ongoing project where I make available my ideas about jazz and the ideas and methods I use in my compositions. Not surprisingly, many references are made to Interaction, Opening Up the Jazz Ensemble (Advance Music), my latest book and CD package which contains much material underlying my present day thinking. Where necessary, sections of Interaction will be included in precis form below but reading the full book and hearing the examples is strongly recommended for the purposes of this project. Click here to visit the Advance Music web site.

This is not a book is an attempt to add to the ideas of Interaction without going through the formal publishing process and, crucially, a bid to take advantage of the interaction between writer and reader offered by a web based project.
The six sections and appendices listed below will act as an index. As new material is added it will be noted here, with appropriate credit and date. To be informed when these updates are posted please subscribe by email.
It should be stressed that this is not an attempt to cover jazz composition in all its various forms. It is a personal view of the subject and although other people's work - in writing and on CD - may be referred to, this will not be in any kind of exhaustive way - and may not always be favourable!
As some may be aware there is a famous precedent for our unusual title: Magritte's painting 'The Treachery of Images', where a very obvious painting of a pipe is accompanied by the words 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' - 'This is not a pipe'. There is another and more recent precedent: David Markson's brilliant book This is Not a Novel. Magritte was being real and ironic at the same time - his painting is not a pipe and shouldn't be mistaken for one. In the case of Markson's book and this web presentation the irony is still there but there is also a basic truth. You should read David's book to find out what his is. As far as this project is concerned This... could be a book, but I prefer the flexibility of being able to add my ideas and those of any contributors as and when they occur.

Sections

Articles are finished artefacts: references to sections of Interaction or articles from Jazz Changes magazine, etcetera. Where appropriate comments will be added at the end.

Discussions are 'works in progress' which roam around a specific topic. New material can be inserted and will be marked with a credit and date in the body of the article and in the index.

Quote ... Unquote are ongoing selections of quotes, relevant to the section they are in. Most are from others, some are from my earlier writings. Some will have comments added immediately, some may re-occur in one of the discussions. Comments arising from the quotes are welcomed.

Targets The Brandford (sic) Marsalis "Bullseye or Bullshit?" award. Items by contemporary critics or musicians who get it so spectacularly wrong that one wonders where on earth they are coming from. And, yes, they could have been called the Wynton Marsalis awards but don't you think he gets enough publicity? Give his bro a chance!
Comments - except from the Marsalis family - are welcomed.

Contents
This is a full list of what the This is not a book project will ultimately include. As mentioned below some of the ideas and methods are covered in Interaction, which has a similar structure.
Items already posted on the web site are listed in red.

Part One: Jazz
1. What is Jazz?
Article: What is jazz? read
Discussion: Jazz happens in real time, once read
Article: Jazz is not classical music read
Appendix: What is jazz?: an appendix read

2. The Bebop thing
Article: The Churchill Report on Jazz Education in America read
Discussion: The bebop thing read
Article: Are chord-scales the answer? Methods of teaching jazz read
Appendix: The Bebop thing: what's going on & what's going wrong read

3. Jazz Changes: Tradition and the new thing
Article: Deepening the Game Amid the Background Hum read
Discussion: On not being American read
Article: An interview with Finnish saxophonist Janne Murto. read
Target: Taking care of business - or a long vacation? Wynton, and his critics. read
Article: The shape of jazz to come, report of a panel discussion on 'new' jazz and how it can be taught from the IAJE conference in New Orleans, January 2000. read
Target: Still bashing the avant garde, but does any of the argument stand up? read
Appendix: Precis of 'Interaction, Chapter Three'; Quotes; Recommended reading and listening. read

Part Two: Jazz Composition
4. The Third Colour (my approach to jazz composition)
Introduction: contents and discussion read
Quote, unquote: Some collected quotes from other creators that echo my personal philosophy read
Discussion: What I am trying to do as a composer read
Article: deep dark blue centre recentred read
Article: the composer as bystander or participant? read
Appendix: Some quotes and recommended books and composers read

5. Possible Pictures (the creative process)
Inspiration - where it comes from; Influences - what one learns from others
Article: Inspiration - where it comes from read
Discussion: Inspiration a look at some of the other aspects of Inspiration including Religion read
Article: Connections - jazz and the other arts read
Article: Lowry, Jazz and 'The Day of the Dead' - intertexualists click here! read
Discussion: The Malcolm Lowry Connection - reading jazz in Lowry's work read
Appendix: Quotes and recommendations read

Part Three: Techniques and Ideas
6. Article:Where it starts: Idea, Process and Form read
7. Article: What can be seen: the written texture read
8. Article: What can't be seen: the improvised texture read
9. Article: What's beneath the surface: the concepts of space and levels read
10. Summing up: an analysis of four recent compositions coming in 2005
See Interaction Chapters Four, Five and Six, which also includes examples of possible workshops using this material in a practical way
Part 6 is an ongoing project and parts 8-10 will be posted shortly

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