Discussion

Inspiration

A reminder: Discussions are not finished artefacts but '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. References to Footnotes will be found at the end.

possible pictures

I first read Siegfried Lenz's wonderful novel The German Lesson in a friend's cliff top garden on a small Greek island where I have done much of the thinking about many projects. Lenz's use of the phrase 'how many possibilities there are in a picture' was connected in the novel with a young boy's wish to put back together the pieces of a torn-up painting and, in so doing, help rehabilitate an artist whose work had been attacked by the Nazi authorities as decadent. However I soon found different levels of meaning in the phrase that have had a resonance on almost everything I have been involved in since. note
The initial stimulus of the phrase was towards the composition of Six Possible Pictures, a suite which takes a personal look at the different decades of jazz through my eyes, the eyes of a contemporary jazz composer wishing to pay homage to the people and ideas of jazz's history without going into pastiche. (1)
The title, Six Possible Pictures, occurred because I was, and am, firmly of the opinion that although I was not aiming to write a definitive work illustrating jazz's history, there were a lot of possible ways I could go within this overall idea. Naturally I wanted it to be good, but I knew that in the writing, and in any performance of the suite, there would be all sorts of elements which in some ways I could not control and, in many ways, did not want to control. These ranged from my initial stimulus, how exactly each piece would be inspired and developed, all the way through to the performances where, as always in jazz, anything might happen. (And it did in the first performance when a soloist's part, with fiendishly difficult chords, fell from his front-of-stage music stand just as he started his solo!)
The latter could be said to be chance, an arbitrary occurrence that perhaps could have been avoided. But it is part of my thinking that it - jazz composition, even life itself - is all arbitrary. We are constantly faced with the necessity to make choices.

shifting choices

Our only control is that we need to be as informed as possible about the situation. Then, after absorbing the ideas and rules - of music or of society - we decide how many or how few of those ideas and rules we are going to go along with. In making that choice we put our own stamp on that piece of music or on that occasion. But it is important to realise that the next day the imperatives will be different, the choices, while still being as well informed, can be made in a different way - and the end result can still be as valid.
The initial stimulus for each of the movements in Six Possible Pictures was arbitrary. I do not mean 'without thought', as a lot of deep thinking did occur, but exactly which notes were chosen can be seen as an arbitrary process. Even when the act of creation - paralleling that of jazz improvisation - is sheer inspiration, with no apparent intervention of time or thought between idea and commitment to paper, even then I believe that the exact choice of notes can be regarded as in some way arbitrary. This does not mean that there aren't right notes and wrong notes, and there is certainly a gut feeling that something is right, that everything has clicked into place. But my argument is that these notes would probably not occur to the same improviser or composer on a different day, or to another improviser or composer looking at the same tune or project on the same day.
This works all the way through any creative process: one makes choices all the time, choices informed by training, thinking, mood, time of day and a myriad of other matters, but choices they are and I do not believe that, because I or any other artist make one set of choices, that another could not be equally valid. What they should possess though, in the words of art critic David Sylvester, is 'that combination of surprise and inevitability which is the mark of a real imagination.'

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inspiration

'Creativity is dangerous - we cannot open ourselves to new insight without endangering the security of our prior assumptions... Inspiration suggests the combination of an active principle - hard-earned expertise - with a passive principle - unencumbered and trustful receptivity.'

'The Creative Process is generally preceded by sheer terror. You're confronted with a blank sheet of paper and a sharp pencil. You start with the brief and the tighter the brief the easier it is to work to. If you know where the walls are you can travel down that narrow corridor and be completely wild. But if someone says it's an open brief, you have no idea where to start.' (2)

Those two quotes point up some of the problems of being creative. Certainly, what we can call the 'useable idea' may only come after much time has been spent just sitting. Perhaps sitting at a keyboard, doodling, or possibly just sitting at a desk thinking. Often just letting everything else stop while you immerse yourself in thinking around your project, will create an environment where you can be creative. What is thrown up may be a direct musical idea or, possibly, an associated idea which can serve to stimulate the mind and set the juices moving. But, however your idea comes to you, beware of blind acceptance. There may be some validity in Alan Ginsberg's 'first thought, best thought' principle, but Picasso's words should also be born in mind: 'When you begin a picture you often make some pretty discoveries. You must guard against these. Destroy the thing, do it several times. In each destroying of a beautiful discovery the artist does not really suppress it but rather transforms it, condenses it, makes it more substantial. What comes out in the end is the result of rejected discoveries.' The overriding consideration must be 'Is it right?' One needs to develop what Ernest Hemingway called 'the most essential gift for a good writer... a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector'.
The range of ideas which can inspire a composer to create is wide. From the jazz tradition there is the influence of style - swing, bebop or free - or the universal basic structures of the blues and standard song. All grist to the composer's mill, but the best of these personalise the old traditions and make something new from them. (3)
What can also be personalised are other people's creative ideas. In the original Miles Davis version of Wayne Shorter's 'Nefertiti' the melody is repeated over and over, becoming freer all the time while the rhythm section, particularly drummer Tony Williams, solo. This inspired me to write 'A New Dawn'. When we performed it, I gave credit to Shorter for the idea but the tune was mine, and the treatment, an observing, freely chosen, solo horn, was different. (4)
Dedications to musical heroes and friends can inspire compositions - what Nat Hentoff aptly called 'profiles built on essences', a phrase coined about Charles Mingus's beautiful 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat', written on the bandstand when Mingus heard of Lester Young's death.
Other arts have been used as the basis for musical ideas. These include direct inspiration from a poem, book, or painting; the setting of words to music, as well as abstract ideas and concepts derived from other arts. Each of these can directly inspire a composition but can also serve to 'inform' it, provide a deeper meaning that would not otherwise have existed. These ideas were discussed further in a Jazz Changes article, 'Connections', to be added to this site shortly.

very simple ideas

Very simple ideas can be a useful starting points. The concept of key colours could be used to write a piece about a rainbow, but could also be the inspiration for a composition about a friend, choosing the key or starting note because of eye or hair colour. For the title song of the movie Un Homme et une Femme, Francis Lai used the human heart beat as the basic pulse, and, for the superb Ray Charles title song for In the Heat of the Night, Quincy Jones used the flashes of a railroad crossing signal to provide the pulse. Some years ago a commission for a piece which included words about the county of Yorkshire in northern England led me to the local folk song 'On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at'. In the treatment it received in the realised piece it was unrecognisable, but it had served its purpose in starting the composition off.
In all these cases the subtle connections which inspired the composer serve to inform the listener in a sub-conscious way. Such thinking - which can of course also be sub-conscious on the composer's part - can serve to unify a piece and make it a better composition.

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religion & jazz

Some further thoughts on Inspiration, particularly that which is called 'religious'.
This is an expansion of some lecture notes from my days at the Royal Academy of Music in London. The lecture, which stimulated much discussion at the time, was directed towards one particular group of students who had 'discovered God', but, perhaps understandably, failed to effectively show it in the 'dedicatory' music they were writing. There was, I remember, a lot of fake-gospel music around, which I'm sure was strongly felt, but they could not take it further because of their lack of composing creativity and experience.

To start with, some quotations:
'I get up early, and as soon as I have dressed I go down on my knees and pray God and the Blessed Virgin that I may have another successful day. Then when I've had some breakfast I sit down at the clavier and begin my search. If I hit on an idea quickly, it goes ahead easily and without much trouble. But if I can't get on, I know that I must have forfeited God's grace by some fault of mine, and then I pray once more for grace until I feel I'm forgiven... I was never so devout as when I was working on The Creation. Every day I fell to my knees and prayed God to grant me the strength for a happy completion of this work.' - Handel

'I don't need drugs for inspiration. The music comes from inside and is pushed out by outside influences from the musicians I'm playing with. I love to play, and I think it's the only reason I was put here on this earth.'
'You say that in a religious sense.'
'Yes, but I don't believe there is a God. It's a beautiful story. But... I was put here through thousands of people having children and it finally got to me.' - from an interview with Chet Baker, Musician magazine

'I want to be able to rise above my own self-needs more and more, to be able to give to others and have concern for others and to rise above that ego, and I hope that other people will be able to do that, too... in every human being there is a godlike quality that is creative... with a lot of people as they grow up, it gets stilled or taken away.' - from an interview with Charlie Haden, Musician magazine

'In a sense all music is religious.' - from an article in The Guardian on religion and classical music

'I needed to tackle something hard, that wasn't God-given, and see it grow.' - Tony Williams on taking up composing

'When I think of the Spiritual I think of Louis Armstrong. I read where Django Reinhardt said that the first time he heard Louis Armstrong, he cried. Very spiritual. Very much beyond the physical, it's definitely beyond that - joy!' - Sonny Rollins in an interview in Musician magazine

'Now I can say openly, what I have been saying to myself on my knees'.
Duke Ellington when asked about his first concert of sacred music.

'The omnipotence of God and our need for and dependence on Him'.
- John Coltrane in the liner notes to A Love Supreme

'John Coltrane's music can move people away from hate and anger and violence towards the realm of praise to God and service to men.'
Bishop Franzo King of the 'Church of John Coltrane', San Francisco

'Where religion is not a living force, the so-called art that emerges is, at best, no more than a mechanical contrivance which, no matter how cleverly done, can only succeed in substantially reducing the mind's affirmative resonance with nature. Its unrelieved dissonance is indicative of a disunified God-man-nature, an evil art. Hence, what is religion and how can it be made a living force is the first riddle a would be artist must solve.' - Bill Cole on John Coltrane

When reading The Musician magazine's compilation of interviews with famous musicians I was surprised at how many times religion, spirituality, God, came up. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised because, as we have seen through history, many artists think that their inspiration comes directly from God, or Buddha, or some other deity. Some think that their religion is absolutely central to their being as a musician and as a human being, Coltrane's 'omnipotence of God and our need for and dependence on Him'. Others have a broader view, as in Charlie Haden's 'there is a godlike quality in every human being, which is creativity'. Some, like Chet Baker, are more pragmatic: 'I don't believe there is a God. It's a beautiful story... But I was put here through thousands of people having children and it finally got to me.'
What are we to make of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, or Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts? Of Paul Horn's Mass? Of Hugh Fraser's Mass? Are they all inspired by the same god? Or by any god at all? Are the religious trappings, in forms like a Mass, in ideas like a 'sacred concert' simply used as devices to get the creative juices going? The answers depend on the man. Many masses and works with religious themes have been written by non-believers. But Coltrane was a believer and Ellington, as we saw above, was quite clear on his motivation. There is no doubt that much of Ellington's sacred music sounds religious, as did the much earlier 'hymn' 'Come Sunday'. But, it's worth asking, would we hear 'Come Sunday' as a religious song if it were called ' Apples'? But then, aren't 'Green Apples' as religious as a Sunday anyway?
Critics have spoken of certain music, certain records as being 'sacred'. Richard Williams spoke of the first side of Steely Dan's Aja as such. And Kind of Blue would certainly qualify for many of us. Yet neither have a religious title, or, as far as I know, any religious connections. Some groups however use religion openly: After the Fire and Madonna pray, I'm told, before a concert. I've seen jazz musicians close their eyes and meditate for a few moments before they start to play. Praying to God? Or using peace and silence - not God's prerogative after all - simply to help themselves to get into the mood?

many houses

The point I'm trying to make is that religion takes many forms. There is the form that takes place in a building where people go to worship, and as part of that worship, they believe that what they are comes from that religion, or from the deity celebrated by that religion. God, or Buddha, or Mohammed. Their belief is strong and they are better human beings because of that belief and because of the good things inherent in their religion.
But to embrace a specific religion may have its drawbacks. What about the bad things - perhaps not inherent, but possibly so - done in the name of religion. The arrogance of missionaries, who attempt to change innocent people into something which alters their whole life, and which they previously may never even have been aware existed. The intolerance which leads to wars: from the past, The Holy Wars (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one); from our own times, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and so on.
What of Charlie Haden's 'godlike quality which is creativity'? Does it come from god, with or without a capital G? If so, do we have then to go and find him (or her) in a church and worship them there? Certainly some people want to and need to. As Marx said (and this is the first time I have ever quoted him!) 'Religion is the sigh of the soul in a soulless world. Religion is the opium of the masses.' George Orwell interpreted this as meaning that religion is not a dope handed out from above, but something created by the people themselves to serve a real need. For many people religion supplies their need, and, for some, it provides their creativity.
Personally, I favour the DNA theory, the result of 'thousands of people having children' which produces a creativity gene which some of us are lucky enough to have found. And which no one really understands. Least of all where to find it and marshall it for the good of the bearer. (5)
However one gets creativity, having it is not enough. Because one is creative doesn't mean that one is a good human being, and that to me is important. Being honest. Being truthful. Being considerate. Being kind. Being loving. All things that are often put down as religious attributes. If they are, then I guess I'm religious. But I don't believe in God - or Buddha. Or at least I don't believe in a god that wears a robe that I have to pray to and sing to every Sunday. Someone once said 'It's not about religion. It's about truth and love.' I'll sign up for that, because that's about being a good person, being part of society, which despite one former British prime minister's dictum does, and must, exist if we are to consider ourselves civilised. The point, surely, is not where we get our creativity, and our humanity, from. It is that we have creativity and humanity.

Further Reading:
'Inspiration', Jazz Changes click here
'Connections', Jazz Changes, to be posted soon
The Thematic Process in Music, Rudolph Reti (Faber and Faber)

notes

(1) Possible Pictures was the title of an unpublished book of mine, aimed at jazz composers. There were thought to be too few of them to make publication worthwhile but many of the ideas re-surfaced in Interaction and what didn't may well turn up in this project.

(2) The Six Possible Pictures suite is available to interested parties in a limited private edition cassette. Please contact the site foreman.

(3) The first quote is from from Robert Grudin's The Grace of Great Things, the second from an unnamed advertising director quoted in Creative People, p80.

(4) For me there is a wonderful simplicity about tunes like ''C' Jam Blues', 'Freddie Freeloader' and 'Jean Paul'. Each is very simple but nevertheless they are excellent jazz compositions, with a message which is clear and direct. The dismissal of 'C Jam Blues' by critic Leonard Feather as 'a trifle... scarcely even a song... an infant could have written it' shows, I believe, a profound misunderstanding of the real nature of jazz composition. Simple as the basic tune is, 'C Jam Blues' incorporates many of the melodic, harmonic and formal ideas common to all jazz and gives pointers towards their further use.

A New Dawn' can be heard on Darius, now available on CD from Disconforme Records disconforme or via Amazon and other online stores.

(5) Of course, some of this may change in the near future. If some geneticists get their way parents will be able to give their children a creativity gene (at a price, of course, payable to the multinationals who will own these processes). As science 'progresses' there may even be a jazz creativity gene. And perhaps some billionaire, who knows what jazz ought to be about, will want to spend his money injecting it into some of the so-called jazz players of the day!

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