Space is the Place: Composition In New York City’s Improvised Music Scene
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Abstract
In describing musical improvisation as “interactive”, the primacy of a centralized musical score is called into
question. When musicians develop aesthetic agreements and navigate differences between themselves through
performance and rehearsal, this article argues they are engaging in a kind of composition.
In a series of conversations conducted with improvisers living and working in New York, agreement and
disagreement were discussed via spatial metaphors. Each player must find “common ground” between their own
voice and the overall collective frame, allowing for a “playing field” to emerge. The field establishes a set of aesthetic
possibilities to be realized in rehearsal, discussion, and performance.
The field also establishes a framework for individual composition to occur. Using statements by New York
improvisers Mary Halvorson (guitar), Peter Evans (trumpet) and Steve Lehman (saxophone), this article reveals three
distinct conceptualizations of how an individual can reimagine the playing field through composition.
Keywords: Music Philosophy, Metaphor, Improvisation and Ethics, New Jazz Studies, Steve Lehman, Mary
Halvorson, Peter Evans, Composition, Contemporary Improvisation.
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