Orality, Literacy, and Mediating Musical Experience:

Rethinking Oral Tradition in the Learning of Jazz Improvisation

Prouty, Kenneth E
. Popular Music and Society 29.3 (Jul 2006): 317-334,409.
Turn on hit highlighting for speaking browsers by selecting the Enter button
Hide highlighting

Abstract (summary)
Translate Abstract

In this essay, I critically examine the place of oral tradition in the narrative of jazz history, as well as
how and why assumptions about its development persist in the music's discourse. Specifically, I argue
that the continued identification with oral tradition imparts to the jazz community a unique identity vis-vis other forms of Western music, which are often described as "written" traditions. Through a critical
re-reading of historical and contemporary texts, as well as from interviews with jazz musicians, I
illustrate how certain musicians and critics position jazz as a cultural and musical system that departs
significantly from the practices of the Western art music tradition, chiefly in relation to the latter's
employment of written scores. Such an oppositional discourse positions jazz not only as a distinct
stylistic entity, but indeed as a unique music culture in relation to Western forms, invoking binary
oppositions such as "African/European" or "black/white" in laying claim to cultural authenticity.
Finally, I propose that neither "oral" nor "written" can adequately describe the complex processes that
have given jazz its unique character in both performance and pedagogy, and that reflect its history of
assimilating and transforming myriad musical and cultural practices. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Full Text
Translate Full text
Turn on search term navigation

Headnote
In this essay, I critically examine the place of oral tradition in the narrative of jazz history, as well as
how and why assumptions about its development persist in the music's discourse. Specifically, I argue
that the continued identification with oral tradition imparts to the jazz community a unique identity vis-vis other forms of Western music, which are often described as "written" traditions. Through a critical
re-reading of historical and contemporary texts, as well as from interviews with jazz musicians, I
illustrate how certain musicians and critics position jazz as a cultural and musical system that departs
significantly from the practices of the Western art music tradition, chiefly in relation to the latter's
employment of written scores. Such an oppositional discourse positions jazz not only as a distinct
stylistic entity, but indeed as a unique music culture in relation to Western forms, invoking binary
oppositions such as "African/European" or "black/white" in laying claim to cultural authenticity.
Finally, I propose that neither "oral" nor "written" can adequately describe the complex processes that
have given jazz its unique character in both performance and pedagogy, and that reflect its history of

assimilating and transforming myriad musical and cultural practices.

Introduction: The Place of Oral Tradition in Jazz
This essay questions the centrality of oral tradition to the historical development of jazz improvisation,
particularly with respect to the methods by which jazz musicians have learned their craft. References to
oral tradition in jazz abound in discussions of the ways in which the techniques of the music have been
handed down from generation to generation. In general we can speak of two distinct types of oral
tradition in jazz. The first is the dissemination of historical information; biographical information,
information about specific performances and venues, and so forth. Such firsthand accounts or "oral
histories" are prized within jazz scholarship, and are reflective of a perception of the central place of
orality within African American culture as a whole.1 The second aspect of the oral tradition in jazz
involves the learning of the music itself by its practitioners. In this paradigm, musicians learn jazz not
through mediated forms (such as writing), but rather by direct observation and imitation. It is this latter
area upon which the present essay will focus.2
The idea of orality in jazz improvisation pedagogy3 commands enormous respect within the
community of jazz performers. Informal musical apprenticeships are the stuff of legend; musical
pedigrees are often measured through performances with older, more experienced players. The
implication is that performing with another musician, even if such relationships do not take on the role
of formal study, will usually involve some form of pedagogical interaction. In this context, such
learning is generally classified as "oral," with information passed on through word of mouth or through
observation, generally without benefit of an additional medium. Just how such processes might
manifest themselves varies greatly among musicians. While some jazz musicians were recognized as
being better able to articulate musical concepts in ways that younger musicians might be able to
understand, in other cases, learning tended to be more auto-didactic, as noted musician and educator
David Baker explains:
Certainly there were times when you had a Dizzy Gillespie who really was an excellent teacher as well
as a performer. But I imagine if you asked Charlie Parker how he did something, or Miles [Davis] how
he did something they'd probably tell you "Listen to what I'm doing...." If I asked Wes Montgomery
"What is that Wes," he'd say, "You'll hear it," because basically people were not trained to articulate
that. (Baker, personal interview)
For many musicians and critics in jazz studies, oral tradition is a defining element of jazz as it relates to
other genres within the realm of Western music. Pianist, composer, and educator Hal Galper has been
one of the most outspoken figures on this point, particularly as it relates to criticism of more "written"
methods that have become increasingly common in jazz pedagogy in recent years. A frequent figure on
the university "lecture circuit" and a former student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Galper
writes, in an article on his personal internet site:
In Western society, musical information is delivered to the student in an intellectual format, usually
involving notation, theory and analysis....In African society, the music is learned orally, through the
process of the master/student relationship. The master plays something and tells the student "make it
sound like this." It is through the direct experience of imitation, or copying the master, that the student
is introduced to the music without intellectual intervention. (Galper, "Oral Tradition")
We can observe a clear conceptual distinction between two different pedagogical modes in this passage.
Such a pronounced alignment of traditional methods of jazz learning with African musical practices is
reflective of a common trope within this type of discourse, in which a fundamentally Afrocentrist
approach invokes potent cultural forces in order to challenge the relative hegemony of Western-derived
methods of instruction.4 In a similar manner, Marion Brown writes that "[t]he most outstanding
difference between Western and non-Western societies is the role that the eye plays in the former and

the role of the ear in the latter" (15). In creating a binary opposition of musical and cultural practices,
jazz (African/African American, intuitive, the community, oral) and Western art music (European,
formalized, the academy, written) are established as distinct, even opposed musical systems within this
discourse.5
Orality and Identity
Are narratives and attitudes such as this the norm in the discourse of jazz pedagogy or are they an
exception? Or does the reality of learning in jazz lie somewhere in between? As we address these
questions, we can begin to understand more completely the process by which jazz has been learned and
taught historically, and at the same time interrogate whether the identification of jazz as oral tradition is
truly representative of these processes. To contextualize this part of the discussion, it might be useful to
outline some of the prevailing research relating to constructions of oral tradition, both in generalized
terms, and as they relate to music itself. Perhaps the most influential study on the dichotomy between
oral and literate cultures was that conducted by Walter Ong, whose Oral and Literacy: The
Technologizing of the Word is arguably the best-known work on the subject. Ong argues that true
orality, or what he terms "primary orality," a direct reference to what we might term "preliterate"
cultures, operates in a manner that is significantly different from the processes of writing. He theorizes
that the development of writing (his focus seems to be primarily on Western cultures on this point)
resulted in an accompanying restructuring of human thought processes. "More than any other single
invention," he states, "writing restructures consciousness" (78). While literate and oral cultures may
express thoughts in different ways, the real distinctions between oral and literate cultures may be found
in the ways in which people process and interpret knowledge. Ong stipulates that real "study" is
impossible in a truly oral culture, in that such an act requires the analysis of material made possible
only through the mediating effects of various forms of representation:
All thought, including that in primary oral culture, is to some degree analytic: it breaks its materials
into various components. But abstractly sequential, classificatory, explanatory examination of
phenomena or of stated truths is impossible without writing and reading. Human beings in primary oral
cultures, those untouched by writing in any form, learn a great deal and possess and practice great
wisdom, but they do not "study." (Ong 9)
Ben Sidran, in his discussion of African American oral culture in Black Talk, postulates that oral
communication is similarly based in lived experience, rather than reflection or mediation:
Whereas paper and ink are the medium of the literate man, oral communication is immediate. That is,
oral communication is free from the intervention of a medium. It is a "direct presence...." It is sufficient
for the moment to suggest that sound is fleeting and one must react immediately or lose the perceptual
experience entirely. (Sidran 2-3)6
Sidran, perhaps borrowing from Marshall McLuhan,7 argues that in the experience of learning about
jazz, "the music is the medium" (3). Let us grant, for the sake of the present argument, that such
characterizations of oral tradition are generally accurate, that the immediacy and unmediated nature of
orality preclude engagement in analytical reflection. We may ask, then, whether the historical learning
traditions of jazz support the contention that abstracted musical understanding, what we might regard
as "theory" in a broader sense, was not generally present among jazz musicians. In fact, more recent
research on orality in music indicates that a lack of an explicit written form does not preclude the
understanding of musical structure in an abstract way.8 We might make a conceptual distinction here
between truly "oral" forms, in the sense of what Ong describes, and those that are simply "non-written."
For example, the general lack of written materials either as learning tools or performance aids does not
exclude similar kinds of organizational strategies, in a manner similar to what John Bailey labels "oral
notation" in describing analytical thought in Hindustani classical music, in which melodic and rhythmic

structures are expressed as theoretical constructs through a set of verbalized syllables (115). Such an
approach that emphasizes non-written methodologies can still incorporate a relatively abstract
understanding of musical structure. To characterize such musical forms as non-analytical simply
because of a lack of emphasis on written analytical constructs maybe somewhat simplistic in its
representation of a much more complex process.
As I stated previously, I grant such absolute assumptions about orality only for the sake of argument. It
should be noted that Ong's research has been heavily criticized in some recent scholarship, either
directly or indirectly, including from within the field of ethnomusicology. Many researchers of music
cultures that have been attributed to the realm of oral traditions report a remarkable degree of
sophistication in systems of musical transmission and analytical conceptualization, even among music
cultures that have not been described as having well-developed "classical" traditions (such as
Hinudstani music). Steven Friedson (133) explains, for example, how a particular drummer was, during
his field observations among the Tumbuka culture of northern Malawi, able to break down complex
drumming patterns into smaller units in order to facilitate his study and transcription of those patterns.
Numerous ethnographers report similar demonstrations of relatively sophisticated analytical
understanding. Others in ethnomusicology have offered a more direct critique of Ong and his
assumptions about the oral/literate dichotomy. Steven Feld, writing about the Kaluli peoples of Papua
New Guinea, takes issue with Ong's characterization of cultural attributes in such binary terms:
Although I once believed that there were fundamental differences between symbolic systems based on
literate versus oral transmission, field research in a small-scale, traditionally non-literate society has
convinced me that the theories of Edmund Carpenter, Marshall McLuhan, and Walter Ong explain little
about the dynamics of oral tradition. On the contrary, I am persuaded that "orality" does not determine,
fix, or cause differences in world view or consciousness. (Feld 18)
Feld uses this critique of the oral-written dichotomy as a means of interrogating a number of other
oppositions commonly held to characterize such societies. He further writes that:
If anything, I am tempted to say that the notions of the oral psyche, oral consciousness, or "orality" as a
state of mind are most misleading and dangerous in the way that they dismiss rather than address the
meanings, uses, and creative intentions that characterize music in societies of oral tradition. (Feld 25)
Extending these arguments to jazz, we might then conclude that such an orality is not, contrary to what
has been believed in jazz for many years, a truly defining feature of the historical learning experience.
A relative lack of emphasis on written media may not, in fact, make a significant difference in the
development of the music. Jazz historian and theorist Henry Martin writes:
[A] music theory does not spring into existence ex nihilo; a given musical style in any culture
presupposes a set of rules that lets the music cohere - even if the theory is not designated as such and
even if the musicians are unaware of what they have internalized. (Martin 5)9
Despite this, the centrality of oral tradition in jazz remains a powerful cultural theme in the discourse of
the music's pedagogical history, imparting a degree of authenticity and cultural authority that is
threatened, in this line of reasoning, by an overemphasis on analytical study and theoretically based
improvisational pedagogy. In fact, many statements about the oral traditions of jazz improvisation serve
only to reinforce such clearly delineated methods of learning and thinking that Ong places in the
category of primary oral cultures. Hal Galper, for example, describes his own experiences with thinking
about musical structure gleaned from his observations of experienced musicians with whom he worked
as an apprentice jazz performer:
Most of the great masters I had the good fortune to apprentice with did not know theory and played
completely by ear. They learned how to play by copying their masters. They didn't "know" the "rules"

of music in an intellectual sense. (Galper, "Oral Tradition", emphasis added)

The use of phrases such as that musicians "did not know theory" and that they played "completely by
ear" leave little conceptual wiggle room. In this context, there are those who know theory and those
who do not.
Oral Tradition, Music Theory, and the "Noble Savage"
What does it mean, then, to "know" theory, or to be an "intellectual" jazz musician? Is it simply a
question of possessing the analytical and structural knowledge of the music that they play? As Bailey
and Feld explained, theoretical and analytical thinking need not be linked to writing or literacy. Nor
must they be linked to "music theory" as an academic discipline, a conceptualization that continues to
inform many musicians' opinions of just what the definition of theory is. In his study of musical
thinking in Javanese music, ethnomusicologist Andrew Weintraub draws a distinction between what he
calls "theory in institutional pedagogy," similar to the identification of theory within the context of
Western music, and "theory in practice." The latter category refers to those methods of thinking about
musical structure that need not arise from academic study. In such a context, theory arises from musical
performance, not the other way around (Weintraub 34). Nevertheless, the belief that jazz musicians
have historically operated without the benefit of knowing theory or the ability to read music is a
powerful conceptual force in jazz history to the present day, and has been a relatively common theme in
historical writings on jazz, particularly with respect to earlier stylistic forms. Sometimes this view has
taken on an extreme manifestation. Jazz, in its earliest days, was often viewed in the mainstream press
as something that was primal, even savage, in relation to presumably more refined Western forms.
Criticisms of jazz from its earliest days have been laced with such racially tinted rhetoric, as can be
seen in the following diatribe written in 1917 by Walter Kingsley, and published in the New York Sun:
The word [jazz, or jass] is African in origin...some West Coast African would cry out "Jaz [sic] her up,"
and this would be the cue for fast and furious fun. No doubt the witch doctors and medicine-men of the
Congo used the same term at those jungle "parties" when the tomtoms throbbed and the sturdy warriors
gave their pep an added kick with rich brews of Yohimbin bark....Therefore, of all moderns, the jazz
musicians and their auditors have the most rhythmic aggressiveness, for jazz is based on the savage
musician's wonderful gift for progressive retarding and acceleration guided by his sense of "swing."
(Kingsley 6-7)
This was a music that seemed, at the time, incompatible with the more refined and complex aesthetics
of the Western compositional tradition. Such negative, even racist stereotypes of jazz were not limited
to its critics, however. Advocates of more traditional forms of jazz have sometimes borrowed from this
type of rhetoric in agitating against the modernization of jazz styles, and the issue of orality has often
been at the center of this discourse. Throughout much of the history of jazz, many musicians and critics
have viewed the use of written materials as something that threatened the very nature of the music as an
essentially oral tradition; as Bernard Gendron explains, the debate between the modernist and
traditionalist camps in jazz studies has frequently seen the employment of this mode of rhetoric.
[N]othing sabotaged the African American tradition in jazz more, it was argued, than the replacement
of simultaneous improvisation with the European artifact of written arrangements [by the early 1940s].
West Africans, according to revivalist Ernest Borneman, prefer "circumlocution" to "direct naming,"
"direct statement," and any "form of abstraction...." Thus any attempt to commit "the jazz idiom" to the
"rigidity of written language" would "vitiate" rather than "preserve" it. (Gendron 40, quotes in original)
Historian and critic Ted Gioia has referred to this view of early jazz as representing an emphasis on
"primitivism" in jazz scholarship, in which musicians assume an identity akin to the "noble savage" of
Rousseau and similar philosophers. As Gioia explains in some detail, this concept involves:

a stereotype which views jazz as charged with emotion but largely devoid of intellectual content....!
would like to call this view the Primativist Myth....Performances which fail to attain this frenetic and
energetic ideal are usually labeled as "cerebral" - one of the most damning adjectives in jazz's critical
vocabulary. (Gioia 30-31)
Other writers and musicians, meanwhile, extended this line of reasoning to infer that knowledge of
theoretical structures is not only uncommon, but in some cases is actually shunned by jazz musicians.
As educator and performer Jerry Coker writes, in the "Preface" to his influential early text on jazz
improvisation:
In 1925 no self-respecting jazz musician aspired to read or write music, nor did the music of the day
demand it.10 By the same token, today no self-respecting musician could survive without the ability to
read and write musical notation. (Coker vii)
Coker's emphasis on the ability to function within the more literate environment of modern jazz is
shared by other musicians, particularly those who occupy positions in higher education, as Bill Dobbins
explains:
Probably the single most important task for the jazz musician dealing with this new environment is the
development of verbal skills which allow the musician to be capable of communicating the mechanics
and aesthetics of an essentially aural musical tradition. (Dobbins 37-38)
The use of a phrase such as "verbal skills" by Dobbins is somewhat troubling, leaving an impression
that jazz musicians, in the past at least, did not possess the ability to communicate coherently about the
structural aspects of their art. Although I am certain that Dobbins did not intend to slight the
intelligence or communicative skills of jazz musicians as a group, the use of terms such as this only
serves to reinforce notions of African American musicians' innate abilities to play improvisatory
musical styles such as jazz, rather than viewing the musical processes of learning and performance as
intricate, complex systems of musical thought. While advancing a call for higher standards in jazz
education and scholarship, statements such as this may in fact inadvertently reinforce many of the
stereotypes that jazz musicians have been fighting since the music's inception.
I do not believe it is the intent of Coker, Galper, Dobbins, and other musicians or jazz writers to
demean musicians for what is perceived to be a lack of theoretical and analytical understanding, or the
ability to express and explain musical ideas and concepts.11 But, then, we might inquire as to why such
allusions persist in jazz writing and scholarship to the present day. I would suggest that the answer lies
with the construction of a cultural identity of jazz as a form of musical expression that exists in
opposition to the traditions of Western music (i.e. classical music).12 Western art music, unlike jazz, is
often classified as an essentially written or literate tradition, with musical information passed on
through written sources such as scores and text-based histories of musical development. Musical scores
certainly form an important part of the pedagogical experience in learning Western art music.
Ethnomusicologist Henry Kingsbury, in his ethnography of a musical conservatory, argues that musical
scores not only provide historical information, but also impart a degree of cultural authority within the
Western art music tradition; accuracy according to written sources is deemed to be an essential
ingredient in such a process (Kingsbury 87-94). In a tradition such as jazz that is deemed by many of its
practitioners to be derived in large part from African musical practices, by contrast, the emphasis on
oral tradition would seem to be a convenient way for the music to be set apart from Western forms.
Miles Davis, speaking about Charlie Parker, views the avoidance of written sources as a badge of honor
in comparison with the classical traditions, writing "Bird was a great improviser....His concept was
'fuck what was written down...' just the opposite of the Western concept of notated music" (Davis and
Troupe 79). Thus, the alignment of jazz with oral tradition provides it with a unique identity vis--vis
that of Western art music. Returning to Hal Galper's comments, we can see such a strategy clearly

illustrated. His reference to instruction in Western music as "intellectual," "notated," and based on
"theory and analysis" is seemingly intended to draw a sharp distinction between it and what are
assumed to be the more intuitive processes of jazz (Galper, "Oral Tradition").
It is worth noting that Galper's implicit criticisms of written processes were aimed in part at what he
sees as a potentially damaging migration of jazz into the academic institution, the bastion of classical
music education, a move which he and many other critics and musicians see as transforming the
historical identity of jazz.13 In recent years, a number of studies have begun to address jazz in the
academy more systematically. In his book Jazz Cultures, David Ake questions the usage of chordscale
theory, specifically targeting David Baker's text Jazz Pedagogy, as an example of the "reinscription of
classical ideals." Ake also takes aim at educator and publisher Jamey Aebersold, whose series of playalong recordings have become immensely popular among jazz students, and whose usage has been
questioned by some musicians (122-23). Similarly, Keith Javors devotes a significant portion of
critique of jazz education to what he sees as an overdependence upon written sources in the
improvisational curriculum. Numerous respondents in his research sample expressed a belief that jazz
education programs placed far too much emphasis upon visual aids in the learning of jazz
improvisation.
The argument that jazz is an essentially oral tradition is made even more dubious when we critically
examine the specific ways in which jazz has been studied and learned by its practitioners during its
history. There is little doubt that early African American music cultures, likely even into the 20th
century in some quarters, bore some relation to the primary oral cultures that Ong focuses upon in
Orality and Literacy, in which musical information was passed on through unmediated means
(criticisms of Ong notwithstanding). By the time jazz was beginning to develop in the early part of the
century, however, we might question how similar these primary cultures were to the emerging jazz
performance community. Numerous writings on the history of jazz in New Orleans, for example, point
to the sometimes extensive musical knowledge and training among African American musicians who
were experimenting with this new music. As jazz theorist Henry Martin points out:
[Many] of the pioneering [jazz] musicians did have considerable instruction in the European tradition
(Jelly Roll Morton, et. al.). Such musicians would have applied whatever European music theory they
knew to the music slowly metamorphosing into "jazz." Early jazz arranger-composers, such as Morton,
[Fletcher] Henderson, or [Duke] Ellington, surely knew European "form and harmony" at varying
levels of sophistication. And some important performers not involved in arranging, such as Louis
Armstrong, were literate enough to supply lead sheets of jazz compositions for copyright purposes.
Whether such theoretical knowledge was "studied" or "picked up" is irrelevant. (Martin 5-6)
Additionally, written sources were making their way into jazz at an earlier stage than has often been
acknowledged. As early as the 1920s, instructional pamphlets and method books were widely
disseminated, providing information on how to develop improvisational skills like Armstrong's and
other popular musicians of the day. By the 1930s, this had expanded, and Down Beat magazine had
begun publishing regular columns analyzing jazz solos and providing advice and technical assistance
for young performers (Martin 7). In addition, some musicians were themselves viewed as having a
more advanced sense of theoretical knowledge and technique. Saxophonist Coleman Hawkins was
widely recognized as an educated musician with an intricate knowledge of harmonic structures that set
him apart from many of his peers, as Scott DeVeaux explains:
Hawkins...seized on the idea of harmonic improvisation and made a specialization out of it, wearing his
intellectual and technical control over the process as a badge of honor. While still with the [Fletcher]
Henderson band, he made a show of mocking his band mate and close friend, trombonist Jimmy
Harrison, for his [Harrison's] alleged ignorance of harmony: "I used to tell him, 'Doggone shame the
way you're fooling people. You ain't doing nothing! You're not playing the changes, you're missing the

changes.14 Look at this - you see this change right here? This change makes this other one sound better
because it resolves into the other one'." (DeVeaux 84)
Written representations of jazz solos (transcriptions) have also been used frequently in learning jazz.
Although transcription is generally thought of as a more contemporary idea in the learning of jazz
improvisation, written representations of jazz solos have, in fact, been utilized for decades, as the
following passage about early New Orleans trumpeter Doc Cheatham illustrates:
A case in point is Doc Cheatham's response to Bobby Hackett's recorded solo on "Jada." Cheatham
asked himself, "How can a man play like that on the melody?...What is he thinking about? How could
he think of something like that?" Ultimately, Cheatham's transcription and analysis revealed to him the
concept of "alternate chords." (DeVeaux 104-05)
Of course, musicians in later years had the benefit of using ample printed materials as learning
supplements. John Coltrane was renowned for his use of Nicholas Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and
Melodic Patterns as a practice aid, and many of his contemporaries used this (likely a direct result of
his influence) as well as other similar sources. All this is not to say that jazz is an essentially "written"
tradition, or that musical literacy or theoretical knowledge (in the academic sense) is a prerequisite for
playing the music. Many musicians undoubtedly took pride in being "ear players," working without
benefit of supplementary materials from texts or trade magazines. Even today, players whose abilities
seem to emerge without intervention of instructional media are often viewed as more "natural"
players.15 My intent here is to demonstrate that the learning of jazz does not necessarily fit the absolute
definitions of orality that are often employed in distinguishing jazz from other musical forms, or
literacy, as has been a more frequent charge leveled against formalized jazz study. Jazz musicians have
drawn and continue to draw upon a multitude of methods and pedagogical systems in learning their
craft. Neither "oral tradition" nor "written tradition" is sufficient in accounting for these complex
processes.
Sound as Text, Text as Sound
Perhaps the most important historical element in the development of learning how to play jazz is in the
area of recording. The relationship between oral traditions and recording is problematic, as Charles
seeger was careful to point out to musicologists and folklorists in the 1950s, arguing that the very act of
preserving music and culture through recording was, in essence, altering the oral tradition itself (Nettl,
Study 187). While seeger's warning has been debated among ethnomusicologists for years, there is no
debate over the profound impact of recordings in jazz. The importance of the direct relationship
between recordings and the acquisition of performance skills in jazz cannot be overstated. To a large
extent, jazz and recording technology emerged in tandem, and, for the growth of jazz at least, this was
certainly not a coincidence. Recordings allowed jazz musicians to listen to a certain selection
repeatedly, to isolate certain passages and analyze them in a way that is largely absent in a primary oral
culture.16 As of the 1920s the body of emerging jazz recordings almost certainly was finding its way
into the hands of nascent musicians, and these were being played repeatedly in short segments for the
purpose of copying and understanding improvised solos. In a relatively short time, recordings became
the single most important tool in the learning of the jazz language, a position in which this particular
technology remains to the present day. The role of recorded music simply cannot be overemphasized in
any discussion of learning jazz since its emergence from the local New Orleans scene in the early
1920s. In interviews and biographies, musicians frequently cite recordings as important sources for
developing their skills as improvisers.17 Often, young musicians learned entire solos from recordings,
as Jed Rasula points out:
And so the lessons at the phonograph went on: Ben Webster copying Frank Trumbauer's solo on
"Singin' the Blues," and Lester Young ordering Tram's records by mail, arranging for them to be

forwarded to locations where his family's band would be playing. As late as 1956 he claimed "I
imagine I can still play all the solos off the record'.. ..Charlie Parker used to adjust the speed of his
turntable so he could adapt Young's tenor solos to the pitch of his own alto, as he copied them note for
note. (Rasula 141-42)
A frequent rhetorical theme in jazz writing is that recordings were the first "method books" or
"textbooks" for jazz (Murphy 35). What is, in this context, the real difference between a recording and
a written score? In the study of Western art music, written materials have assumed a certain place of
prominence, to be sure (although this is probably more the case with scores than it is with respect to
instructional materials). Written materials are a medium of transmission between the composer and the
player/learner, they are not the sound itself. Recordings within the learning context in jazz fulfill a
similar role. Although recordings are frequently positioned in the learning of jazz as the final statement
regarding a given performance situation, the recording is not in and of itself the actual performance. It
is, rather, only a representation of that performance. As Ingrid Monson writes:
Recordings mediate heavily the aural transmission of style in jazz. Jazz performances are not musical
texts in and of themselves...but when such performances are recorded and disseminated through LPs,
CDs, and cassettes, they become texts. Musicians may use them as resources for learning tunes, solos,
harmonic substitutions, timbrai sensitivity, or rhythm section styles. (Monson, Sayin' Somethin' 126)
The recording serves as a medium of transmission between the composer (i.e. the soloist) and the
player/learner. In both cases, the initial creator of the musical content is connected to the learner
through a process of mediation. I would suggest that the cultural authority of the recording in jazz is
akin to the cultural authority of the score in the study of Western art music (Kingsbury 87-94), as
evidenced by the attention to accuracy in the copying of solos I referred to previously.
In more recent years, the learning of improvisational skill has been affected by the advent of "playalong" recordings, most notably those produced by educator and saxophonist Jamey Aebersold.18
Unlike standard recordings, these items are produced with the intent of learning. Aebersold's recordings
typically feature a rhythm section playing chord changes over well-known jazz compositions, with
which the student musician will play. Occasionally, musicians whose compositions are featured on
particular volumes will be directly involved in the production, even counting off tempos for the tunes
themselves'9 (although it is usually done by Aebersold himself, whose monotone "one...two...one, two,
three, four" is recognized by jazz students around the world). In some cases (particularly in earlier
volumes), the rhythm section may be comprised of individuals who recorded a certain album togetherthe rhythm section for Aebersold's volume of Woody Shaw compositions, for example, was basically
the same as for Shaw's album Little Red's Fantasy. The underlying goal of such recordings is to
simulate an actual performance, although there is much debate within jazz studies about the extent to
which they can truly replicate live playing. Aebersold's recordings may represent an entirely new type
of medium in jazz recording, one that is intended to be interactive. Each recording not only transmits
musical information (such as chord structures and form), but could be considered incomplete without a
response from the listener in the form of the melody or solo. Some critics, however, argue that
Aebersold's recordings lead to a sense of stagnation, limiting the opportunities for real interaction with
other musicians. Rather than simply providing a means of interaction, they suggest that such recordings
actually inhibit eventual interaction with live musicians because students focus solely on harmonic and
technical aspects. As David Baker explained:
I told Jamey [Aebersold] once "if you wanted to make a play-along that would help people get ready
[to perform], make a play-along where the time rushes,20 where they leave the bridge out now and
then, and they play wrong changes from time to time, and the piano player's in a different place than
the bass player. Now you're talking about a live situation. (Baker, personal interview)

He added, however, that, if such a recording were to be made, certain songs would probably begin to be
performed that way. Certainly Aebersold's volumes had a powerful influence, as young players often
base their decisions about tempo, key, and stylistic conception on the "Aebersold version" with which
they were most familiar.21 I would suggest that Aebersold's products have become historical records of
a different sort. Instead of documenting a specific performance, they may document a certain set of
expectations in improvisational performance, one that is based on a harmonic-melodic conception
(opportunities for drummers on most volumes are limited), in which chord structures are static, and can
be expected not to change during a performance. This may not be Aebersold's intent, but such is the
impact of recorded media in jazz performance.
Given the ways in which recorded media have been used within the context of the learning process, is it
really appropriate to refer to such an environment as an oral tradition? Ben Sidran attempts to make this
case, stating that in jazz, recordings serving as "artifacts" (28-29) of oral communication, make oral
utterances (in this case, he presumably refers to music as well) permanent. And yet if oral
communication is, as he stated previously, "free from the intervention of a medium" (3), then a medium
such as recording might inherently implicate a different paradigm, neither written nor oral.22 When
learning from recordings the mediating effect is crucial because it allows musicians to repeat and
analyze the performance and thus experience the musical structure in a manner not possible without
them. Thus, with respect to the ways in which jazz musicians have learned how to improvise from
recordings, a legacy that is, again, well documented, we can question whether or not the concept of oral
tradition is truly applicable to such processes. David Baker argues that it might not be, as he explained
in an interview:
[O]ral tradition usually suggests something a little more language-oriented. Certainly the oral tradition
says you learn by imitation and all that too, but in that particular inference, people pass the information
on person to person. And rarely did that happen in jazz....In the general sense it's the oral tradition, but
in the truest sense, it's probably not. (Baker, telephone interview)
On the other side of the issue, it may also be equally simplistic to refer to the traditions of Western art
music as simply being a written tradition, a frequently made claim. Despite such strong opinions from
jazz musicians on the use of scores,23 as well as arguments for the centrality of written scores in
musical academia (Small, Musicking 110-12), it has been my experience that many students and
teachers of Western art music vociferously dispute the rigid classification of such forms as being
essentially written. Although written scores provide a reference for musicians, they do not necessarily
replace the experience of musical sound. In orchestra rehearsals, directions from the conductor to
musicians are generally delivered orally, as is a significant amount of information passed on in lessons
with primary teachers. Henry Kingsbury, who has argued for the role of written scores as a source of
cultural authority within the conservatory, also points to the ways in which teachers and students within
such institutions regularly deviate from them at the same time, referring to the distinction between
textual and aural transmission of music as "an imprecise one" (94). Perhaps most revealing about
attitudes towards written sources in the experience of Western art music, however, was an offhand
comment from an historical-musicologist colleague of mine, who explained to me that scholars of
Western music do not, in their free time, read scores of Bach or Mozart pieces for enjoyment; they
listen to them. Ultimately, the experience of the music is that of sound, not sight
Whether through scores or recordings, the experience of connectivity with the artist or creator of a
performance is represented by a medium of transmission. In the case of written scores, the page exists
only as an abstract representation of what a certain piece of music should sound like. In this sense,
notation serves a fundamentally prescriptive role, signifying the composer's "intent."24 Recordings, by
contrast, are fundamentally descriptive, representing an actual sound event. Sidran's assertion that "the
music is the medium" does not apply in either case; it is only a representation of what a sound was or

will be. Recordings do not capture subtleties of human behavior that have an enormous impact upon
improvisational performance, particularly within the group setting. Musicians frequently communicate
with one another through visual, verbal, and physical cues that sound recordings cannot capture, yet
these elements are essential to understanding the dynamics of any jazz performance. Equally important
are certain techniques of musical performance that cannot be represented in an audio recording, as Paul
Berliner explains:
Inability to see performers [on recordings] and their instruments poses numerous other problems for
aspiring musicians trying to reconstruct the playing techniques of recording artists...[a young trumpet
student] also acquired an unconscious habit of forcing air through his trumpet, in a naive attempt to
match the extraordinarily large sound of his models as amplified by the stereo system. Without the
correct and constant air support required for performance, he eventually lost his endurance and had to
relearn with a teacher the very fundamentals of trumpet playing. (Berliner 106)
While recordings are indeed a valuable resource for nascent jazz musicians, they are not, in the final
analysis, a direct, unmediated form of transmission from person to person, a hallmark of oral tradition.
Thus, in equating recordings with textbooks and method books, writers who employ such an analogy
might be closer to the mark than was perhaps intended by such a metaphorical reference.
Conclusion: Rethinking Orality in Jazz Improvisation
Rather than thinking of jazz as simply being an oral tradition, it might be useful to employ a different
conceptual framework. Author and folklorist Wilmot (Al) Fraser, in his dissertation on the study of
improvisational learning, presents a paradigm that is perhaps more helpful in understanding the
dynamics of improvisational learning. Fraser places the learning of improvisation in what he terms an
"aural-written" tradition, in which sound and notation can both play an important role in a specific
musician's development.25 If we extend Fraser's paradigm even further, we can understand the "auralwritten" paradigm as a continuum of sorts, in which different systems of learning, some closer to what
might be called an oral tradition, some more akin to written traditions, occupy different locales. In
constructing such a continuum, we can unify the myriad processes of learning jazz under one
pedagogical roof, regardless of the specific instruction contexts. We can, in the long run, examine not
only distinctions between methodologies and learning systems, but understand their many common
features as well. Similarly, Luke O. Gillespie, in applying the "oral-formulaic" theory of Milman Perry
and Albert Lord to the use of pre-existing musical patterns in jazz improvisation, argues that the
distinctions between "oralliterate" and "written-literate" advanced by Lord are "dubious" (Gillespie
147), and that the processes of jazz improvisation are best understood as an amalgam of both oral and
written systems.26
We can certainly agree that jazz, at least in terms of improvisational practice, has rarely been a
"written" tradition in the sense of the use of scores and texts in Western art music, although it should be
acknowledged that Western art music itself does not fit neatly into such a category. This depends in no
small way upon how we define a written tradition, and it can also depend on our definition of what jazz
is. In the most literal sense, jazz has a written tradition because songs, and even solos, are sometimes
written down (most often after the fact in the latter case). The written musical text, however, has
generally been emphasized less in jazz than in the Western art music tradition. In saying this I do not
mean to ignore the many prolific composers in the historical record of jazz. Rather, my focus here is
upon improvisational performance, which I feel can be classified as neither "oral" nor "written."
Likewise, performances by composers such as Ellington, Mingus, Thad Jones, and others, though often
based on scored arrangements, often included a great deal of material that was not directly written. Solo
sections are the most obvious example, but even within more "composed" passages, there is generally a
great deal of flexibility in how the passage is played, and that individual interpretation was often a
factor in how a passage would sound. Mingus, in fact, was known for regularly teaching his band

members their parts by singing them, while at other times he relied on notated scores. Ellington,
meanwhile, was famous for composing parts specifically for members of his band, whom he termed
"sound identities," a reference to each individual's unique approach to timbre, shading, inflection, and
other aspects of performance that the composer understood could not (and perhaps more importantly,
should not) be represented in writing. Thus a rigid classification as either "oral" or "written" fails to
explain what was really happening in the learning and performance of jazz. I might suggest the jazz
composition occupies a musical space somewhere between the compositional traditions of Western art
music and jazz improvisation. But I also believe that to classify this as a written tradition vis-a-vis
improvisation is troublesome, as is the absolute classification of Western art music itself as a written
tradition.
The problem of identifying the historical processes of jazz within such an oppositional paradigm
extends to other cultural forms as well. Simplistic, culturally non-specific binary oppositions such as
oral/written do little to explain the complex interactions of form, media, structure, and, in particular,
human experience that create and maintain musical and cultural traditions. In saying this, I make no
attempt to argue that jazz is not, at its core, representative of a fundamentally African and particularly
African American aesthetic. The point is, rather, that it is not merely oral tradition that imparts to these
cultures their vitality, but rather it is their lived experiences and the cultural expressions of their
relationship to unique histories and environments.
Footnote
Notes
[1] Major centers of research such as the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers and the Hogan Jazz
Archive in New Orleans often feature extensive collections of recorded "oral histories."
[2] 1 do not wish to imply that a questioning of orality in jazz improvisation means that jazz musicians
necessarily include or incorporate non-aural media (i.e. scores) in improvisational performance. While
jazz musicians sometimes do refer to "lead sheets" while they play (although this practice itself is not
without critics), improvisational performance is rarely done with reference to a pre-written solo. The
focus of this study is on the presumed centrality of oral tradition in acquiring improvisational skills,
more than their actual performance application. See Johnson (2).
[3] By "pedagogy" I refer to any and all processes of learning, both inside and outside the context of
academic study. Some researchers have, in recent years, begun to re-examine critically both traditional
forms of jazz pedagogy, as well as their institutional counterparts. For a more in-depth treatment of
pedagogical issues and processes in jazz, see Ake, Barr, Berliner, Fraser, and Javors, as well as my own
research on this topic (Prouty, "Canons," "History," "Storyville").
[4] A number of musicians and scholars have interrogated this identity of jazz with African music
cultures. Art Blakey, in particular, was adamant in his opposition to the idea the jazz was "African," yet
at the same time, he was an avowed student of African culture and African musical ideas, which he
frequently incorporated into his music (Monson, "Art Blakey's").
[5] Consider the following passage from Christopher Small: "Jazz...is in its origins and its history much
closer to white music and white society. As Gunther Schuller, points out, the legend of the illiterate jazz
musician in New Orleans in the early years of the century is not in general substantiated by the
statements of musicians who were around at the time" (Music 140). I find Small's linking of "white
music and white society" to the dearth of "illiterate" musicians in early jazz to be troubling, as if to
imply that without the connection to "white music," jazz musicians [read: black musicians] would have
been illiterate.
[6] Sidran's comments would seem to imply an inherent distinction between orality, which he clearly

does not regard as a medium, and other forms of communication. In the most general sense, however,
spoken language is certainly a medium, making distinctions between oral, literate, and recorded
communications even more problematic.
[7] McLuhan's oft-quoted statement was "the medium is the message" (7).
[8] Sidran, to be fair, does acknowledge that early jazz musicians did develop a sense of structural
understanding, but that was derived through improvisational performance rather than from outside of
that experience. See Sidran (61). This highlights an underlying tension between theory and practice that
is present in many musical learning contexts, particularly within the academic institution (and is not
limited to the study of jazz).
[9] While Martin's description of the process is largely correct, I question the assertion the musicians
were not aware of these musical structures. I would posit that they were aware of them, but simply
articulated such concepts in ways that are different from what Martin terms (in the same article)
"analytical" theory. Many musicians developed their own theoretical constructs for understanding and
even analyzing music. see Berliner for a more thorough investigation of this theme.
[10] Today, most academic jazz education programs give scant attention to the performance of early
forms of jazz. When questioned on this point, one educator remarked to me that such a pursuit was
"pointless," as earlier forms did not require the same types of skills and training. As a performing jazz
musician myself, this is an assertion that I would call into question.
[11] Certainly not in Galper's case, who views the perceived avoidance of more intellectualized systems
of jazz pedagogy as an advantage.
[12] I would suggest that the emphasis on literacy displayed by many contemporary jazz educators with
regard to modern forms of jazz may reflect a desire to place jazz on an equivalent cultural footing with
the Western art tradition within the academy. Academic musical instruction, like the Western classical
tradition, is often regarded as a predominantly written musical tradition, and notation exerts a powerful
hegemonic influence on musical discourses in higher education. See Kingsbury, also Nettl (Heartland
36-37).
[13] During jazz education's formative days, ironically, the situation was often exactly the opposite.
Proponents of jazz went to great lengths to demonstrate the music's similarities with the Western art
music tradition, presumably in an effort to show that it was worthy of academic study. For example,
Walter Barr quotes musician and educator Billy Taylor, who goes to great lengths to point to structural
similarities between the Western art music tradition and jazz (Barr 28).
[14] The terms "changes" and "chord changes" are commonly used by jazz performers to indicate the
underlying harmonic progression of a particular song.
[15] In my experience as a student in jazz education programs, "ear" playing could be both a blessing
and a curse. While such students were often admired for their abilities, they sometimes experienced
more difficulty in negotiating instruction in theory and analysis, as well as improvisational pedagogy.
Of course, the point behind such programs was to create well-rounded musicians who could function in
either context, but these were often difficult for students more used to playing without reference to
written musical materials.
[16] Many jazz musicians have spoken about wearing out copies of their favorite records as a result of
repeated listening while trying to learn solos.
[17] See Berliner (93-105) for a wealth of further information on this topic.
[18] Aebersold's first instructional volume was published in 1973. To date, he has produced over 100

volumes of instructional sets, encompassing a vast repertory of compositions and jazz styles.
[19] Aebersold's edition of Benny Golson's music is one example, with Golson providing the count
himself.
[20] Many colleagues agree that a number of Aebersold recordings, particularly those at faster tempos,
do in fact rush the tempo to a slight degree during a track. The consensus among informants in my
research seems that this is intentional, perhaps to provide a more intense workout.
[21] I have also noticed as a performer that, in recent years, the books that accompany Aebersold's
recordings have increasingly begun to replace "fake books" as the lead sheets of choice for many jazz
performers.
[22] Again, this grants Sidran's (3) assertion that oral communication is fundamentally unmediated.
[23] Consider Miles Davis's opinions on written materials: "What we did on Bitches Brew you couldn't
ever write down for an orchestra to play. That's why I didn't write it all out, not because I didn't know
what I wanted, I knew what I wanted would come out of a process and not some pre-arranged shit"
(Davis and Troupe 290).
[24] I qualify this term because the determination of a composer's intent is nearly always speculative,
save when the composer has made his or her intent explicit (a relative rarity in musicological research).
[25] I would call attention to the use of the word "aural" as opposed to "oral" in this context. see Fraser
(103-04).
[26] While Gillespie (160) is careful to point out the inherent problems of classifying jazz as an
exclusively oral tradition, he does not address the essential difference in learning between jazz and the
epic poetry of which Lord writes: the central place of audio recordings. I have argued elsewhere in this
essay that the use of recorded media presents a profoundly different set of pedagogical concerns for
those studying the role of orality in jazz. Neither does Gillespie fully address the employment of orality
as identity, as I have argued in this paper, presumably more concerned with the specific workings of
formula within an oral-literate system of learning. Nevertheless, we share much common ground in
terms of the critique of orality as an absolute identifier of musical process and culture.
References
Works Cited
Aebersold, Jamey. A New Approach to Jazz Improvisation. New Albany, IN: Jamey Aebersold Jazz,
1973.
Ake, David. Jazz Cultures. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.
Bailey, John. "Anthropological and Psychological Approaches to the Study of Music Theory and
Musical Cognition." Yearbook for Traditional Music 20 (1988): 114-24.
Baker, David. Jazz Pedagogy: A Comprehensive Method for Teacher and Student. Chicago: db Music
Workshop/Maher Publications, 1979.
_____. Personal interview. 8 March 2000.
_____. Telephone interview. 27 February 2000.
Barr, Walter. "The Jazz Studies Curriculum" Ed.D. diss. Arizona State University, 1974. Ann Arbor:
UMI, 1975, DAI-A 35/07, 4219.
Berliner, Paul. Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1994.

Brown, Marion. "Improvisation and the Aural Tradition in Afro-American Music." Black World 23
(1973): 15-19.
Coker, Jerry. Improvising Jazz. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964.
Davis, Miles and Quincy Troupe. Miles: The Autobiography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
DeVeaux, Scott. The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History. Berkeley, CA: U of California P,
1997.
Dobbins, Bill. "Jazz and Academia: Street Music in the Ivory Tower." Council for Research in Music
Education Bulletin 96 (1988): 30-41.
Feld, Steven. "Orality and Consciousness." The Oral and the Literate in Music. Ed. Tokumaru
Yoshiihiko and Yamaguto Osamu. Tokyo: Academia Music, 1986. 18-28.
Fraser, Wilmot. "Jazzology: A Study of the Tradition in which Jazz Musicians Learn to Improvise."
Ph.D. diss. U of Pennsylvania, 1983. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1984, DAI-A 44/12. 3768.
Friedson, Steven. Dancing Prophets: Musical Experiences in Tumbuka Healing. Chicago: U of Chicago
P, 1996.
Galper, Hal. "The Oral Tradition." http://www.halgalper.com/13_arti/oraltradition.htm (accessed 25
July 2005).
Gendron, Bernard. "Moldy Figs and Modernists: Jazz at War (1942-1946)." Jazz among the Discourses.
Ed. Krin Gabbard. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1995. 31-56.
Gillespie, Luke O. "Literacy, Orality, and the Parry-Lord 'Formula': Improvisation and the
AfroAmerican Jazz Tradition." International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 22.2
(1991): 147-64.
Gioia, Ted. The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture. New York and Oxford: Oxford
UP, 1988.
Javors, Keith. "An Appraisal of Collegiate Jazz Performance Programs in the Teaching of Jazz Music."
D.M.E. diss. U of Illinois, 2001. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2001, DAI-A 62/06, 2063.
Johnson, Bruce. "Hear Me Talkin' to Ya': Problems of Jazz Discourse." Popular Music 12.1 (1993): 112.
Kingsbury, Henry. Music, Talent and Performance: A Conservatory Cultural System. Philadelphia:
Temple UP, 1988.
Kingsley, Walter. "Whence Comes Jass? Facts from the Great Authority on the Subject." New York Sun
5 Aug. 1917: 3. In, Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History. Ed. Robert Walser. Oxford and New York:
Oxford UP, 1999. 5-7.
Lord, Albert. The Singer of Tales. New York: Atheneum, 1965.
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw Hill, 1964.
Martin, Henry. "Jazz Theory: An Overview." Annual Review of Jazz Studies 8 (1996): 1-17.
Monson, Ingrid. "Art Blakey's African Diaspora." The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective. Ed.
Ingrid Monson. New York: Garland, 2000. 329-52.
_____. Sayin' Somethin': Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996.
Murphy, Daniel. "Jazz Studies in American Schools and Colleges: A Brief History." Jazz Educators
Journal 26.3 (1994): 34-38.

Nettl, Bruno. Heartland Excursions: Ethnomusicological Reflections on Schools of Music. Urbana and
Chicago, IL: U of Illinois P, 1995.
_____. The Study of Ethnomusicology: Twenty-Nine Issues and Concepts. Urbana and Chicago, IL: U
of Illinois P, 1983.
Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London and New York: Methuen,
1982.
Prouty, Kenneth E. "Canons in Harmony or Canons in Conflict: A Cultural Perspective on the
Curriculum and Pedagogy of Jazz Improvisation." Research Issues in Music Education 2 (2004).
<www.rimeonline.org> (accessed 2 Aug 2005).
_____. "The History of Jazz Education: A Critical Reassessment." Journal of Historical Research in
Music Education 2.2 (2005): 79-100.
_____."From Storyville to State University: The Intersection of Academic and Non-Academic Learning
Cultures in Post-secondary Jazz Education." Ph.D. diss. U of Pittsburgh. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2003, DAIA 64/01, 92.
Rasula, Jed. "The Memory of Media: The Seductive Menace of Records in Jazz History." Jazz among
the Discourses. Ed. Krin Gabbard. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1995. 134-62.
Sidran, Ben. Black Talk: How the Music of Black America Created a Radical Alternative to the Values
of Western Literary Tradition. New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1971.
Slonimsky, Nicholas. Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns. New York: Coleman-Ross, 1947.
Small, Christopher. Music, Society, Education. New York: Schirmer Books, 1977.
_____. Musicking: The Meanings of Performance and Listening. Hanover, NH: UP of New England,
1998.
Walser, Robert, Ed. Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.
Weintraub, Andrew. "Theory in Institutional Pedagogy and 'Theory in Practice' for Sundanese Gamelan
Music." Ethnomusicology 37.1 (1993): 29-39.
AuthorAffiliation
Kenneth Prouty is Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies at Indiana State
University in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA. He received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the
University of Pittsburgh, and also holds a master's degree in jazz studies from the University of North
Texas. In addition to his teaching and scholarship, he is active as a jazz trombonist.
Word count: 9474
Copyright Routledge Jul 2006

Indexing (details)
Cite

Subject
Literacy;
Mediation;

Oral tradition;
Jazz;
Musicology;
Musicians & conductors
Title
Orality, Literacy, and Mediating Musical Experience: Rethinking Oral Tradition in the Learning of Jazz
Improvisation
Author
Prouty, Kenneth E
Publication title
Popular Music and Society
Volume
29
Issue
3
Pages
317-334,409
Number of pages
19
Publication year
2006
Publication date
Jul 2006
Year
2006
Publisher
Taylor & Francis Ltd.
Place of publication
Bowling Green
Country of publication
United Kingdom
Publication subject
Sociology, Music
ISSN
03007766
Source type
Scholarly Journals
Language of publication
English
Document type
Commentary
Document feature
References
ProQuest document ID
208064301
Document URL
http://search.proquest.com/docview/208064301?accountid=15533
Copyright
Copyright Routledge Jul 2006

Last updated
2013-03-20
Database
ProQuest Central