Philosophy of the Performing Arts

challenges to the classical paradigm in music 95
are doing to a particular tradition – the “jazz” tradition. But it is the central
role accorded to improvisation that calls into question whether jazz per-
formance can usefully be brought under the classical paradigm. Many jazz
performances takes as their starting point a performable work written for
performance by “straight,” rather than predominantly improvisatory, ensem-
bles. However, given the ways in which a jazz performance is allowed to
depart from the prescriptions for such a work, and given the value placed
on these departures, it might be asked whether the performance stands to
the performable work in the right relationship to count as a performance
of that work. Stephen Davies, for example, argues that renditions of jazz
“standards” – such as the performance of “My Funny Valentine” by the Miles
Davis Quintet on December 2, 1964 – should not be subsumed under the
classical paradigm:
There is no reason to assume that a playing event beginning with a particular
tune is best viewed as a performance of a work thinly specified via that tune.
The improvisation is inspired by the tune and is “after” it, but the whole that
is created can be regarded as new and unique. (S. Davies 2001, 10)
As we shall see in Chapter 8, this is a complex issue, and to clarify it we shall
have to consider carefully both the nature of improvisation and the different
ways in which it can enter into performance practice. To do justice to the
phenomena, we may need to adopt a pluralist approach to jazz, paralleling
the kind of approach canvassed above for classical performance. But I shall
defer further discussion of this until Chapter 8.
Rock
Questions arise about the applicability of the classical paradigm to jazz
because there are aspects of what goes on in live jazz performance that fit
uneasily with the idea of performance as regulated by the goal of interpre-
tively realizing a pre-existing set of prescriptions. The work, it might be said,
cannot do justice to the performance – in Andrew Kania’s witty charac-
terization, jazz might seem to be all play and no work.^1 In the case of rock
music, on the other hand, questions arise because of the significance, for the
identity of the rock work, of what goes on in the recording studio and the
consequent failure of live performance to do justice to our conception of
the work.
In both classical music and jazz, it is natural to assume that the primary
goal of a recording is to reproduce as accurately as possible the sound of a
performance. This performance may be occurring on a stage or in a club,
where what is recorded is an audible event intended to serve other purposes.