Philosophy of the Performing Arts

136 performance as art
performance obviously involves improvisation. Indeed, it is striking in that
it was not preceded by any prior decisions as to what would be played (save,
perhaps, for the opening four notes!), whereas improvised performances
with which we are more familiar take a pre-existing “frame” as the structure for
improvisation. This frame may be a melody or song composed for “straight”
performance – such as “My Favorite Things,” to which John Coltrane returned
again and again as a basis for the improvisational explorations of his ensem-
bles. Or it may be something composed with the specific intention that it
be used as a frame for improvisation, as with Miles Davis’s “Blue in Green.”
As Jarrett makes clear in discussions of his solo performances, however, he
sees his explorations as open-ended: “When I think of improvising, I think of
going from zero to zero – or wherever it goes. I’m not connecting one thing
to another.”^1 We shall examine the different roles that improvisation can play
in artistic performance in the next chapter.
Second, the iconic status of Jarrett’s performance provides us with per-
haps the most intuitively persuasive example of an artistic performance in
the first of the senses that we distinguished in Chapter 1 – a performance
that is artistic in virtue of itself being a work of art.^2 We shall have to ask,
however, whether these intuitions are to be trusted. For some have seen a
tension between the ephemeral nature of a performance – even a recorded
performance – and the “enduring” nature of works of art.
Third, Jarrett’s performance differs in at least one notable respect from
the artistic performances falling outside the classical paradigm discussed in
the previous chapter. In giving an account of at least some theatrical and
dance performances, it is tempting to adopt a version of the ingredients
model. But even the ingredients model generally holds that individual per-
formances are of something – namely, they are performances of productions ,
which are staged on different occasions to different audiences. We noted in
the previous chapter that, in performances in the performed arts, we can
distinguish three elements, of which at least two are nearly always present:
first, a performable work; second, a production, often of a performable
work; and third, a performance-event. Performative interpretation of a per-
formable work generally occurs in the preparations for staging a production
of the work, although performers may still interpret their roles in different
ways for different individual performances. The same tripartite model can be
applied to many jazz performances, where an individual rendition of a stand-
ard might be described as a performance of something repeatable, namely,
the ensemble’s interpretation of the standard. The latter, like a production
of a play, provides the narrower frame within which the ensemble impro-
vises on different occasions of performance.^3 With performances fitting the
ingredients model, on the other hand, we have a production that is not of a
performable work, but that takes such a work as one of its ingredients. The