Translator: Naoko Fujii Reviewer: Denise RQ
In 1959, Miles Davis entered the studio with his band to record
what became the best-selling, most influential jazz album of all times.
Entitled "Kind of blue,"
it is in all respects the perfect jazz recording.
But there were no rehearsals for this take.
In fact, Miles gave the musicians the music as they entered the studio.
And except for one song, each first complete take was the only complete take,
which got pressed on the album.
So, we ask ourselves how it is possible?
How can a group of musicians come together and so spontaneously create great music?
Understanding the dynamics of jazz improvisation provides
not only insight into their genius but also can serve as a model
for how we can work better together, in general.
I believe there are three key qualities, three pillars
that give rise to the condition of what I call 'radical collaboration'
or an intense type of teamwork found in jazz.
The first is empathy.
We each bring something unique to the stage here,
But it's only when we come together that the great music can happen.
Jazz musicians talk about having 'big ears' which means listening to others
more than you're listening to yourself while the music is playing.
Second, embracing uncertainty.
Jazz musicians experiment in real time, all the time.
They enter each performance with an open mind, with a beginner's mind,
and they are willing to embrace the unknown.
And third, following conventional patterns.
Embracing uncertainty doesn't mean playing what you want.
In fact, in jazz, there is a lot of structure, a lot of constraints even.
There are patterns in melody, there are patterns in harmony
that jazz musicians learn obsessively.
And it's once these routines become internalized
that improvisation can happen on the surface.
And one pattern that governs a lot of jazz improvisation is the form
of a piece of music, the structure of a song.
For instance, a typical structure is a 32-bar, A-A-B-A form.
Here's what I mean by that.
We play a melody over a fixed set of harmonies across eight measures.
Each measure is four beats. That constitutes the first A section.
And that gets repeated for the second A section.
There is a contrasting melody, a set of harmonies
that we call the B section, or the bridge.
And then, the form is rounded out by another A section.
One of these iterations is called the chorus.
And if you break it down,
that's 128 beats, or 32 measures, or 4 sections A-A-B-A,
or we can think of it as one unit, and very often jazz musicians
will internalize this form and feel it as one unit.
Of course we are also listening,
so, the harmonies in here also give us clues, for instance,
that B section, the bridge, is a landmark for us and help us orient.
But a lot of jazz music is oriented towards this form.
So, what happens is, we play the melody
over the harmonies across this form, 32 bars, A-A-B-A.
After that, we repeat that form and those harmonies for the soloist,
so the soloist is effectively creating a melody,
spontaneously, on top of this form.
That's how we know where we are.
This is the glue that holds jazz improvisation together.
And that gets repeated, indefinitely, until there is a signal,
a signal that we want to play the melody again,
which is, by the way, called the 'head, ' or the top of the form.
And those signals are very often musical.
So, the soloists will play a phrase or a musical figure
that indicates that the solos are coming to an end,
but there is also a visual cue that sometimes jazz musicians use on stage
and they'll point to their head very briefly,
which indicates they want to go back to the melody.
So, the song we are going to play has an A-A-B-A structure.
What I would like you to do, the audience,
I'd like you to follow along the form with us.
And when we get to the end of a chorus, before we start the next chorus,
just point to your head and see if you can find out where we are.
We are going to know where we are, and maybe you guys can help out, too.
So, for each chorus, even during the solos,
just see you can follow along where we are.
What I want you to listen for as well, too,
is the dynamic between the soloist and the band.
So, when we are accompanying a solo,
we're actively listening to what they are playing,
trying to fit into that.
Also listen to the handover between the soloists.
As one comes to an end,
the next may play those ending notes as the beginning for his or her solo.
The last chorus that we are going to play for solos here,
we are going to do something called trading 4s,
that's another standard pattern in jazz commonly referred to as 4s.
And the way that this works
is we're going to solo over the first 4 measures of each section,
and then have a drum break for four measures.
So, if we do that four times that fills out one form,
but again, that form stays constant throughout this piece of music.
We've not rehearsed this, at all.
In fact, we just met for the first time, many of us, about half an hours ago.
So, this is somewhat of an experiment.
I communicated the name of the tune we were going to play a few days ago,
but otherwise, each one of these musicians accepted my invitation
with very little knowledge about what was going to happen up here.
And the attitude was, "We'll figure it out."
It's that mindset, is that mindset of jazz improvisation and jazz improvisors
that, I believe, forms the foundation for radical collaboration.
(Jazz music)
(Applause) (Cheers)
Andrea Brachfeld on flute. (Applause)
Ken Fowser, tenor saxophone. (Applause)
Adam Lomeo, guitar. (Applause)
And Nick Wight, on drums.(Applause)
Thanks. So, just a couple of observations.
During Andrea's solo, for instance, she started playing what we call 'out';
that means rhythmically offset, harmonically offset,
and particularly around the top of her second--
You guys were able to follow along, by the way?
At the top of her second chorus, she started playing very chromatic
and that caused the reaction over here, from Adam;
he started playing along with her.
[Dorin Kensel] he quoted the melody a little bit, as well, too.
So, you have that form and the melody is always kind of behind it, as well, too,
because that's going on; he grabbed that a little bit.
So that was interesting.
We didn't know how to end that tune by the way.
There is a standard way to do it that you hear on lot of recordings
that has an extra progression that we kind of threw in there.
I was hoping to end it a little bit shorter, but that was OK,
so there is a little bit of a negotiation; I hope that didn't throw anybody off.
But there is a extra couple of chords that we played in there.
So, another pattern that we find in jazz is something called a 2-5-1 progression.
If you play a B flat scale, for instance. Could you just play quick B flat scale?
(Scale) And you build the chord on the second note of that scale?
(Chord) You've got a C minor chord?
And if you build the chord (Chord) on the fifth note of that scale?
(Chord) You are going to have an F chord that is 2 and 5, and that goes down to 1.
(Chord) We have these 2-5-1 patterns and jazz musicians learn 2-5-1s
and play scales over that hours and hours at the end.
At the end there, we actually threw in, a 3-6-2-5 in there,
so you have these 2-5 relationships that occur in jazz quite a bit,
and soon as we heard that I think we all kind of latched on through it.
So that was a pattern that helped us end that song.
Now think of your place of work, the organizations that you're involved in.
Do they have these same values, do they have these same behaviors?
Is everyone on the same page, following the same patterns?
Are you doing more listening than you're talking,
and you can truly embrace uncertainty?
Pieter Drucker, the father of modern management,
likened a business leader to an orchestra conductor.
But if you think about this top-down, commanding control model of management,
doesn't really work anymore in 21st century.
We need a new model, we need a new way to think about how we work together.
And jazz provides that model, I believe, in this brave new world.
It helps us shift our mindset, shift our mode of thinking,
so we can have business success.
Some companies are doing this already.
For instance, Spotify,
the streaming music service here in New York City across the river.
They organize around small, empowered teams called squads.
Here are the vertical ovals there on this chart.
And these squads're organized into tribes,
and there is a lattice type of network of organizations, called chapters and guilds.
This does not look like a corporate chart.
They don't behave like a normal corporations as well.
And in fact, in the video on their website,
they likened this approach, this style of working together, to jazz combo.
Other examples include Valve, a gaming company in California
that has essentially no organizational structure.
They spontaneously merge around projects that are cool or not.
Zappos.com, an e-commerce site with 1,500 employees recently reorganized
around circles and networks of employees, and something called 'holacracy.'
And Gore & Associates, the makers of Gore-Tex,
for the past 50 years of their existence across 8,000 employees,
essentially have two job titles: a sponsor an an associate.
It's a hierarchy or lack of hierarchy that values empathy for each other,
and values embracing uncertainty.
This is not nice to have.
This is not something that's only limited to tech startups or e-commerce websites.
This is something that will effect every industry.
And writing about this in the Harvard Business Review,
Professor Rita Gunther McGrath talks about three ages of management;
the age of execution, the age of expertise, in the 20th century.
Now in the 21st century, we are entering the age of what she calls empathy.
Here is what she writes:
"If what is demanded of managers today is empathy,
more than execution, and more than expertise,
then we might ask:
what new roles and organizational structures must be in place.
All of the questions of management are back on the table,
and we can't find the answers soon enough."
Jazz improvisation, I believe, provides some of those answers,
not only through inspiration but through practical guidance.
Work is not a place. Work is what you accomplish together with others.
And in this day of hyper competition, big bank disruption, transit advantage,
we can not ignore the fact that we need new ways of working together,
new models of collaboration.
The orchestra conductor model within orchestra is old-fashioned.
We need to think more like a jazz combo, We need to think more like a jam session.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)