Although I spend my time working with counterpoint, and know jazz is as capable as any other sort of music at yielding the greatest delight in it, how jazz musicians organise their ‘compositions’ remains a complete mystery to me. I could more easily write a symphony than join in with a jam session. Are they improvising or aren’t they? If they are, how is it they all seem to agree on what the next chord should be? If they are not — and copies of notated music are regularly in use — how is it that the soloist of the moment is always applauded as if he or she has just invented the most amazing break ever heard? And what causes that peculiar combination of loose-limbed counterpoint underpinned by awkward, jarring, shapeless harmonies which nonetheless never come anywhere near being as awkward, jarring, shapeless and dissonant as those of much contemporary classical music?
Obviously the training is different.
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