Jazz Analysis and the History of Hermeneutics

by Matias Recharte (212793766)

Final Project: Jazz Theory (Prof. Matt Vander Woude)

GS MUSI 5008 3.0

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Introduction

The interpretation of a musical text such as a score or a recording is one of the

most important concerns of jazz theory. Its assumptions and arguments about the "correct"

way of interpreting are embedded in the larger tradition of hermeneutics, which is

concerned primarily with written texts. The aim of this essay is to locate the interpretation

of jazz recordings within the larger tradition of hermeneutics and to establish a

philosophical grounding for this practice. For that purpose, I will summarize the history of

hermeneutics from Ancient Greece to the Post War era, based on the work of Yvonne

Sherratt (2006). At the same time, I will mention some of the most important texts in the

literature of jazz analysis and compare their assumptions and aims with the various

strands of philosophy within the tradition of hermeneutics.

Ancient and Biblical Hermeneutics

The interpretation of texts is a tradition that dates back to the ancient Greeks in the

Western philosophical tradition. It receives the name of hermeneutics, a term that makes

reference to Hermes, the messenger of the gods. For the Greeks, interpretation involved

three concepts: expression, explanation and translation. The first of these involves the

aesthetic content of the interpretation, the inspiration (provided by the gods) and the power

of the oral performance, framed by its temporal nature. In a way, this concept of

interpretation as a performance of text aims at bringing to life an inert object and this in

itself is an art form that requires technique, knowledge and style. Explanation refers to the

moment in which the meaning of the text is made clear or understandable. This act

requires not merely repeating the text but creating a new meaning, arising from the

original. Translation is the act of bringing "what is foreign into the medium of one's own

language" (Sherratt 2006: 26). The act of translation requires an ability to be conversant in

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two separate languages and being able to transmit the message from one medium to the

other. In the context of jazz analysis, the analyst performs the role of the translator, and as

such, must be able to "speak" and "understand" musical language and practice as well as

the theoretical language in order to bring forth meaning from one context to the other.

During Roman times, interpretation became important in the context of Roman law.

The arts of grammar and rhetoric became central to hermeneutics because they provided

means for the "technical" interpretation of the law as well as the art of creating convincing

arguments. Translation became hugely influential during this time for the practice of

interpretation. Arguments about the best way to interpret a text arose from this practice, for

instance: should the text be situated in its own historical context, or should be taken "in

itself", isolated from its context? This is the beginning of a debate that continues presently

and that is embedded in the rather short history of jazz analysis.

Throughout the history of the Catholic Church and its main text, the Bible, ideas and

discussions about hermeneutics have been varied. At this time, power relationships

became important to the interpretation of the Bible, which had to be read "according to the

doctrine of the Church" (Sherratt 2006: 38). The object of this single, unified and correct

reading of the Bible was to elucidate the Truth that was contained in it. The truth content

that was hidden inside the text had two components, one metaphysical and the other

normative. The metaphysical was concerned with ultimate truths that lied outside of the

human world but that defined its origins and history. The normative was concerned with

morals, the way things should be and humans should behave, according to the rules of

God, contained in the Text but translated by the Church. With the arrival of Protestantism,

differing and often contradictory interpretations of the Bible began to compete, each aimed

at the discovery of the Truth within the text. This competition entailed new arguments

about the correct method of interpretation while at the same time instilling the notion that

there were multiple possible interpretations of a single text. The idea that a text has a truth

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content that can be extracted from it by using a correct method of interpretation is also

present in jazz analysis. Schenkerian methods of analysis attempt to distill the essential

contents from the dense structures and textures of the musical surface, while motivic

analysis aims to demonstrate its unity. This and other instances of the notion of truth

content can be found in jazz analyses up until today.

Calvinists, in their negation of the Church, sought a new source of authority for

individual interpretation. Objectivity was thought to provide such a source and it required

self-knowledge which would free the individual from subjective, and thus false,

preconceptions. When eliminating this subjectivity, a truly objective interpretation could

arise and thus the truth content could be deciphered. For Calvinists, in contrast to previous

Catholic notions, the Bible was the actual Word of God and as such it was irrefutable and

eternal. This entailed the development of a quasi-scientific method that would convey the

most objective interpretation or exegesis. The notion of music-in-itself, guarded against

any contextual reference and containing an objective truth that should be elucidated via a

scientific method prevails in some jazz analysis. Furthermore, the fact that the whole

history of jazz is connected to the history of recorded music provides a fixed text that in

many instances is taken to exist "on its own" without reference to a performance practice

or its pre-recording history.

Enlightenment and Romanticism

With the development of the Enlightenment, the necessity to justify interpretation on

rational terms was born. This new importance of reason as the main source of

understanding, unbound by institutional authority or emotional delusions, influenced

virtually all fields of knowledge. The development of the scientific method as universal,

greatly influenced the development of the social sciences and hermeneutics.

Consequently, Enlightenment philosophers viewed interpretation as a question of logic.

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Authors such as Chladenius and Wolff argued for an objective method of interpretation,

one that would perfectly convey the truth content within the text. This method, of course,

was based on reason and logic and it would clarify the author's intention as well as her

historical perspective. The inclusion of these two facets of interpretation, intention and

historical perspective, although allegedly objective, would later be questioned as relative

by the Romantics. In the history of jazz analysis, we find that the application of scientific

methods of musical analysis (all developed within the tradition of European Art music) is

prevalent among many authors. The application of rational methods are supposed to bring

forth from the musical surface, the truth content that is the essential message.

Romanticism shifted the emphasis from objectivity to subjectivity, from logic and

method to art and creativity. They opposed the Enlightenment and its predisposition for

universalism and instead focused on individuality, self-expression and ultimately, genius.

This new approach entailed a new importance of context and intentionality.

Hermeneuticists such as Schleiermacher and Wilhem von Humboldt were among the first

to emphasize the importance of the historical context in which the text was produced. The

idea was to understand the perspective of the author as a historical subjectivity. Not only

was the general social context important but also the context of the larger oeuvre of the

author and of the genre which the given text was part of. A second important consideration

was the psychological dimension of interpretation. For this purpose it is necessary to

develop a kind of empathy in order to put oneself in the place of the author and better

understand her intentions and the meaning that she had in mind when producing the text.

Furthermore, the notion of language as process as well as product was introduced and

with it, a new field of enquiry was open for investigation. The study of how a text is

produced by its author, rather than the text itself requires that we understand the thought

process behind the action. This idea is what lies behind many discussions of jazz analysis,

particularly the work of Gushee (1991), Berliner (1994) and Keil (1966). Another Romantic

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idea was that meaning was shared by individuals of a certain social group or "nation".

Thus, in order to understand the real meaning of a text, it is necessary to understand the

social context in which it is produced and in which meaning is attributed to it. This idea

entails the existence of communities of understanding but also the possibility of a non-

understanding, since there are various perspectives for interpretation. Another figure that

was central to romantic hermeneutics was Dilthey. He added the notion that not only could

written text be interpreted through hermeneutic methods but that the total socio-historical

world could be conceived as a sort of “text”. This idea, although new at the time, is a basic

assumption in the social sciences and in particular musicology and ethnomusicology; the

sounds produced by humans and perceived as music are taken to be a sort of text that

can be read, interpreted and understood.

Clearly, notions of interpretation that were first defined during the Enlightenment

and Romanticism, although rooted in ancient traditions, are still debated today. In the field

of jazz analysis some of these positions are clearly behind many of its assumptions. On

the one hand we have a theoretical standpoint that views musical analysis as the most

fruitful method for bringing forth meaning from a musical text. This is the position that holds

that considering the music in itself, as an ahistorical, isolated product can be the most

productive approach. Some of the earliest analysts of jazz solos such as Hodeir and

Schuller can be considered to be grounded on these assumptions. Other such as Martin

(1996) argued that, while historical and social context are important for a general

understanding of jazz, the notes in isolation can be analyzed and "pinned down" for the

purpose of interpretation. Others argue that the musical text should be considered as part

of a larger genre and must be interpreted as part of a bigger whole, this is the approach

first explored by Owens (1974). Others suggest as well that the historical and social

context in which the music is produced plays an important role in the creation of meaning,

DeVeaux (1997), Monson (2006), Ramsey (2003) and Radano (2003) have provided us

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with the most comprehensive accounts in this respect. In terms of the processual nature of

jazz texts, Keil (1994) was the first to consider this aspect as equally if not even more

important than the product of such process. Earlier analysts didn't even question the

validity of examining jazz music through transcriptions.

Another important aspect of the hermeneutics of Romanticism is the psychological

empathy with the author that the interpreter must develop in order to understand the

meaning of a given text. This question has been addressed by some jazz analysts who

were mostly interested in understanding the thought processes that enable improvisers to

compose "in the moment". Many pedagogical approaches to jazz analysis are devoted to

this aspect because they are concerned with conveying a sort of formula or method

through which a student can acquire the mental skills necessary for improvisation. Other

analysts such as Schuller propose a different view that considers that many of the thought

processes behind improvisation are subconscious, which raises the question of intention. If

the thought process that enables a certain behavior is subconscious, can there by any

intention behind it? Many early analysts or commentators make the assumption that jazz

players create their improvisations via a subconscious, learned behavior. Some of them,

like Panassie(1970), go as far as to say that the more conscious of his actions a given

player is, the least able is he to produce quality improvisations. On the other hand, other

authors such as Berliner (1994), Ramsey (2003) and again Monson (1997 and 2006) have

looked into the communal language and metaphors used by jazz players to interpret their

own actions and understand their own cultural patterns.

Existentialism and Phenomenology

The next philosophical current that made huge contributions to the tradition of

hermeneutics were Existentialism and Phenomenology. With some of these authors, the

focus on the objects of understanding was shifted towards the process of understanding

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itself. Husserl was the father of phenomenology and he insisted on the intuitive faculties of

human beings as well as the existence of life worlds. These life worlds consist of historical

communities that share a common knowledge, a common truth that is acknowledged and

that is used as the basis for interpretation. Indeed, interpretation and the perception of

meaning is made possible by these very communities. On the other hand, the notion of

intentionality is important for Husserl because he considered that the intentions behind a

text are crucial to an interpretation of meaning. In fact, texts (wether actual texts or musical

notes, social actions, speech or gestures) can be thought of as the externalization of an

inner impulse. Heidegger, following on the footsteps of Husserl, and building on the ‘life

philosophy’ of Nietzche, finally put interpretation at the center of the human experience.

For him, humans are “understanding entities in the first place” (Sherratt 2006: 80) which

means that our very existence entails a continuous process of understanding of the world

around us. He claimed that, in fact, we don’t speak language but that language “speaks

us”. This ideas gave way to postmodernism and poststructuralism and their emphasis on

discourse. Most importantly, Heidegger, and Bultman after him, demonstrated that humans

are historical beings because we exist in time; as such, interpretation cannot escape its

historical nature.

The idea of human communities of understanding, within which texts and events

are interpreted and given meaning to, started with Humboldt and the Romantics and

continues to this day; it is in fact a basic tenet of anthropology and ethnomusicology.

These disciplines are concerned with the type of translation that we have discussed in

relation to the Ancient Greeks. Authors such as Ingrid Monson (1996 and 2007), Paul

Berliner (1994), Guthrie Ramsey (2003), Albert Murray (1974) and, to some extent,

Lawrence Gushee (1991) have been concerned with defining and translating into an

academic format the ideas and histories that are part of the web of understanding within

jazz and the African American communities that practice it. These web can be considered

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as a historical text that is transmitted orally (and aurally) within the community. The

ethnomusicological perspective of these authors brings outsiders closer to the “insider”

knowledge and history by which the people that produce the music (the particular life world

of jazz), interpret its sounds. This idea has important consequence because, if we consider

the importance of intentionality as we discussed above, we can begin to see that to

interpret a text it is helpful to understand the intention that produced it in the first place.

And the intention itself is directly correlated with a baggage of historical knowledge within

the interpreting community that makes certain kinds of gestures meaningful and others

meaningless.

Post War Hermeneutics

The Post War authors that continue to exert a powerful influence upon

contemporary thinkers and that we will discuss in relation to hermeneutics all share a

common humanistic influence and reject the positivistic and scientific approaches to

hermeneutics. Gadamer continued to build upon Heidegger’s work and was concerned

with the conditions of understanding. He theorized on the nature of the text, the nature of

the interpreter and the overall process of understanding. First of all, he argued that a text

is an instance of authority and that it contains information and also that this text contains

the truth (not in the sense of Absolute Thruth but in the sense that it contains unity).

Gadamer shifted away from the Romantic’s interest upon context and expression, towards

a more nuanced discussion of content. His ideas are based on the assumption that a text

has a unity and that it allows for the possibility of the hermeneutic circle (tracking back and

forth from part to whole and back to part in order to understand the meaning). Next we

have the interpreter, which for Gadamer is essentially a historical being and as such

"constituted by (her) own historical period and its inherited traditions” (Sherrat 2006: 88).

With these limitations, no objective or scientific approach is possible. He coined the idea of

a forestructure of understanding. What Gadamer means by this is that, in order to

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understand at all, the interpreter needs to have something in her mind before it is possible

to understand something else; he called this previous knowledge prejudice. In his sense of

the word, it is not a negative but a positive thing, it is our baggage, our looking glasses

through which we can see the world and make sense of it. Finally, the process of

understanding is based on the two previous notions. As interpreters, we deploy our

prejudices and project various anticipated meanings onto the text that we are reading. This

entails what Gadamer named the fusion of horizons which makes reference to the point

when previous knowledge from the past is projected upon the present act of reading and

as a consequence, a new understanding is arrived at. Meaning, thus, is not a process of

uncovering the actual intention behind the text but it is a new meaning, produced by the

meeting of past and present horizons. This idea however, rests on the assumption that the

text and its reader belong to the same continuum of historical tradition and are part of the

same community of understanding. In contrast to previous notions of interpretation,

Gadamer thinks that interpretation is not about regaining the original meaning of the past

nor is it to uncover an objective truth contained in the text. Furthermore, his idea of an

effective history makes it impossible to unearth pure and uncontaminated past meanings.

This approach is interesting for a hermeneutics of jazz because there is within the field a

very strong emphasis on history and its importance for interpretation. According to

Gadamer, the search for a historically correct interpretation is meaningless. While

knowledge of historical facts can be most helpful for improving the quality of a

contemporary interpretation, it is impossible to claim that one can come to know the actual

meaning it once had.

Gadamer’s most insightful critic was Habermas, another German philosopher born

in 1929. While both thinkers held similar views, they had different political ideas and, while

they both opposed positivistic views and the intrusion of scientific method into the

humanities, they differed in their view of ideology and its influence in understanding.

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According to Habermas, socio-politic and economic forces play an important role in the

process of understanding. Power, in one word, is absent from Gadamer’s idealistic

language. For Habermas, a discussion of ideology as a coercive force within texts and

within the interpreter cannot be overlooked, he disagrees with Gadamer’s notion of truth

within the text. The sociological context that lies outside of hermeneutics must be

considered and for Habermas, this is a structural, even foundational reality upon which

language rests.

For jazz analysis, this idea is very productive because it confronts analysis with

racism, one of the most important ideological forces of the XXth century and one that

directly affected jazz history. Indeed, to think that jazz music remained somehow

untouched by racism and its powerful ideology would be a great disservice to all of those

who suffered the consequences of such a harmful force. Most contemporary accounts of

jazz music do take racism into consideration and, for some, it is central to a coherent and

truthful analysis of its formal aspects. Monson (2006), Robert Walser (1997), Radano

(2003) and Ramsey (2003) are certainly representative of this way of thinking. For these

authors, ideology plays a key role in the creation of meaning which is sometimes ‘hidden’;

the musical surface sometimes purposely deceives its audience. Furthermore, the idea

that racism as an ideological construct somehow foregrounds the musical language itself

(in this case that of music making and listening) is taken up by Radano (2000 and 2003)

who dives into the genealogy (in Nietzche’s use of the word) of the ideas that held up

white superiority and Negro inferiority. In a way, this is similar to Heidegger’s idea that

“language speaks us”.

Structuralism

Moving on to contemporary hermeneutics we see in Ricoeur a shift back to a more

structural, objective understanding of texts. According to him, language is a closed system

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of signs and rules that can be interpreted objectively. This view entails that linguistic

communities are more important than individuals and subjectivity which in turn shifts the

focus away from the author and from the interpreter. Thus, “hermeneutics became about

exegesis rather than philosophical speculation” (Sherratt 2006: 102) which completely

obliterates contextual and historical meaning. The text now becomes radically autonomous

and its author unimportant.

Structuralism shifts the emphasis, from issues of author and interpreter towards the

system of language itself as understood by a linguistic community. This approach is

certainly well represented in the literature of jazz analysis. In fact, because music

constitutes a separate system of signs distinct from spoken or written language,

deciphering and laying down its basic rules is quite problematic. Specially because of the

notion that jazz constitutes a system different from classical European music - for which a

great amount of written theory and analysis has been and continues to be developed - its

ground rules remain a matter of disagreement within the music theory sphere.

On the one hand, certain authors such as Hodeir and Schuller have applied their

knowledge of classical European music analysis to jazz and have obtained questionable

results. They have been severely criticized because of the unproblematic attitude they

have towards this issue. Arguably, one of the earliest critiques to this approach came from

Keil (1966) who questioned the universalizing aspirations in the work of Leonard Meyer

(1961). Keil’s approach, following Meyer, is essentially structuralist, he is concerned with

“the music itself, irrespective of any referential or extra-musical contents it may

possess” (Keil 1994: 53). They differ, however, in their field of interest; Keil is concerned

not with the classical European canon but with jazz and popular music. He contends that

Meyer’s “embodied meaning” does not explain the goals and properties of such styles. He

proposes instead the notion of “engendered feeling” to account for the qualities that are

not revealed at the level of syntax. In contrast to Meyer’s analogy with language, he

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proposes a kinesic analogy, based on body gestures and movements. He proposes to look

for these qualities at the microscopic level, within the nuances of the musical surface.

Although the model proposed by Keil is still essentially structuralist, its methods and aims

remain loosely defined. After Keil’s invitation, many researchers have proceeded with

scientific accuracy to measure and classify these microscopic details. Prögler (1995)

observed and attempted to quantify these nuances in his study of “participatory

discrepancies”, the results of which remain unsatisfying. The reasons for this have been

convincingly explained by Tiger Roholt (2014) . 1

On the other hand, we find authors such as Brothers (1997), Kubik (2005 and 2008)

and to a certain extent, Russell (1959) who have been concerned with developing a

parallel structuralist model for the interpretation of jazz. Dissatisfied with the theoretical

knowledge available through the European tradition, Russell felt the need to come up with

his own system, the “Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization”. Based on a

European terminology and the equal-tempered piano as its main referent, he developed a

system of chords and corresponding scales for the analysis and improvisation of jazz

music. This new system, however interesting, turned into a highly complex terminology

which is at times illuminating but most of the time confusing and unclear about the process

of understanding the musical events. Ultimately, he believed that improvised musical

products contained a “truth content” that laid buried beneath the surface which revealed

the underlying essence or “The Concept” much like biblical hermeneutics and its search

for the metaphysical Truth within the text.

Kubik, has taken this preoccupation with an alternative system to a deeper level. A

lifetime researcher of African musics, he claims that harmonic practices of jazz as well as

Based on the work of Merleu-Ponty, he criticizes Raffman’s view of musical nuances as determined or 1

quantifiable. The author proposes that nuanced features of music are what he calls "reverberating"; this means that they have to be perceived in a certain way in order for their musical significance to arise. The correct manner of perception is ambiguous, undetermined, falling between the cracks of perceptual categories.

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the melodic practices of the blues have their ultimate origin in the traditions of certain

cultural groups living in Africa today. This is clearly a problematic claim because of issues

of diffusion, appropriation and influence within and between cultural groups. Kubik

addresses this issue, albeit in a way that does not entirely resolve the problem. On his

work on the Blues (2008) however, by connecting the musical syntax (choice of tones) with

the lyrical content, he makes some very compelling observations. Like Humboldt and other

Romantic thinkers, Kubik assumes that the surface expresses underlying structures that

are shared by a community and its musical or tonal system. For him, meaning lies within

the human mind and human languages (including music). He differs however from the

Romantics in that he supports a more “rigid” structuralist standpoint which would deem

possible that the musical thought structures of African Americans remained intact within

their communities for generations. Likewise, the work of Brothers (1994) points in the

same direction by way of comparison, he draws an analogy between Western African and

African American musical practices, more specifically, the function of the ensemble as

time-keeper and that of the soloist as master drummer.

The ultimate structuralist, self-referential analysis though can be found in the work

of Owens. He painstakingly reviews the entire recorded oeuvre of Charlie Parker and

dissects and catalogues each phrase in an attempt to understand its inner grammar. As a

result, he comes up with around one hundred "formulas" which he claims Parker used to

construct his phrases. This approach to analysis is not concerned with meaning in itself

but rather with issues of grammar and syntax. Rather than attempting to understand what

Parker means, Owens attempts do describe how Bird’s language works. In a way, this is

similar to the concerns of generative grammar which attempts to predict the morphology of

a sentence.

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Gushee and the Structures of Jazz Improvisation

Perhaps the most fruitful structuralist analysis of jazz improvisation can be found in

the work of Gushee on Lester Young. In his article he recommends a variegated approach

to analysis and attempts to do such work. As a result, he combines a formulaic analysis,

that is, a description of the structures within the text, and a contextual analysis or a

description of the structures that frame the text but that are external to it. Gushee

recognized a multilayered structure in which “different relationships (…) operate over

different time spans” (1991: 226). I believe this approach follows in the footsteps of the

Romantics for whom understanding of history was only possible because we are historical

beings: interpretation is a creative act by which the historian can imagine how someone

else might have felt in a given circumstance and understand the reasons behind their

actions. But in order for that creative act to be reasonable (I’m purposely staying away

from the word “rational”), the historian must gather as much information as possible about

the structures that frame the individual, in order to imagine how their motivations and their

restrictions might have interacted. In the case of music, some of these structures are

particular to the act of music and others affect individuals, including musicians, more

generally. An understanding of these structures is needed in order for the creative act of

empathizing to take place within the boundaries of what is reasonable.

One very important and often overlooked structural limitation is the musical

instrument itself. Every instrument represents a set of constraints and possibilities that

each performer is subjected to. Gushee considers Lester Young’s saxophone as one of the

frameworks for his analysis, he clearly has a thorough understanding of the technical

features of the instrument. Another structural level which is connected to the instrument

but lies within the mind of the performer is her knowledge of technique, which is most likely

a combination of tradition (taught by previous performers), and personal adaptations and

modifications of these inheritances. In the case of jazz performance, the importance of a

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“personal sound” is probably one of the many reasons for the personal exploration of new

and innovative techniques, which in turn is displayed during performance.

Another level of structure lies within the rhythm section which accompanies the

soloist. One feature mentioned by Gushee is its timbral qualities, described as noisy and

resonant: an heterogeneous instrumentation that provides a rich texture upon which the

soloist must navigate. Another feature of the rhythm section is the fact that it is playing a

ciclic framework of 32 bars which has a specific harmonic and rhythmic structure. The

rhythmic structure however is not 32 bars long and due to its unwritten nature it is not

easily defined. Gushee does not attempt a definition but others, such as Floyd (1995),

have referred to the time-line pattern as an organizing principle of African American music.

According to this view, the rhythmic syntax of this music is generally organized in eight-

pulse units; depending on the tempo, a 32 bar structure could be said to include 16 or 8

such units. Another interesting feature of the rhythm sections as a structure is that it is

responsive to what the soloist is playing. While normally considered inert, in this case, we

have a structure that can modify itself (while keeping the essential elements intact) in

response to the soloist’s inventions.

There is another level of structure, as described by Gushee, which he terms a

“rhetorical plan”. The first instance of this plan is an initial gesture which brings the soloist

out from the band’s texture and calls attention to itself. Next comes a demonstration of

“mastery” which entails technical ability, melodic imagination and a deep knowledge of the

conventions of style or, as Albert Murray (1976) would put it, its “techniques of stylization”.

Finally, a return to the band: an expressive peak and its anticlimax after which the soloist

returns to the collective texture of the ensemble.

These are only the first few structures within which Lester Young’s performance is

operating, if we go further with this approach we would have to include the hall in which it

is being recorded and the situation of the recording session itself, different than live

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performance. Then we would have to consider the historical and social moment in which

the solo is taking place, as well as the historical details of the specific tradition of jazz

performance at that time and so on.

Deconstructionism

This building up of structure upon structure as we have seen, can become highly

complex and ultimately lead us to a saturated web of possibilities. This is the point that I

think Jacques Derrida was trying to make when he put forward the notion of

deconstructionism. His ideas take aim at structuralism and its claims of universality and of

course at the Enlightenment (represented by Kant). He claims that structures of historical

context are so infinitely complex, that they are essentially unknowable. He also questions

the metaphysical assumptions of the humanist tradition like the progressive nature of

history. Furthermore, he questions the unity of the subject, be it the author or the

interpreter; without a coherent and supposedly rational subjectivity, there can be no point

to the search for meaning. He goes further and declares “the end of history” because of

these impossibilities. I think that the ultimate goal of Derrida is to delegitimize the authority

of intellectuals, or anyone for that matter, and their aspirations of finding out the “Truth”.

Deconstructionist hermeneutics analyzes texts with the aim of demonstrating their internal

incoherence and their randomness. As far as I know, this approach has not been applied

to jazz analysis for obvious reasons, its basic premises undermine the whole project and

its objectives.

I have included this contemporary tendency in the genealogy of hermeneutics we

have been examining because it is a sort of termination of the whole tradition. While not

very productive on its own, deconstructive thought is the result of the overly reassuring

notion of unity within texts. In the case of jazz music and music in general, this notion of

unity is very well represented. While the early analysts of jazz music attempted to

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demonstrate such unity, in order to justify the music’s value, later critics have question the

very assumption of unity as a term which is foreign to jazz performance. Some of those

critics have observed the problem but haven’t proposed an alternative solution.

Signifyin’ and Ancient Hermeneutics

Others authors have instead provided alternative frameworks for understanding that

are less reliant on unity but on reference and satyrical commentary. Many authors for

instance have referred to Henry Louis Gates’ (1988) signifyin’ theory which, although it

was first conceived as a literary theory, has definitively something of substance to

contribute. Indeed, the main character in Gates’ account is Esu, a trickster figure that

appears in Yoruba and Fon cultures of West Africa. Hermes, the greek god after whom

hermeneutics is named, shares a great deal of features with Esu: both are the messengers

from the gods to the people, both are masters of the roads and of fertility, they are both

known as tricksters and thieves. According to Gate’s theory, signifyin’ is the practice of

commenting by way imitating or parodying someone else’s work at the level of surface or

structure. This literary practice within texts can be found as well on other cultural practices

like ‘doing the dozens’ or jazz improvisation.

I believe that the power of this alternative is that it makes jazz appear as a kind of

hermeneutic practice in itself. In this sense, it is an idea closely related to Heidegger’s

thought. According to him, humans are interpreting beings by default, our consciousness is

constituted by what we make out of the sensory input we receive and it is continually

revising and modifying itself throughout our history. To think of jazz improvisation as

signifyin’ is a powerful idea because it empowers its practitioners and participants who

become not merely subjects to the structural scaffolding of their particular context but

interpreters of their own musical, social and historical text. Ultimately, the success of a jazz

performance lies in its ability to suit the moment, just like in Near Eastern discussions of

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improvisation (Blum 1998: 28). Every jazz musician needs to be able to accommodate the

expectations of her audience while at the same time, push the limits of those same

expectations in order to sustain their attention.

Jazz improvisation as hermeneutics

Within jazz improvisation we can distinguish many of the features of the

Hermeneutic tradition that are reflected in its practice. Starting with Ancient Hermeneutics,

we find the idea of temporality, jazz is essentially a temporal object. If we take the idea of

“telling a story” metaphorically, we see how it relates to the Greek notion of explanation,

the jazz solo must be inteligible, it must be something that we can understand. Finally,

translation requires the technical knowledge that jazz musicians painstakingly develop in

order to translate what they hear in their mind (inspiration) into actual sounds in the world.

There are important connections as well with Romanticism in the notions of

creativity, self-expression and very importantly, the communal nature of language. For a

jazz musician, a performance is an act of creative expression which is subjective and

personal. But it also involves the necessity of sharing these expressions within a

community of people that can ‘speak the same language’. I think we can call this shared

language, following Albert Murray and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), the Blues. People that

belong to the community of Blues can understand jazz musicians’ riffs, moans,

syncopations, quotations and harmonies because they share a common historical

knowledge.

We then come to Heidegger and his notion of being-in-time which is central to any

understanding of jazz music. Not only are jazz musicians and audiences bound by the

present time in performance, but they are part of a historical continuum, of a tradition.

Their practice of signifyin' clearly reveals a very nuanced understanding of their belonging

to a cultural tradition and their self-perception as historical agents.

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Based on the work of Gadamer, we can apply the notion of the forestructure of

understanding, that is to say, the pre-conceived notions that a player brings to a given

performance. Every respectable player, has very developed prejudices (in the sense that

Gadamer uses) of what it is that they are going to do. They have a technical knowledge of

their instrument and of harmony and melody and they have a deep knowledge of their

tradition. The act of performing involves the creation of a new meaning that fuses past and

present or, in Gadamer’s terms, a fusion of horizons. Finally, we can add the criticisms of

Habermas and his concern with ideology and how it can distort interpretations. For jazz

musicians, thought it is not explicitly stated, their ideological biases in the form of

modernism (or Afro-modernism) and racism are important shaping forces in the music and

its reception.

Any attempt at analyzing music and interpreting its meaning or translating it from

one medium to the other, requires that we are familiar with the underlying assumptions and

the historical tradition of the interpretation practice itself. Just like jazz players are required

to know their history and acknowledge their belonging to a tradition. It is my personal

believe that our prejudices can be shaped overtime and that a more complete picture of

the structures within which musicians live and perform can help us to listen in different

ways. I agree with Gadamer in that each interpretation is a creative act which brings forth

a new meaning which is transient and historical in its nature. I also agree with Habermas in

his concerns about ideology and its power to shape language and interpretation. But I

believe that structures shape language as much as language shapes structures, not only

written or spoken language, but musical language. By discovering new ways of listening to

old sounds we can understand our present and project our future differently.

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