Comparative View of Jazz and Indian Classical Music
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Comparing Jazz and Indian classic music
Indian music is the greatest tradition of improvisation in the East. Therefore it is unsurprising that Jazz musicians, which have become the greatest exponents of improvisation in the West, have developed a certain fascination for Indian musicians and vice versa. Coltrane was fascinated by Indian music (even naming his son Ravi after Ravi Shankar). Keith Jarrett returned to improvised music, after a phase of playing entirely Western Classical music, on hearing a concert of Indian Classical music which he claims was "a reminder that what I was doing was not music" (in Carr 1991:157).
Both Jazz and Indian music are commonly described as improvised music but in fact, composition is integral to both arts. Compositions are used mainly as a springboard for improvisation and would probably account for about a tenth of a performance in both traditions[citation needed]. One of the functions of the composition is to define the structure upon which the improvisation is based. The gat is always played at the beginning of the final portion of an exposition of a rag by the soloist and from this, the tabla player is expected to join in. It is not uncommon for the tabla to have not been told what the tal or what tempo is to be used and would be expected to derive this information from the gat which he may not have heard before. If the soloist wishes to change to a new tal or tempo (other than by acceleration) it is signalled by playing a different gat.
The presentation of the two main instruments in jugalbandi (duet) has become common both in India and outside. What happens in Jugalbandi is not unlike the organisation of collective improvisation in jazz, in the sense that the musicians come together in the precomposed song or whatever the basis of the piece, and otherwise take it in turns to improvise in a spirit both of cooperation and friendly cooperation (Sorrell 1989:2).
In Jazz, the structure of the improvisation is most usually defined by the `head' which normally comprises a melody and a harmonic structure, but could contain more or less structural information such as changes of feel e.g. from swing to salsa, or changes of tempo or meter. The standard form of a jazz performance would start with the `head' which might be 32 bars long. Then, the musicians would take it in turn to improvise over this cyclic structure. The performance ends with a recapitulation of the `head'.
Improvisations in both musics take place within cyclic frameworks, with the notable exception of `free jazz' which consciously eschews predetermined structures. The ability to learn to use these frameworks to assist and inspire improvisation is really the essence of both art forms. Being able to maintain one's place is the tal is precisely analogous to `keeping the form' in Jazz playing. In fact, there are distinct similarities between the Sam (first beat) of the tal and `top of the form', the first beat of repeating structure, in Jazz. The special feature of the Sam is that phrases either start or end on it, reinforcing the notion that the tal is a `circular' structure. Whilst there is no such formalisation in Jazz of the `top of the form', there is no doubt that musicians often use the `top of the form' as the point of maximum release of tension.
- Ian Carr (1991) Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music (Grafton Books) ISBN 0-246-13434-8
- Neil Sorrell (1989) The North Indian Classical Sarangi: Its Technique and Role.