Anyone who plays jazz in Europe is always caught in the field of tension between two very different ways of making music. An important part of this tension comes from the two poles of improvisation and composition. For jazz, improvisation is one of its fundamental defining features. Improvisation is about the spontaneous flow of ideas, which follows no predetermined dramatic course, and about the communication between the musicians. Every jazz musician sees himself as a creative artist making his own independent contribution to the overall sound of the band. The attitude to music-making that results shapes not only the music itself but also things that seem as remote as one’s image of humanity and society, or one’s sense of time. In classical European music the composer is the central figure. The working method of “fixing musical events in the form of a score” (Manos Tsangaris) is, across all stylistic differences, what classical music from the Baroque to modernism has in common.
If jazz in Europe is not to be superficial, it has to come to terms with this compositional tradition and the masterpieces it has produced. In doing so you run into the problem that writing scores almost inevitably leads to a way of making music that runs counter to the very nature of jazz: composing freezes time, so to speak. Sequences of events are made repeatable and thereby taken out of time as the improviser experiences it, flowing on organically and unstoppably. The performing musicians are not allowed to be creative themselves. They are mere tools of the composer, to whom alone the artistic act belongs. Moreover, a repeatable performance faithful to the work requires a strict hierarchy that tightly limits the musicians’ freedom. Against these disadvantages stand the inexhaustible possibilities of sound, harmony and form that can only be achieved by writing scores.
Because of these disadvantages of composing, one can take a radical stance and allow only improvisation as the shaping element of music. But experience has shown that clichés arise here too, and that, against the musicians’ intentions, repeated structures and patterns form. That is why I think it makes sense not to give up the possibilities of score writing altogether, but to integrate them into jazz. Some composers, such as Klaus König, have tried to compose the improvising styles of their band members into their pieces. In my view, though, this has the serious drawback that the music sounds like improvisation without really being improvisation. It also raises the question of authorship of such a composition. Is it the work of the composer, or should it be credited to the musician whose improvising style was worked into it? Finally, from a practical point of view it is a problem that the line-up for a performance of the piece must always stay the same.
My own approach therefore goes in the opposite direction. In the composed parts of my cycles Psalmen und Lobgesänge and Pangäa, I aim for a musical statement that is as dense and clearly formulated as possible, into which I bring only my own style. In these parts the musicians really do have a role corresponding to that of a classical orchestral musician, and they are to a certain extent interchangeable. Between them stand the improvised sections, which are connected to the composition through the shared groove and the harmony but leave the soloist complete freedom in shaping the improvisation. Finally, in the composed backgrounds, composer and improviser enter into a dialogue in which both bring their personalities to bear.
This way of working has the advantage of allowing performances with different musicians, who may be completely unlike one another. It also lets me as a composer make extensive use of the possibilities of score writing and develop a compositional signature entirely my own. In terms of form, what emerges is an epic, flowing structure in which different sections alternate, and which suits the jazz sense of time better than overly complex and dramatic sequences. You could say that bringing the European compositional tradition into jazz is one of the most interesting tasks facing the European jazz scene. Have fun composing, improvising and, of course, listening.