In “What Have Mondrian, Jazz Musicians, and Analysts in Common? Freedom Within Structure,” William Glover speaks of attending the 1995 Fall Meeting of The American and its “Neutrality and Abstinence” panel and musing thereafter on the relationship of these concepts to — among other things — jazz (TAP 30/2). Near the end of his column, he concludes: “The reporter, George Makari, mentioned that a jazz musician had explained to him that the key in jazz was listening to the mistakes. I think he neglected to say, as do critics of neutrality and abstinence, that the utility and beauty of mistakes can occur only in the context of the discipline and structure of the medium.”
In fact, what Dr. Glover would have me neglect to say is precisely what I did say. As the audiotapes of the panel show, in the discussion I raised questions about the critique we had heard that day, suggesting that these concepts were essentially pedagogic tools with greater relative value for the inexperienced analyst first learning the analytic stance. This notion was not particularly well received by some members of the panel, and so when I had a chance for a final summing up I employed this analogy: “I was once in conversation with a great jazz saxophone player, and I asked him how he learned and moved forward, and he said you listen to the accidents. It seems to me that you have to have some sense of tonal systems and things of that nature before you can learn and grow from the accidents.”
Hence it was no great wonder that Dr. Glover left the panel thinking about spontaneity within aesthetic form. It was only a surprise to find that he had so completely reversed my position and then used me as a straw man. In this case, it might be said that Glover's ear manifested too much freedom, given the structure of a tape-recorded panel. The end result is, I'm afraid, not what the audiophile would call high fidelity.
George J. Makari