Improvisation, Science, and Spiritual Growth
Can improvisation be a path for spiritual growth?
Caesar DiMauro, improvising
Learn the Patterns, Then Improvise
In the late 70s and 1980s, I took saxophone lessons with a local legend on Staten Island, Caesar DiMauro. I loved Caesar’s cackling laugh, and his laid-back manner, which mirrored his behind-the-beat jazz style derived from Lester Young. In addition to playing jazz sax on alto, soprano, and tenor, he played orchestral and chamber music on oboe and alto.
I’ll always remember the time Caesar played Darius Milhaud’s Scaramouche – Op. 165 at the Jewish Community Center. I sat next to another student of Caesar’s, Jon Gordon, who went on to become an excellent jazz saxophonist. After playing Milhaud’s composition for saxophone flawlessly, Caesar proceeded to swang his butt off performing jazz. We marveled at the depth of his musicianship.
At his shed on the South Shore of Staten Island, Caesar once told me: “Greg, in jazz first you learn all your scales, your chord progressions, the blues in every key, the standards. You learn various patterns and solos from your favorite musicians. But when you get on stage, you throw all of that away and just play.”
The Science of Improvisation
What’s fascinating about the conversations about jazz and improvisation is that it’s almost frightening how well connected are the concepts of improvisation, the notion of these individual parts playing off each other: what you get is an emergent phenomenon that comes from the way they interact. These are cutting edge problems in contemporary evolutionary genetics . . .
Brandon Ogbunu, Evolutionary Biologist
As quiet as it’s kept, scholars in a wide range of fields have studied how improvisation relates to all from literature and dance, visual art and music, comedy, architecture, nature, and conversations we have every day. The two-volume Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, edited by Columbia Professor of Music (and MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow) George Lewis and Cornell music professor Benjamin Piekut, clearly demonstrate that improvisation is ubiquitous.
But I was still curious: would top scientists relate improvisation to life and the universe? My answers came from evolutionary biologist Brandon Ogbunu and theoretical physicist Stephon Alexander, both science professors at Brown University. Alexander is a saxophonist and the author of the path-breaking book, The Jazz of Physics.
I asked these gentlemen to make presentations for a class I led in spring 2019 at Jazz at Lincoln Center, “The Art and Science of Improvisation.”
OMG. It reminded me of Johnny Griffin and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis throwin’ down while toasting the town. They dropped so much science that it was like Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee” morphing into John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” with touches of Ornette Coleman and Muhal Richard Abrams added for good measure.
Brandon’s short talk was titled Evolution: Improvisation and Innovation.
Takeaway quote: “I think jazz music and biological evolution are two of the greatest improvisational and creative forces in the universe—in terms of what they’re able to do.”
Stephon’s slightly longer presentation was as daunting: Improvisation and the Quantum Universe.
Takeaway quote: “The Universe improvised us.”
All the above leads us now to answer our opening question, which relates improvisation and spirituality.
Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
In 2010 I had the honor of interviewing grandmaster tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins.
My daughter Kaya was almost 15. We were in our living room in New Rochelle, NY. I had Sonny on speakerphone so she could share in the experience. Sonny dropped wisdom and knowledge as fluidly as his mighty solo on “Without A Song” from The Bridge.
But then he began swinging at an even higher octave: “Greg, I’m striving to get to a place not where I play the horn, but where the horn plays me.”
Whoa. I looked at Kaya. Her eyelids rose, her mouth opened in shock. I was astonished too.
It’s taken from then ’til now for me to unpack Sonny’s Zen- or Sufi-like statement.
He didn’t mean an inanimate object, a woodwind musical instrument, becoming sentient. No. Rather, I think it’s about attunement, being totally in tune with one’s chosen instrument of expression. What Sonny was reaching for goes past the conscious mind to the unconscious flow that connects with Source. That state of consciousness is you being an instrument through which Source plays.
Now let’s dance with the wisdom of a spiritual master:
Michael Beckwith
Rev. Michael Beckwith
In Michael Beckwith’s 40 Day Mind Fast Soul Feast there’s a section titled “Spiritual Loyalty.” He writes: “To grow up spiritually means to take personal responsibility for your growth and development. You drop follow-ship for leadership by Spirit. While you learn from your various teachers, you don’t make them your gods. . . Only you can do the inner work required for you to wake up.”
My sax teacher recommended learning the solos of the greats of yesteryear but when you get up on the stage of life, just play you, with your voice and sound. Sonny Rollins, a jazz master since the 1950s, was known for his spiritual quests to India and Japan. He strived to be self-less so Spirit would flow through his horn.
Beckwith agrees with the wisdom of my sax teacher and combines it with Sonny’s higher octave:
“Remember, spiritual paths are merely the maps [the chord changes, the melodies, the rhythmic patterns], the road guides to awakening, the finger pointing to the moon. Once you’ve arrived, throw away the maps.”
And just play.