Postbop Jazz in the 1960s: The Compositions of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea. Keith Waters.

Abstract

It would not surprise me if to a relative outsider, most musical-technical writings on jazz would seem rather puzzling, possibly even bewildering, and also—or perhaps especially—to the musically literate. Those who want to inform themselves about jazz would, I imagine, quickly come across books on jazz theory and harmony, only to be confronted with a mix of mysterious symbols and an abundance of chord formations within a web of modes and scales that range from the familiar, through the exotic, to the highly artificial. These rather one-sidedly pitch-oriented matters have a central role in jazz’s performance practice, but while for the uninitiated this theoretical vocabulary can make for a rocky start, for scholars by no means does it provide a sufficient analytical framework. However, this vocabulary is so central to the music that anyone dealing with jazz will have to engage with it one way or another, and will have to find a balance between a critical stance and adopting some of the elements.