Knowing as Instancing: Jazz Improvisation and Moral Perfectionism
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 (2):99-111 (2000)
Abstract
This essay presents an approach to understanding improvised music, finding in the work of certain outstanding jazz musicians an emblem of Ralph Waldo Emerson's notion of self-trust and of Stanley Cavell's notion of moral perfectionism. The essay critiques standard efforts to interpret improvised solos as though they were composed, contrasting that approach to one that treats the procedures of improvisation as derived from our everyday actions. It notes several levels of correspondence between our interest in jazz improvisations and the particular demands of Emerson's writing, and ends by considering how exemplary moments of instruction in jazz are expressive of Emersonian self-trust.Author's Profile
DOI
10.2307/432089
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Citations of this work
Urban Shanties: Improvisation and Vernacular Architecture.David Goldblatt - 2012 - Evental Aesthetics 1 (3):90-112.
The Jazz Solo as Virtuous Act.Stefan Caris Love - 2016 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74 (1):61-74.
Review of C. Koopman, Pragmatism as Transition. Historicity and Hope in James, Dewey, and Rorty. [REVIEW]Roberto Frega - 2009 - European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 1 (1).
Jazz Improvisation, the Body, and the Ordinary.William Day - 2002 - Tidskrift För Kulturstudier 5:80-94.