Articles by David Pleasant

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Jazz is More Than Jazz

by David Pleasant
February 3, 2008

Jazz is more than jazz. The thing that drew me to the musical experience called jazz was its potential to radicalize form. Improvisation appeared to me as an epiphanous instantaneous elevation to non-time: a place that defied the enforced categories of gravity, horizon, race, politics, age and so forth. I am aware, however, that beyond those moments, the structures that control it are indeed bound by the very forces that it transcends. The boundless potential of improvisation has a long ...