“Entering the Tone World”: Theorizing Collective Improvisation Through Intergenerational Pedagogy

Abstract Founded in 1996, Arts for Art (AFA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated explicitly to “the promotion and advancement of FreeJazz—an African American indigenous art form in which improvisation is principle.” Through a variety of educational initiatives, AFA also supports new generations of musicians. Included among these are weekly Intergenerational Ensemble rehearsals led by William Parker. Each week, musicians of all ages and backgrounds are invited to join in a practice of pedagogically oriented free improvisation, “learn[ing] ways to build a creative improvising musical vocabulary by listening and responding” and “find[ing] their way into the Tone World.” The AFA Intergenerational Ensemble thus provides new avenues for consideration: What can we learn about improvisation from a pedagogical perspective, especially one aimed at intergenerational students? What might it take to traverse “the Tone World”? Here, I draw upon my own experiences performing with the AFA Intergenerational Ensemble as a means through which to theorize collective improvisation. I examine the anatomy of an Intergenerational Ensemble rehearsal, and through evidence from direct conversations with Parker and other participants, I argue that this pedagogical practice constitutes what Mark Hannaford calls “fugitive music theory.” I provide a comparative analysis of an audio recording from an ensemble rehearsal alongside a publicly released track from the album Universal Tonality. In so doing, I interpret Parker's “Tone World” to mean not an explicitly harmonic or timbral space but something more utopian in nature. In so doing, I demonstrate how improvised music in this setting emphasizes an explicitly activist, radical empathy.