Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness: Jazz as Integral Template for Music, Education, and Society (SUNY series in Integral Theory)
Language: English
Pages: 488
ISBN: 1438447221
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Using insights from Integral Theory, describes how the improvisational methods of jazz can inform education and other fields.
Jazz, America’s original art form, can be a catalyst for creative and spiritual development. With its unique emphasis on improvisation, jazz offers new paradigms for educational and societal change. In this provocative book, musician and educator Edward W. Sarath illuminates how jazz offers a continuum for transformation. Inspired by the long legacy of jazz innovators who have used meditation and related practices to bring the transcendent into their lives and work, Sarath sees a coming shift in consciousness, one essential to positive change. Both theoretical and practical, the book uses the emergent worldview known as Integral Theory to discuss the consciousness at the heart of jazz and the new models and perspectives it offers. On a more personal level, the author provides examples of his own involvement in educational reform. His design of the first curriculum at a mainstream educational institution to incorporate a significant meditation and consciousness studies component grounds a radical new vision.
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Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness SUNY series in Integral Theory ————— Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, editor Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness Jazz as Integral Template for Music, Education, and Society Edward W. Sarath Cover image © Stephen Moore / iStockphoto.com Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2013 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
Unfortunately, 25 26 Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness the nonduality premise has not always assumed the centrality in integral discourse that it warrants, and in hopes of addressing this, I propose general and strong nonduality premises to bring a more nuanced approach to this realm. The first acknowledges the inextricable link between individual consciousness and cosmic wholeness; the second takes a further step and posits that individual creativity and cosmic creativity are
be ensured. To fathom the ethnocentric tendencies inherent in this perspective requires no great power of imagination. And perhaps the most serious casualty of the process dearth at the core of the classical model is the resultant limited capacity to critically examine these patterns and their origins. Limited means to connect with the broader landscape ensures limited capacities for practitioners to step back and examine their field as part of a larger entity. Underlying this is the limited
Selfmotivation is compromised—there is little to reflect upon if one cannot see the individual voice emerge in one’s work—as are limited self-navigational faculties. Any self-driven movement tends to be directed toward discipline-specific growth, not broader development. An example of this is the dependence on institutional resources in the classical field, as opposed to greater independence in the learning processes of jazz musicians. Musical study is a primary example of “paradigm blindness,”
of a clear and compelling vision of a new approach, as well as an analysis of the prevailing model’s limiting practices and conceptual underpinnings. This hit home early on in my teaching of improvisation to classical musicians. Although jazz was central to my job description, I had designed unique approaches to not only jazz improvisation but also stylistically open improvisation that provided classical (and other) musicians “user-friendly” entryways into the process. Instead of imposing
