Jazz as a Language: What the Improviser DoesWriten by Ed Byrne
Jazz is a language. Its practitioners are public speakers. Think of what happens when one learns to speak English, Korean or Japanese, for example. The process is the same as when learning jazz. You learn by listening and picking up figures of speech, then you learn to use them in your own personal manner to make statements by putting them together in paragraphs and sentences to tell your story.
If you were to speak publicly, you would want to know the story well (in this case the tune or composition), and you would want to know the vocabulary. You would practice telling the story, work out the rough parts, and then learn how to vary the story in a variety of ways, for example, short vs. long versions, different introductions, and endings, substitute words and phrases, rhythms, moods and pacing, and so on.
As with public speakers such as politicians, you get all kinds of jazz performer: those who are insincere, those who are slick, those who are brilliant and have their own voices and styles, those who are spontaneous, those who use easy to understand vocabulary (soft jazz), those who use complex language (Miles Davis, John Coltrane), those who are mediocre, and those who deliver a memorized or prompted (written) statement.
You get the comparison, so contemplate it in every aspect and you'll understand. The only difference between an extemporaneous art form such as jazz and the spoken language is the fact that you can't use it for such practical purposes as ordering a cup of coffee.
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