Conducted Improvisation

Adorno's critique of Jazz leads us to believe that even improvisation is derivative and predictable because of the social standard for "good improvisation" that sticks to chord progressions and musical maneuvers that are pleasing to the ear and musically coherent.

Admittedly tooting my own horn here, I taught a DeCal last year that aimed to teach musicians to improvise in a large group. At varying skill levels, the performance required some direction, so I conducted, also improvising.The music itself was not necessarily typical, but as spontaneous and strange as it was, the music moves made by each player were taught, codified, and easily reproducible.

Here's a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av6WGPpOHrE&list=PLoKM6QT3EquNh3cvwQFltd_idPZBTHgKR&index=4

Improvised Recital