''Do You Know...?'': The Jazz Repertoire in Action

228 Pages·2009·0.76 MB·English

by  Robert R. Faulkner

“Do You Know…?”

“Do You Know…?”
The Jazz Repertoire in Action
Robert R. Faulkner
& Howard S. Becker
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Robert R. Faulkner is professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts
Amherst. He is the author of Music on Demand: Composers and Careers in the Holly-
wood Film Industry.
Howard S. Becker taught at Northwestern University, the University of Washing-
ton, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of numer-
ous books, including Tricks of the Trade and Telling about Society.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2009 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2009
Printed in the United States of America
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13: 978-0-226-23921-7 (cloth)
isbn-10: 0-226-23921-7 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Faulkner, Robert R.
Do you know—? : the jazz repertoire in action / Robert R. Faulkner
and Howard S. Becker.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-226-23921-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-23921-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Jazz—Social aspects. 2. Jazz musicians. 3. Ensemble playing.
4. Performing arts—Repertoire. I. Becker, Howard Saul, 1928– II. Title.
ml3506 .f38 2009
781.65′1438—dc22
2008052963
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1992.
For Laura and Olivia—
RRF
For Dianne—
HSB
Still, there will come a time, here in Brooklyn, and all
over America, when nothing will be of more interest
than authentic reminiscences of the past. Much of
it will be made up of subordinate “memoirs,” and of
personal chronicles and gossip—but we think every
portion of it will always meet a welcome from the
large mass of American readers.
WALT WHITMAN
Contents
Preface ix
1 How Musicians Make Music Together 1
2 Repertoire as Activity: The Basic Elements 17
3 Learning Songs and Building an Individual Repertoire:
Sources 37
4 The Skills You Need to Play the Contents
of the Song Reservoir 63
5 Things Change: The Organization of Musical Life 87
6 Things Change: The Music 113
7 On the Stand: Putting Repertoire to Work 139
8 The Results of Bandstand Dynamics 165
9 Playing the Repertoire Game: What We Wanted to
Know and How We Learned to Ask a Better Question 183
Appendix: How We Did the Research 195
References 199
Index 203

Preface
This project was a long time coming, though the time we spent on it dur-
ing which we knew that we were “doing a project” was relatively brief.
For both of us, the work began when we started studying music, in early
adolescence, or maybe when we started playing professionally, in late ad-
olescence. Certainly not later than that. When we grew up and became
professional sociologists, we didn’t abandon music. On the contrary, mu-
sic helped support us through school and afterward. And our research
focused, now and then, on music as a topic of investigation. Becker’s M.A.
thesis and Faulkner’s Ph.D. dissertation both dealt with the music busi-
ness and both authors wrote other things about music and the music busi-
ness throughout their lives as sociologists.
Which means that we owe a big thank you to all the people who worked
with us, taught us, gave us jobs when we needed them, and made us feel
at home in music during all the years from then until now—too many
to name. But Becker would like to acknowledge, posthumously, Lennie
Tristano, from whom he learned about piano playing and a lot of other
things, and Faulkner is grateful for the opportunity to make music with
Adam Kolker, Bill Goodwin, Scott Hamilton, Donn Trenner, Fred Tillis,
Jeff Holmes, and the late, great David Pinardi. Each of these musicians
taught him something about the moral order of the bandstand.
A little to our surprise, we did receive a grant to do this research from
the National Science Foundation (NSF award SBE-0549584, titled “Rep-
ertoire in Action among Musicians”), which we gratefully acknowledge.
It provided substantial help in getting the work done. We are also grate-