Writing as Jazz, Jazz as Writing

Words of writing wisdom gleaned from some jazz greats.

Because I have a musical background, I often think about writing through a variety of musical lenses.

Writing as classical music with its sonata form and three act structure.

Writing as rock music with its raw power of emotion.

Writing as country music with its love of character-driven stories.

Writing as hip hop with its embrace of the poetry of storytelling.

But if I had to choose one musical genre which best fits what we do as writers, it would be jazz.

Why? Because every time we sit down to write, we have to do two fundamental things:

• Write in the moment
• Improvise

Every scene exists in our present tense. We have to be right there with our characters to experience the story unfolding in ‘The Now’.

Every time a jazz musician performs live, they exist in the moment. They find the spark of creativity by playing off each other and giving themselves over to every second of the songs they perform.

Likewise whenever we sit down to write, no matter how much of the story we’ve figured out, we have to give room for spontaneity and to improvise when our characters veer over here or there.

So, too, jazz musicians whose lifeblood is improvisation, making it up as they go along, pushing the envelope, and testing each song in nightly performance.

That inspired me to do a series this week featuring quotes from some of the all-time great jazz players.

“I never thought innovation as such was very important. Not when you have to think about it… If you’re going to come up with a new direction or a really new way to do something, you’ll do it by just playing your stuff and letting it ride. The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.”
Part 1: Count Basie

“The difficult I’ll do right now. The impossible will take a little while.”
Part 2: Billie Holiday

“If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.”
Part 3: Charlie Parker

“I stole everything I ever heard, but mostly I stole from the horns.”
Part 4: Ella Fitzgerald

“Anybody can write. The word is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who writes it is 80 percent.”
Part 5: Miles Davis

“It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling.”
Part 6: Bill Evans

“There are notes between notes, you know.”
Part 7: Sarah Vaughan

“If you have something to say of any worth, then people will listen to you.”
Part 8: Oscar Peterson

“Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.”
Part 9: Charles Mingus

“I have to feel that I’m after something. If I make money, fine. But I’d rather be striving. It’s the striving, man, it’s that I want.”
Part 10: John Coltrane

“The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.”
Part 11: Thelonious Monk

Read my reflections on the writing life based on quotes from these 10 amazing musicians. If you want more of this series, click RESPONSE and let me know.