Daniel Martin Feige. Philosophie des Jazz (2014) (In German)

Academic writing on music in Germany is a very old and refined art, going back several centuries. Nevertheless, a purely philosophical approach to jazz music is rare. I cannot think of any other recent work in German language with that topic.
Feige, a philosopher and former jazz pianist currently teaching at Stuttgart Academy of the Arts, Germany, takes his time and gets into  definitions of art, music, aesthetics and the nature of classifications as such. Nevertheless, his approach is a philosophical one, and we encounter quite a different conceptualization of jazz here, compared to the many other writings about it that more or less share the same ideas about jazz as an aesthetic form that clearly stands out and needs little additional definition. (And in a way, this book could be just what you have been looking for in case you wondered how to write on jazz but then not to write about jazz in the first place.)

But then Feige’s compelling line of argument starts very much at the beginning – not of jazz – but of our understanding (and definition) of music and the many different ways of approaching art. Having then made way for a number of basic expectations that people associate with music and art, or music as being something worth preserving, along comes the matter of how to relate music to (other) music(s). That is, how can European classical music be related to jazz? Alternatively, are there ways of comparing the two genres or some other musical genres?

So rather early in the book – as compared to the early doubts and the earliest historical critique concerning jazz by so-called music experts – the reader slowly is introduced not just to the philosophy of jazz, but additionally to the way philosophy encounters not just the arts in general. But the image, entities and properties of any given subject.

In the case of jazz, we learn that getting back to the function of music and of art has a lot to do with how we as listeners and fans expect one thing or another from music consumption.
Following his arguments at times feels like reading classical texts on logic, then again, it is easy to get lost in the long chains of conclusions and hypothetical statements throughout every paragraph. If you are used to academic texts on an advanced level, you may even come to love this booklet with its short 132 pages.  About halfway through, we learn what in his eyes jazz “is not”; or rather, cannot be, but also could be if we changed our point of view concerning art history, meaning in music and communication techniques. So jazz would be something in between composition and improvisation, that cannot be defined by showing how it is “not” some other musical genre but how it is rooted in jazz standards, that again are “not” the same as European compositions, since standards are but rough outlines of songs.

Since Feige also goes into detail of the necessary relation between collective effort and individual improvisation in jazz, this trademark again is present in classical European music too; however, on different terms. To him, in jazz certain aspects of music as art became visible, or rather explicit. Just like the personal involvement in terms of improvisation and emotional participation; the same features that also have existed in European musics for centuries. There, however, they were subdued, or met an implicit fate that had to be sacrificed for the sake of precision and organizational order.
Plenty of such elements and comparisons are easily found in his text. With each one Feige makes many points about the presence of this or that aspect of jazz that also can be found in other musical genres; on different terms and in other environments, but nevertheless, if we approach jazz as philosophers and at times with logic, the very special blending of jazz’s qualities stand out. And rather than attributing those qualities to jazz exclusively, we may come to a different understanding of music as a system of certain rules and expectations that need to be fulfilled. Only that with jazz music they are present in this unique way. Considering the majority of other writings on jazz as a system, a theory, or a “frame of mind,” this small booklet actually can enhance your perspective on jazz. Alternatively, it may help to make certain things and expectations surface, while the text continuously states that there are many more designs in other styles of music that may owe their special characteristics to a different arrangement of very similar musical constituents.

It probably will not completely change anybody’s view on jazz, however, it may make way for a number of new thoughts concerning the jazz standard and improvisation in jazz. The feature of explicit improvisation is the central point for Feige: he perceives it as art’s most powerful aspect, no matter what art is referred to, since improvisation needs to negotiate past and current aspects of art while commenting on these spontaneously and differently each time.
Hopefully, this book will be translated in other languages, currently it is only available in German.

Review by Dr. A. Ebert © 2015

Daniel Martin Feige. Philosophie des Jazz (suhrkamp taschenbuch wissenschaft), Suhrkamp, 2014, 142 p.