When Jack Welch wrote a book with his wife, Suzy, called Winning (2005), I don’t think anyone was surprised. Winning was what Jack Welch was all about during his career in business. And he believed fervently that such winning produced a broad range of benefits that were the foundation of a free and democratic society.
Welch identified eight essentials of leadership that can be linked in provocative ways with the dynamics of jazz.
1. Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-confidence. Every performance provides jazz musicians with an opportunity to hone their capacity to perform better. They are constantly helping and encouraging each other to reach their full potential, then reach beyond that.
2. Leaders make sure people not only see the vision, that they live and breathe it. When a jazz group really swings, they have tapped into their passions, applied them to the chosen music, and allowed that spirit to infuse their whole beings.
3. Leaders get into everyone’s skin, exuding positive energy and optimism. Jazz groups thrive on the possibility of achieving something truly inspiring and satisfying, both for themselves and for their audiences.
4. Leaders establish trust with candor, transparency, and credit. Relationships that are characterized by honesty, openness, and mutual acknowledgment lie at the heart of great jazz.
5. Leaders have the courage to make unpopular decisions and gut calls. Jazz musicians rely heavily on their instinct and feel for the best interpretation of the piece with this group for this audience at this time. It takes courage to push both performers and audiences beyond their comfort zones at times, but that’s what real jazz does.
6. Leaders probe and prod with a curiosity that borders on skepticism, making sure their questions are answered with action. Jazz is created through questions such as, “What would happen if…?” and “Why don’t we try this …?,” then doing it.
7. Leaders inspire risk-taking and learning by setting the example. Leaders of jazz groups motivate others to improvise by first taking the risks themselves.
8. Leaders celebrate. Watch a live jazz group. Not only the leader, but everyone involved is nodding, smiling, appreciating, and celebrating what is being created. That keeps the spirit and momentum up for ever improving performance.
This flow of leadership practices works well in whatever field of endeavor your have chosen. You will notice that most of the practices are shared by all the members of the group. In jazz, the leadership role shifts from player to player and all contribute to the desired results. Developing the capacity to perform in this manner will improve your leadership performance significantly, regardless of the position you hold in your organization.
By: Brian Fraser
Jazz is sometimes referred to as “America’s classical music”. It has become a diverse genre with its roots in native American and African music; in particular, the blues, spirituals and rag time. Jazz first became a defined music form in the early 1920 springing from the US cities of New Orleans and later Chicago. Early Jazz was characterized by traditional rhythms and melodies being taken and improvised upon, giving a combination of swing and syncopation. Early Jazz performers of note included Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Domino, Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong. A good taste of this period can be gained by listening to recordings of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Hot Seven ensembles.
By the 1930 Jazz had spread out of its local bases in South American and became more mainstream attracting white musicians as well. One development of Jazz was the big bands such as Ben Goodman and Glen Miller. Glen Millers big band became very successful and popular, but offering little scope for improvisation jazz aficionados saw it as more of swing rather than real jazz. However other big bands such as Duke Ellington and Count Basie provided some of the all time great Jazz recordings.
Whilst the Big Band led jazz in a more conventional direction. The late 1930s and 1940s also saw jazz develop in another direction through the creation of the new “Be Bop” craze. Be Bop is epitomized by the great musicians such as Charlie “Bird” Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sonny Rollins. These musicians took Jazz to new heights of improvisation, loosening the adherence to harmony’s and rigid chord structures.
Unlike previous forms of jazz, Be bop was not designed for dancing but was seen more like an opportunity to showcase the musical expertise of the performers. Some of the great be bop recordings came about as the performers played off each other, each striving for greater excellence and improvisation. One of the greatest recordings of this period was “Jazz at Masey Hall” 1953 featuring Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker amongst others, it is a very good example of live jazz music. In the 1960s Be bop evolved into a form of “free jazz” with little if any adherence to conventional harmonies and chord structures. One of the best selling jazz recordings which characterized this new form was “A Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis.
Alas many of the great jazz performers led tragic lives, a seemingly very high percentage died prematurely, inevitably from drug and alcohol misuse. Unfortunately many young performers came to associate drugs with being a successful jazz performer so jazz developed a strong reputation for association with narcotics.
To play Jazz music successfully a classical background is definitely an advantage. To be a successful jazz player you need to be able to learn the chords and scales of the song. With this basic structure you can then improvise around these chords to give the improvised or jazz effect. However to be a great jazz musician a lot more is needed than formal training, successful improvisation is a difficult skill that appears to come easily to a rare few.
By: Richard Pettinger