Embodied Music Theory and Improvised Composition: Bill Evans, the Architect
This article explores the connections and implications between a solo improvisation by Bill Evans, “Peace Piece”; a contemporaneous music theory, George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept (LCC); and my own analytical measurement, Pythagorean Height. I introduce the idea of Pythagorean Height to articulate a harmonic logic I hear in Evans’ performance. Like “Peace Piece”, Pythagorean Height resonates in many ways with Russell’s ideas, but also differs in crucial details. It is these resonances, as well as the discrepancies, that form the body of the article. Russell has referred to the Pythagorean ‘prototype’ of his ‘Lydian proclivities’ (Russell 2001: 53). The idea of Pythagorean Height builds on the possibilities afforded by this ‘prototype' and my contention is that Bill Evans’ improvisation on “Peace Piece” is similarly built upon this prototype. Though there are historical and contextual connections between Evans and Russell, the article is not one of historical exploration, but rather a consideration of how three related ideas help to clarify, illuminate, re-enforce and critique one another. In discussing a personal propensity to “consciously abstract principles and put them into [his] own structure”, Evans noted that “a painter” should be “a draftsman, too, and an architect”. In adopting and following on from this metaphor, the article sets up two apparent dichotomies, rhetorically, between embodiment and improvisation on the one hand, and theory and composition on the other. The intent is that the article will emphasise the falsities of these dichotomies to be understood as ‘straw men’ framing the paper’s discussion.
