Enth.: Vol. 1: Theory

Thought-provoking papers on the relatively new field of organizational improvisation, which consider the pressures on organizations to react continually to today's ever-changing environment.

Confronted with rapid and unpredictable environments, contemporary organizations are becoming more aware of the benefits of improvisation. By improvising, organizations create the capacity to make sudden adaptive moves, thus adapting in real time to unexpected events. Organizational improvisation is thus a new and exciting area in terms of practice and research. Organizational improvisation has important implications for such subjects as product innovation, teamworking and organizational renewal, and this new book brings together some of the best and most thought-provoking papers published in recent years. Organizational improvisation is now emerging as one of the most important areas of organizational science, and this book provides a comprehensive collection suitable for students, researchers and practitioners alike. Frank J. Barrett Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Monterey, USA, David T. Bastien Minneapolis, USA, Shona L.

Following the same format as the acclaimed first volume, this selection of the best 250 modern jazz records and CDs places each in its musical context and reviews it in depth. Additionally, full details of personnel, recording dates, and locations are given. Indexes of album titles, track titles, and musicians are included.

A landmark in jazz studies, Thinking in Jazz reveals as never before how musicians, both individually and collectively, learn to improvise. Chronicling leading musicians from their first encounters with jazz to the development of a unique improvisatory voice, Paul Berliner documents the lifetime of preparation that lies behind the skilled improviser's every idea. The product of more than fifteen years of immersion in the jazz world, Thinking in Jazz combines participant observation with detailed musicological analysis, the author's experience as a jazz trumpeter, interpretations of published material by scholars and performers, and, above all, original data from interviews with more than fifty professional musicians: bassists George Duvivier and Rufus Reid; drummers Max Roach, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Akira Tana; guitarist Emily Remler; pianists Tommy Flanagan and Barry Harris; saxophonists Lou Donaldson, Lee Konitz, and James Moody; trombonist Curtis Fuller; trumpeters Doc Cheatham, Art Farmer, Wynton Marsalis, and Red Rodney; vocalists Carmen Lundy and Vea Williams; and others. Together, the interviews provide insight into the production of jazz by great artists like Betty Carter, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, and Charlie Parker. Thinking in Jazz overflows with musical examples from the 1920s to the present, including original transcriptions (keyed to commercial recordings) of collective improvisations by Miles Davis's and John Coltrane's groups. These transcriptions provide additional insight into the structure and creativity of jazz improvisation and represent a remarkable resource for jazz musicians as well as students and educators. Berliner explores the alternative ways—aural, visual, kinetic, verbal, emotional, theoretical, associative—in which these performers conceptualize their music and describes the delicate interplay of soloist and ensemble in collective improvisation. Berliner's skillful integration of data concerning musical development, the rigorous practice and thought artists devote to jazz outside of performance, and the complexities of composing in the moment leads to a new understanding of jazz improvisation as a language, an aesthetic, and a tradition. This unprecedented journey to the heart of the jazz tradition will fascinate and enlighten musicians, musicologists, and jazz fans alike.

Music at the Edge invites the reader to experience a complete music therapy journey through the words and music of the client, and the therapist’s reflections. Francis, a musician living with AIDS, challenged Colin Andrew Lee, the music therapist, to help clarify his feelings about living and dying. The relationship that developed between them enabled Francis the opportunity to reconsider the meaning of his life and subsequent physical decline, within a musical context. First published in 1996, Music at the Edge is a unique and compelling music therapy case study. In this new edition of the highly successful book, Colin retains the force of the original text through the lens of contemporary music therapy theory. This edition also includes more detailed narrative responses from the author and his role as a therapist and gay man. Central to the book are the audio examples from the sessions themselves. The improvisations Francis played and his insightful verbal explorations provide an extraordinary glimpse into the therapeutic process when working in palliative and end-of-life care. This illuminating book offers therapists, musicians, related professionals and those working with, or facing, illness and death a unique glimpse into the transcendent powers of music. It is also relevant to anyone interested in the creative account of a pianist’s discovery of life and death through music.