Posted: May 25, 2016 7:51 am
That's fascinating stuff. I think I can muster some minimal glimpse into the complexities involved in improvisational jazz, and it is definitely extremely impressive.
Other than this, " Improvisers are challenged with an ongoing stream of decision points, all of which require monitoring of multiple perceptual inputs and near instantaneous response generation.", the description given doesn't appear to address the communication going on between the musicians. From the way I've heard some of them talk, there is significant communication going on in some non-verbal, even non-physical way. I mean they 'talk' through the music, not by signs, words, etc. It's all opaque to me. It's also possible, a jazz musician is not going to be all that aware of, might not notice, actual physical clues that may pass between the performers, like the unconscious communications we all engage in, usually without being aware of it. This is just a bunch of idle speculation, I really don't understand any of it at pretty much any level.
All of that is definitely fascinating, but says absolutely nothing about what music is. Why it's so important universally across cultures, why we so strongly react to it the way we do, react to sounds with no obvious connection to the emotions elicited, why/how rhythm, and meter and tempo also, play such important roles and in more than music only.