ABSTRACT
Improvisation is associated with creative spontaneity. There are periods in the history of jazz where jazz and improvisation are intimately linked. Since bebop, especially, an audience would expect a jazz soloist to improvise, either in a free jazz rendition or in a musical interpretation of an old standard. Experts on Iranian instrumental music, for instance, explain that improvisers in that tradition must learn several hundred elements that make up the repertoires of what is called the radif. Many writers have approached the concept by relating it to another supposedly less daunting one – composition, for instance. An opposing approach is to stress affinities between improvisation and composition. The French existentialists were fascinated by the idea of forced choice, according to which every moment in life is latent with an anxiety-charged choice among alternatives. Another way to explicate improvisation is as part of the very concept of work-performance.
