ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the Instant Composers Pool and its musicians, and signals the central topic of the book: the use of a notated repertoire within a freely improvised performance practice, and consequently the reconsideration of concepts of notation and improvisation. The chapter describes how the ICP might be considered “beyond jazz”, both in terms of its historical emergence in between the genres of jazz, experimental music, and performance art, and of its practice in between improvised and composed performance. Drawing on the work of Georgina Born and Bruno Latour, it argues for a consideration of musical genre as assemblage or Actor-Network, something always being produced along lines of intersection between categories and identities. It questions the ontology distinguishing between improvisation and composition on the basis of the presence or absence of music notation, and draws on theories of material culture to suggest that the notations of the ICP repertoire are non-human actors in their performances. It concludes with a consideration of ethnographic method and Misha Mengelberg’s ill health during my fieldwork.
