ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the nature of time in jazz, as an embodied practice and as a set of cultural models that together make up musicians’ temporal knowledge and conduct. In understanding time as, perhaps, the central element in jazz performance, the chapter first considers the processual nature of time and the distinction between playing “in time” and playing “with time.” The second part of the chapter moves on to a discussion of time as a set of cultural models and examines the nameable, temporal “objects” that make up the stock of reference points and templates in the music.
