“Anyone Can Improvise”: Technology and the Quantification of Jazz Improvisation

In the past 20 years, jazz educators and researchers have expanded the use of technology to understand, teach, and perform jazz improvisation. These technological advancements include computer software such as Band-in-a-Box, improvisation algorithms, neuroscientific studies, and the use of improvisation as a model for computerhuman interactivity. In my presentation, I argue that these developments are a continuation of a concept of jazz improvisation as a quantifiable, technical process that is accessible to anyone. This concept, associated with educators such as Jamey Aebersold, has been the dominant view in institutionalized jazz education for over 50 years