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The purpose of this paper is to better understand communication between musicians in a free jazz improvisation in comparison to traditional jazz.

A cybernetic informative feedback model was used to study communication between musicians for free jazz. The conceptual model consists of the ears as sensors, an auditory analysis stage to convert the acoustic signals into symbolic information (e.g. notated music), a cognitive processing stage (to make decisions and adapt the performance to what is being heard), and an effector (e.g. muscle movement to control an instrument). It was determined which musical features of the co‐players have to be extracted to be able to respond adequately in a music improvisation, and how this knowledge can be used to build an automated music improvisation system for free jazz.

The three major findings of this analysis were: in traditional jazz a soloist only needs to analyze a very limited set of music ensemble features, but in free jazz the performer has to observe each musician individually; unlike traditional jazz, free jazz is not a strict rule‐based system. Consequently, the musicians need to develop their personal symbolic representation; which could be a machine‐adequate music representation for an automated music improvisation system. The latter could be based on acoustic features that can be extracted robustly by a computer algorithm.

Gained knowledge can be applied to build automated music improvisation systems for free jazz.

The paper expands our knowledge to create intelligent music improvisation algorithms to algorithms that can improvise with a free jazz ensemble.

The Noise Upstairs (NU) is a monthly freely improvised (‘free improv’) music night with a home above a café bar in a mixed/student suburb of Manchester. This chapter uses the perspective of critical improvisation studies to reflect on aspects of a performance ethnography carried out by the authors, both of whom are performers and one of whom (Hunter) curates the NU night for the NU collective. Free improv is a post-1960s set of meta-musical practices related to but contesting both ‘jazz’, ‘free jazz’, ‘new music’ and ‘experimental’ music. In it, real-time co-creation and negotiation of social-and-musical relationships are paramount. Consequently, the question of whether a politics of sorts is enacted in the dialogic and multilateral socialities generated in free improv is a substantive one. In addressing it, the authors deploy some concepts from the ‘affective turn’ in social theory to review how the general milieu and out-of-the-hat ensemble-formation approach adopted at NU in fact enables a ‘minor’ micro-political practice of participating differently to be established there. Arising from that discussion, and in line with a key theme of the wider PARTISPACE study, the authors then discuss whether that politics might meaningfully (and usefully) be articulated in terms of ‘democracy’.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how discourse and figure nurture the narrative “capital” available to the community of marketing scholars through expanding its horizon of translational frames. It specifically discusses one such translational frame as presented within Holbrook’s (2015) discussion of jazz within a narrative of marketing management and how it enhances the understanding of marketing as a creative cultural force.

Generalising from “jazz” to tropics, the commentary discusses three thematic reflective possibilities inspired by Holbrook’s article: content strategy; visual fluency and marketing creativity; and wider visions. This paper also examines how discussions about the wider public understanding of marketing can draw inspiration from the narrative framework suggested by Holbrook (2015) and his calculus of constructive ambiguity.

As an area of study, tropics enriches the reflexive awareness of how the discipline of marketing is understood within academia and its various stakeholder communities.

The academic discipline of marketing needs to continuously reimagine itself and its relation to the changing social order in order to participate in dialogue with it.

In particular, the commentary examines the jazz metaphor developed by Holbrook (2015) and suggests how this could affect the way that marketing presents itself within wider social contexts.

This paper investigates the meaning of sound in social life through participant observation of Experimental Improv and Noise (EIN) collectives in Virginia, United States. Employing a blend of interactionism and musical sociology, this paper is attentive to the sonic practices of EIN, examining how participants construct shared meanings about abstract, or even antimusical, sounds. The ability to construct shared meanings with nonpractitioners shapes the art world of EIN and has relevance for the resources available to EIN. In this way, I show how sonic practices are involved in the formation of the collaborative networks that undergird art worlds. I argue that the creation of shared meanings in interaction can generate new organizational forms as musicians build their own scenes and audiences in the digital age.

It's been three years since my previous survey in RSR. Superb reference books in pop music have been appearing so frequently that I've been having trouble keeping up. Let's hope “next year's” survey will only be 12 months in the making and not 36.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a viewpoint about how the jazz metaphor can be applied to marketing/management education, in light of the article by Holbrook (2015).

This commentary examines the jazz metaphor from the author’s perspective as a jazz musician and management educator and hopefully provides the reader with a brief snapshot into the intricate workings of a jazz group. This commentary also investigates the lessons to be learned from Miles Davis’s approach to leadership and innovation.

The jazz group can provide a valuable model for modern organisations. The core competencies of a successful jazz group, e.g. collaboration, trust, dialogue and innovation can be employed to bring about a culture of creativity within an organisation.

It may be possible to extend the jazz metaphor and investigate how different aspects of business practice could be aligned with particular genres of jazz.

This commentary expands on Holbrook’s discussion of the marketing manager as Jazz musician and provides examples of how these metaphors can be used in order to augment the marketing/management learning material to offer alternative perspectives to the learning communities and enhance the pedagogical practice

Recent research has shed light on career trajectories outside enclosed organizations and linked individual careers to career fields. This article seeks to explore how individuals' trajectories are affected by structural changes in career fields.

By exploring several jazz musicians' biographies, a typical trajectory is built. In contrast with this typical trajectory, alternative successful trajectories are investigated.

The typical trajectory entails a successful introduction of a musician into a field, followed by increasing recognition among peers at jam sessions, stream of engagements and among critics. Consecration of one's public persona occurs in tandem with the institutionalization of one's personal style. These higher levels of “symbolic capital” grant continuous streams of engagements, which in turn are translated into higher levels of economic capital. As a musician achieves a dominant position in a field, inertial forces typecast him, impeding innovation, which leaves room for upcoming younger artists. This model is contrasted with deviant careers that proved to be successful due to structural changes in the field. As the legitimacy sources were no longer tightly coupled, musicians were able to undertake choices not prescribed by successful predecessors. The way individuals behave when facing field uncertainty reveals the enduring values underlying the employment and conversion of resources.

This research is based on qualitative research on jazz musicians' bios. Future research might further explore interpretative schemata applied by musicians facing career choices.

Practitioners might find controversial and conflictive sources of legitimacy opportunities for taking up alternative career paths. Conversely, structural changes might help analysts to assess endurable patterns of individual strategic choices.

The logics of jazz musicians' trajectories are assumed to be analogous to other industry careers. This analogy adds value to the study of careers in two ways: first, it contributes to understanding career patterns outside formal organizations; and second, it permits a multi‐level analysis, where both individual trajectories and the field dynamics are interwoven.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to provide a detailed profile of the jazz festival audience in terms of age, gender, degree qualifications, home ownership levels, newspaper readership, frequency of attending live jazz performances, interest in attending other festivals and CD purchase behaviour. In addition, it seeks to examine the cultural diversity of improvisation.

Survey data were collected from patrons at the Cheltenham International Jazz Festival in order to establish the demographic profile of the jazz audience and distinguish between two broad categories of jazz fan (modern and hybrid). Hybrid jazz fans are categorised as those purchasing traditional/mainstream jazz CDs who may also purchase modern jazz CDs, thus distinguishing them from exclusively modern jazz fans who do not purchase traditional/mainstream jazz CDs.

Results identified a statistically significant difference between modern and hybrid jazz fans in terms of gender profile, newspaper readership, CD purchase behaviour, overall concert attendance and interest in attending a variety of other festivals.

Differences in purchase behaviour and festival preferences suggest likely differences between segments in terms of the potential demand for cross‐selling of other live entertainment services and related merchandise. Increased awareness of such differences creates the opportunity for more effectively targeted sponsorship.

The paper focuses upon the audience for an art form that has been relatively neglected by the management literature.