WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- After graduating from Whitman College later this spring,
Jayson Jones will travel to India, Nepal and Sri Lanka to explore South Asian classical music
in hopes of finding ways to breathe new life into American jazz. Jones, a music and anthropology major from Roseburg, Oregon, will spend the first two to three months learning to play the tabla, a set of pitched drums used in Indian classical music. The rest of his trip will be a search for the Indian equivalent of the improvisational 'jam session' that occurs frequently in American jazz.
"While researching jazz history, I found that several of the major innovators in American jazz were directly influenced by the melodic and rhythmic structures of South Asian music," Jones said. "In addition, many of the musicians were converts to Buddhism, which piqued my curiosity: what is it about the music they play that compels them to this religion?"
With funding from the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship program, Jones will begin his tabla studies in Varanasi, India, one of the holiest cities in a country where music and religion are inseparable. With its thriving religious and music cultures, Varanasi will be an "ideal place to begin my musical studies," he said.
"Varanasi is one of the centers for classical performance in Northern India, and in fact, is the center of tabla study in India -- the most respected Pandits (teachers) either live or have studied in Varanasi. . . . This active music scene will allow me to experience many live musical performances throughout my period of study and enable me to make contacts with musicians from many different parts of India."
The tabla is the first instrument all Indian music students (including vocalists) learn. A member of the rhythm section in Indian classical music, the tabla also serves as the basis from which improvisation occurs.
"As a musician (saxophonist), I understand that the study of any instrument requires many years of practice and performance, but my main purpose in studying tabla is to learn the forms of the music and to develop my 'ear' -- the ability to distinguish important moments in the performance."
Beginning in late November, Jones will travel by train to other cities on the Indian subcontinent to gain an understanding of performance styles in Indian music, both in formal concerts and more intimate settings where the audience is not strictly separated from the performer.
In addition to contrasting regional styles, Jones expects to find fundamental differences between North Indian (Hindustani) music, which has been subjected to many foreign influences and appears willing to accept change in musical structures, and South Indian (Karnatic) music, which was protected through the ages by a major mountain range and guards its specific traditions and is reluctant to incorporate change.
"While both styles contain improvisation, Karnatic music is more stylized and the musician relies on more specific ornaments during improvisation," Jones noted. By traveling to Nepal and Sri Lanka as well, "I should have a grasp of at least four different styles of improvised music to add to my jazz experience."
Jones, who began his musical studies at the age of 13, is concentrating his Whitman undergraduate anthropology thesis on a cross-cultural comparison of improvisation in jazz and classical Indian music. His interest in improvisation was sparked early in high school at a summer jazz camp where he also met one of his future Whitman music professors.
Jones credits a Whitman class on South Asian Religions for his first exposure to the "beauty and intensity of Indian music, which was almost a religious experience in itself." Noting that jazz developed from the oppressive systems of slavery and segregation in American society, and suspecting that Indian music might similarly reflect the social realities, Jones later created at independent study class at Whitman to study Indian social systems.
His year-long exposure to Indian music, religion and culture "will shape my saxophone playing in ways that I cannot imagine," Jones said.
"Historically, jazz music has suffered periods of stagnation, and in my opinion, we are currently in one of those periods. Innovators in music borrow from different cultural traditions and incorporate those traditions into their music. We can see this fact in the music of John Coltrane and John McLaughlin, as well as in the Western Classical composers Dvorak, Bartok and Glass."
"Jazz musicians have borrowed concepts from Indian musicians in the past to lift jazz out of stagnation, which in the case of John McLaughlin led to the creation of the Fusion style," Jones continued. "I want to explore the possibilities in South Asian music to see if I can develop something new."
His ultimate goal, through teaching, composing or performing, is to transmit his cross- cultural study of improvisation to musicians in this country.
Jones, the son of Bonnie and Dwight Jones of Roseburg, graduated from Roseburg High School in 1991.