When a band performs a jazz song... how is the song structured... what I'm understanding is it's something like this:

1) intro
2) head (the song with little/no improvisation)
3) repeat song but with improvisation... one or more times...
4) head again
5) outro

Is this right? Can someone clarify...
[Edited 5/10/09 5:45am]

Mathematical Jazz?!?

MuaPetahl said:

nahh... I think in the jazz tradition they follow a particular pattern... so that the musicians know when to solo etc... that's what I was asking about...

1. A1 (main theme)
2. A2 (variation of A1 w / some improvisation)
3. B ("bridge")
4. A1 (may be a variation of A1, but doesn't contain as much of it as A2)

...is typical in historical terms. It's not that different from the pop song structure from the earliest decades (essentially jazz standards were just the pop songs of the day played by jazz ensembles). B-section contains usually a solo of some sort, or may just be the solo(s) only. But seriously, you could just as well make up anything that works for you and introduce certain cues so that the band knows when to switch to a different section. Even in the strongly improvised forms the musicians know quite easily when to change the overall direction by following what the drummer is playing and so on. Some bandleaders simply raised their hand up or something, which indicated going back to the original section, bridge sention etc.

novabrkr said:

Thanks.