Norm Geras asks:
It struck me that of the great composers, J.S. Bach is closest to the spirit of jazz. I don’t know enough about the technical side of music, or music theory, to be able to say why it strikes me so. That’s just how it sounds. Bach as forbear of John Coltrane? Can anyone explain?
Oh yes — pianist Hal Galper can explain.
Galper is an overlooked musician who’s worked with Sam Rivers, Cannonball Adderley, Phil Woods, the Brecker Brothers and countless others. I was in Hal’s theory class for a year at the New School in the late ’80s and it completely changed my understanding of music. This was several years before the publication of his book Forward Motion, and I had the privilege of learning some of its lessons from the horse’s mouth, while the ideas were still in formation:
…Forward Motion techniques are based on universal laws of music first illuminated by Johann Bach over 200 years ago. These laws, based on the physics of sound and rhythm, apply to all music no matter their genre…. [M]usic is not static but in motion forward towards rhythmic, melodic and harmonic points in the future.
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