Structural components of the modern

particular importance.
O. Katrich, reflecting on the possibilities of 
studying the performing style in the academic mu-
sical tradition, notes: “The study of the musical per-
forming style is significantly hampered by the lack 
of musical-textual fixation of the result of the musi-
cian-performer’s creativity” [2, 2]. In jazz music, this 
question is especially acute, because the “manner of 
playing” here turns out to be central in terms of the 
idea of the improvisational principle of performing 
activity. At the same time, the “manner of playing” is 
the multipurpose concept that contains a very wide 
range of subjects, i. e. those different aspects of the 
manifestation of the musician’s creative individual-
ity, which in one way or another affect the features 
of its sound manifestation. Therefore, according to 
jazz researchers, the individual style of a performer is 
determined not by his technique, but by his person-
ality, his intellect, his talent and coordination [7].
The originality of the performing style of out-
standing jazz piano players encompasses all the 
“generic” qualities of jazz music: improvisational 
thinking and technique, the ratio of the individual 
and the general (the principle of dialogue in col-
lective music-making, the style parameters of the 
original musical material and its performing model 
that forms improvisation), a variety of performer’s 
intonation vocabulary. The individual style of a jazz 
musician can be understood as “the system of artis-
tic thinking and stylistics – musical idioms, speech 
cliches as the basis for generating individual musical 
language” [3, 9].
Let us single out the most significant factors 
influencing the individual style of the jazz pianist’s 
playing and the formation of his personal approach 
to performing practice. Among them a significant 
place is occupied by the individual characteristics 
of the musician – such as his melodic, modal, har-
monic, rhythmic thinking, as well as the nuances of 
the performing apparatus. All these elements are the 
main points on which the piano player’s improvisa-
tional thinking is based, his idea of the main types of 
improvisation – melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, tex-
tured and timbre-dynamic. These elements serve as 
the foundation on which the performer’s “vocabu-
lary” and his improvisational technique are formed. 
Possession of “music theory” in a broad sense and 
of “jazz style” part of it in particular is a determin-
ing factor in the formation of the type of musical 
thinking that distinguishes a jazz musician from an 
academic one. The virtuosity of jazz improvisation 
is largely due to the rational and intellectual abili-
ties of the musician, rather than the technical aspect 
of the issue, since it is the combinatorial principle 
of “working” with his own “vocabulary” that forms 
the specificity of musical technology (performing 
techniques). This does not exclude the importance 
of musical technique (playing speed, for example, 
etc.), which also certainly constitutes the basic foun-
dation of jazz piano performance.
Accordingly, the pianist’s “vocabulary” plays an 
essential role for his individual manner of perfor-
mance, which determines the methodological idea 
of the mass of didactic books on jazz improvisa-
tion. The structure of most of this books is similar 
and reflects the general classification principle of 
improvisation methods – harmonic, rhythmic and 
melodic. Accordingly, the methodology of master-
ing jazz improvisation in teaching aids is ultimately 
aimed at developing the skills and abilities of a piano 
player, associated with the possibility of combina-
torial harmonic, rhythmic and melodic formula-
models. Moreover, it is important to develop a cre-
ative approach to the “initial” material in the student 
(“bricks” and “blocks”, in the terminology of A. Ko-
zlov), which stimulates an individual vision of the 

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STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS OF THE MODERN JAZZ PIANO PLAYER’S PERFORMING STYLE
153
structural, compositional and expressive capabilities 
of the musical “building material”. It is this attitude 
“towards creativity” that provokes the jazz impro-
viser’s maximum coverage of rhythmic, melodic 
and harmonic models, which, ultimately, should 
form his vast “vocabulary”, which he can use in the 
process of creating a musical composition. And the 
more complete and varied this “vocabulary” is, the 
more combinatorial possibilities the piano player 
has, which are manifested in his virtuoso mastery of 
musical material.
Also an important aspect of the formation of an 
individual performing style is the imitative princi-
ple, which is relevant for various generations of jazz 
piano players. We are talking about the individual 
and personal orientations of the musician, which 
are represented by the figures of outstanding mas-
ters, whose performing individuality and manner 
are thought of as a standard. For a jazz musician, a 
very important moment is the personification of the 
musical and linguistic standards of jazz music in the 
personality of a particular performer, the Master, 
who is the ideal of “how it should sound”. Accord-
ingly, this factor determines the following principle 
of the formation of an individual performing style: 
a set of certain performing techniques inherent in a 
performer-standard is “assimilated” and “processed” 
in accordance with his abilities, which were men-
tioned above, as well as taking into account subjec-
tive musical and aesthetic ideas.
The style reference factor is similar to the pre-
vious one, but more general in terms of reference 
material. For a musician-performer, the style factor 
is basic in his professional activity, it is on the knowl-
edge and sense of style that the artistic usefulness of 
musical performance and the creative activity of a 
musician are based. Jazz performers have indisput-
able advantages in this aspect over academic musi-
cians: jazz has no centuries-old history, its evolution 
fits into less than two centuries. However, the small 
historical volumes of jazz music are compensated by 
the breadth of its stylistic varieties and the diversity 
of national and ethnic manifestations. Both audi-
tory and intellectual experience are directly related 
to the most important factor in the development of 
a musician’s performing individuality – the forma-
tion of his “intonation vocabulary”, which consists 
of a set of intonational-rhythmic patterns inherent 
in a particular style. In this sense, the thought of 
O. Katrich is correct: “Direct analysis, as a rule, is 
preceded by the formation of the researcher’s feel-
ing and understanding of the stylistic dominant of 
the musician-performer’s creativity. The concept of 
the style dominant of the musician-performer’s cre-
ativity encompasses a certain unity of the most sig-
nificant individual, national, cultural and historical 
stylistic characteristics of this phenomenon” [2, 11].
The factor of “sound ideal” can be considered as 
the most general, since it synthesizes the previous 
ones and forms an integral system of an individual 
performing style. A jazz musician is always guided 
by a specific sound image of his instrument (the so-
called “sound ideal”), which is “… aggregate ideas 
about sound quality, … about timbral, technical-
performing, articulatory-intonation, harmonic and 
musical-stylistic characteristics” [6, 155]. The cre-
ative individuality of a jazz piano player is always 
formed on the basis of a specific sound image of the 
instrument (which includes all the parameters of ex-
pressiveness – sound, timbre, rhythm, phrasing, ar-
ticulation, dynamics, etc.). The sound ideal of a jazz 
pianist is formed in accordance with his reference 
ideas about the quality of piano sound, personified 
either in the performing style of a particular musi-
cian, or in a particular style of jazz, or on the basis 
of his subjective and personal aesthetic standards.
It is known that the specificity of the instrument 
significantly influences the artistic intentions of 
musicians. E. Nazaikinsky noted that the semantic 
component of the “sound world of music” is direct-
ly related to the nature of the musical instrument 
[6, 157]. Consequently, the composer’s intention 
depends on the acoustic characteristics of a par-
ticular instrument or group of instruments. This is 

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Section 3. Music
154
exactly what A. Copland had in mind when he in-
troduced the concept of “sounding image of an in-
strument”: “an auditory representation arising in the 
mind of a performer or composer; a mental picture 
of the exact “nature” of the sounds that he will bring 
to life” [4, 22]. A. Copland’s ideas were continued in 
L. Gakkel’s musicological studies of “sounding im-
ages of the piano” of the first half of the 20th century 
[1]. However, it seems to us that a more accurate 
definition will still be a “sound image”, reflecting not 
only the momentary, but the potential capabilities 
of the instrument, which find their artistic realiza-
tion in the performing art. In this regard, the most 
optimal is the definition of the sound image of the 
piano, proposed by I. Sukhlenko: the musicologist 
understands it as “a kind of stylistic perspective of 
the complex perception of the expressive capabilities 
of a musical instrument: timbre, dynamic, register 
characteristics and the artistic semantics associated 
with them” [5, 229].