Jazz as a Process of Organizational Innovation

Jazz is an art from that is inventive and social. It enables individual musicians to create new musical ideas in a collective context and, thereby, to achieve an inventive and integrated performance. Here we present a case study of the process through which four jazz musicians were able to coordinate an inventive performance without the benefit of a rehearsal or the use of sheet music. A videotape of the performance and participant observations provided the data for our analysis. We identify two levels of information—musical and social structures—that constrain invention and enable integration. We then adapt Poole's Multiple Sequence Model (1983) as a device for tracking cognitive and behavioral components of the jazz process in, and across, time. Our analysis highlights the crucial roles of shared information, communication, and attention in this process and identifies a basic strategy that enabled the musicians to invent and coordinate increasingly complex musical ideas. We conclude with implications of our findings for the study and management of organizational innovation in contexts beyond those of group jazz.