Jazz Writing

In my system, the form of blues choruses is limited by the small page of the breastpocket notebook in which they are written, like the form of a set number of bars in a jazz blues chorus, and so sometimes the word-meaning can carry from one chorus into another, or not, just like the phrase-meaning can carry harmonically from one chorus to the other, or not, in jazz, so that, in these blues as in jazz, the form is determined by time, and by the musician's spontaneous phrasing and harmonizing with the beat of the time as it waves & waves on by in measured choruses. It's all gotta be non stop ad libbing within each chorus, or the gig is shot.

-- Jack Kerouac