For a musical ecology: Jazz performances

These ethnographic reflections shed light on a relatively overlooked topic in the social sciences : jazz and nontraditional improvised music in terms of their performance. For the sake of convenience, this analysis is organized in two phases : the setting and what is performed in it. The specific characteristics of the setting where such music is played are described; some of them are incompatible with the habitual procedures of participant observation : a variety of often temporary locations (concert halls, rehearsal studios), contacts with "informants" that often amount to short, frequently interrupted meetings rather than a long, continuous period of fieldwork, etc. This description is followed with an account of the interactions (in the Goffmanian sense) that the author observed from a distance and experienced emically in the field. Borrowing from Gregory Bateson, an attempt is made to sketch a "musical ecology".