The integral structural realm construed most broadly spans the interior (subjective experience) and exterior (objective, physical) dimensions of human nature and the cosmic totality—from galaxies, mountain ranges, and ecosystems to belief systems and structures in consciousness. It is important to emphasize the unified nature of this wholeness and the foundational role consciousness plays in it. “Kosmos”—spelled by Wilber to reflect Pythagoras’ conception of the universe—is neither reducible nor epiphenomenal, as materialists would have it, to exterior, physical reality, nor is it adequately understood, as dualists hold, as consisting of ontologically separate subjective/interior and objective/exterior domains.2 Rather, these are inextricably linked within a nondual wholeness, the capacity for oneness with—as posited by the world’s wisdom traditions—
is the driving force for human spiritual development. Spirituality, then, is not limited to interior experience and growth but involves interior and exterior integration, the very inner-outer synthesis that defines the creativity- consciousness relationship as previously noted. Unfortunately,
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the nonduality premise has not always assumed the centrality in integral discourse that it warrants, and in hopes of addressing this, I propose gen-eral and strong nonduality premises to bring a more nuanced approach to this realm. The first acknowledges the inextricable link between individual consciousness and cosmic wholeness; the second takes a further step and posits that individual creativity and cosmic creativity are rooted in the same underlying mechanics, an admittedly provocative proposition that I believe not only exhibits strong coherence on localized scales but poses extraordinary ramifications for creativity-consciousness understanding and development.3
The inner-outer integral scope enables entirely new approaches to emerge in specific disciplines as well as education at large. Under-scoring this point in the field of ecology, Sean Esbjörn-Hargens and Michael Zimmerman note that whereas conventional “ecology and eco-logical discourse,” in their emphasis on the physical environment, “have mostly excluded an explicit recognition of interiors and their develop-ment . . . Integral Ecology studies interiors in addition to exteriors (and) how those interiors develop within organisms in general and humans in particular.”4 The fact that the integral approach does not exclude exteriors but integrates them within a broader inner-outer scope—thus exemplify-ing the integral principle of “transcend and include”—cannot be overem-phasized, for this will be key to the broader educational transformation that is needed.5 As Esbjörn-Hargens, Gunnlaugson, and others point out, the integral approach, unlike other alternative educational visions, does not jettison conventional approaches but situates the best of these within an expanded and inclusive vision.6 And as briefly noted in the intro-duction, what I propose as Integral Jazz Studies similarly differs from Conventional and New Jazz Studies by including their terrain within a broader interior-exterior scope.
The AQAL Framework
The integral structural range is commonly mapped through a model Wil-ber calls AQAL, which is short for all quadrants, lines, levels, states, and types. Quadrants pertains to his Four Quadrant map of the cosmic whole-ness. As Wilber emphasizes, this is useful as long as one keeps in mind the age-old adage that “the map is not the territory,” but rather a repre-sentation of the territory. As illustrated in Figure 1.1, Upper Right pertains to exterior, objective reality, Lower Right to interobjectivity, Lower Left to intersubjectivity, and Upper Left to interior, subjective realms. Inasmuch as
Figure 1.1 Four Quadrants (after
the Quadrants are interpenetrating—within each one can locate all four—
they are best understood in relationship with one another. The individual physiology, for example, is an objective, exterior structure, represented by the Upper Right, in relationship to the overall environment, which is a collective, interobjective exterior structure corresponding to the Low-er-Right quadrant. Right-hand quadrants pertain to exteriors, left-hand quadrants to interiors. The Lower Left represents the intersubjective realm of experience that results from the collective interactions between human beings, thus taking us from the physical, exterior domains of Upper-Right and Lower-Right quadrants to more interior dimensions. The Upper-Left quadrant represents even further inward terrain of individual, subjective reality, including cognitive, emotional, intuitive, sensory, and transper-sonal or transcendent experience.7 Optimal human development—growth of creativity and consciousness—entails achieving “oneness with all quad-rants,” or the full interior-exterior scope of cosmic wholeness.8
First-second-third-person Perspectives
The quadrants are commonly condensed to first-, second-, and third-person perspectives or realities, with third-third-person pertaining to the objec-tive/physical realm, second-person to the intersubjective/sociocultural, and first-person to the interior-subjective.9 Wilber’s reference to these as the “three faces of Spirit” reflects the nondual perspective of the infi-nitely diversified universe as manifestations of lila, or what Vedantins call cosmic “play.” First-second-third-person realities are primordial differen-tiations within this play that are the basis for the “Big Three” domains of, respectively, spirituality, art, and science that thinkers through the ages have acknowledged as pillars of human endeavor.10 That the present analysis differs from those of Wilber and other integralists in its first-sec-ond-third-person correlations ought not obscure the foundational impor-tance ceded to these realms from both integral perspectives. Whereas the tendency is to link first-person with art, second-person with ity, and third-person with science, I equate first-person with spiritual-ity and second-person with art (and maintain the third-person/science correlation); the rationale for this will be taken up in chapter 3.11 Most important is that because it spans inner-outer wholeness, engagement with spiritual, artistic, and scientific realities promotes the oneness noted previously that is characteristic of optimal growth. Whereas exclusion of spirituality, marginalization of the arts, and an emphasis on science and scientific approaches characterize conventional education, integral
edu-cation is predicated on the balanced interplay of the three realms, both within a given field and across the overall educational spectrum.
Quadratic and Quadrivium Applications of the Quadrants
It is important to understand two applications of the Quadrants, which can also apply to corresponding first-second-third-person perspectives (even if the terminology used is quadrant oriented). Wilber originally conceived the Quadrants from what in retrospect may be called a qua-dratic vantage point—that is, a delineation of the infinitely differentiated regions of cosmos that emerged within the universal wholeness. This may be thought of as a whole-to-parts perspective. More recently, a qua-drivium perspective has entered the integral conversation as a way of mapping the capacity for a given field, or developmental line, to achieve all-quadrants integration from a parts-to-whole angle.12 So whereas the quadratic application illustrates the diversity that arises from unity, the quadrivium application illustrates how any given part of that diversity, which in the present analysis will pertain to a given area of the knowledge base, serves as a pathway that connects with that wholeness to achieve all-quadrants integration. A quadratic map or application will therefore begin with Upper Left—in that, as will be seen, interior, subjective expe-rience at its core is most directly aligned with cosmic wholeness—and proceed in a counterclockwise direction to reveal how Left, Lower-Right, and Upper-Right domains cumulatively unfold (e.g., Lower Left integrates Upper Left, Lower Right integrates Lower and Upper Left) from this wholeness. Quadrivium applications will conversely begin with Upper Right, exterior, objective reality and proceed in the opposite direction to show how exteriority can open up to interior-exterior unity. And in terms of the three perspectives or faces of spirit: Quadratic maps move in a first-second-person direction, quadrivium maps proceed third-second-first. In the next chapter we will consider a complementary way of visually representing all-quadrants integration.
A brief look at the Quadrants and corresponding first-second-third-person realms in terms of jazz will illuminate the capacities of the idiom to play a key role in this integration. Approaching this from a quadrivium perspective, where movement around the quadrants begins with Upper Right and proceeds in a cumulative, clockwise direction: The neurophysi-ological and technical aspects of playing an instrument and stylistic norms of the idiom are examples of Upper-Right, third-person, exterior-objec-tive phenomena. Lower-Right (also third-person, but now interobjecexterior-objec-tive,
exterior) phenomena include the pitch systems, rhythmic languages, for-mal structures, and other facets of the broader musical world. In explor-ing how a genre such as jazz opens its horizons to the broader musical landscape, we will—in addition to a process-based exploration—view key structural aspects of this in terms of music theorist Leonard Meyer’s syn-tactic and nonsynsyn-tactic parameters.13 Syntactic parameters are harmony, melody, and rhythm—or pitch-rhythmic language structures. Nonsyn-tactic elements include density, dynamics, timbre, tessitura, and silence.
Different genres may be differentiated, from a structural perspective, in terms of their respective syntactic/nonsyntactic content and configura-tions. For example, the form of jazz known as bebop differs from the late-Romanticism of European classical music along some (but not all) harmonic parameters, and more dramatically along rhythmic lines, to note two syntactic differences. Prominent nonsyntactic differences include density and timbre. As awareness opens up from discipline-specific to intradisciplinary musical conception, thus moving from Upper-Right con-finement to Lower-Right grounding, it apprehends syntactic and nonsyn-tactic building blocks in more fluid and diverse forms and thus is more able to navigate the mosaic of possibilities in the broader musical world.
Lower-Left, second-person (intersubjective) phenomena include the wide-ranging sociocultural factors that shape personal and collective style evolution as well as impact collective style evolution. The interactive struc-tures and relationships that comprise a jazz group may also be considered part of the second-person, Lower-Left scope that has been of increasing interest in progressive business, medicine, educational, and other circles in recent years. Further creativity-consciousness, or all-quadrants devel-opment, thus involves enhanced receptivity to extramusical influences, which meld at subtle levels of consciousness with the expanded and more fluid syntactic/nonsyntactic grounding also characteristic of this growth.
Upper-Left, first-person (interior, subjective) phenomena include the rich emotional aspects of jazz and transcendent experiences commonly invoked by jazz artists. The drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson provides characteristic testimony of a heightened Upper-Left experience when he speaks of “a level of playing which we reach that is the same thing that (is achieved through) meditation and yoga.” Merging “the physical, the spiritual and the mental,” he continues, “the state I am talking about even transcends emotions. It’s a feeling of being able to communicate with all living things.”14 The idea of a state that “transcends emotions” need not be construed as one that is devoid of feeling, but rather one that penetrates to the subtlest dimensions of feeling and over time enables the full range of human emotional capacities—from the joys, anxieties, inspiration, and
interpersonal love of everyday life to the ecstasy and unconditional love for the entire cosmos that for many are invoked only occasionally—to be enlivened and flow in the untold ways that are possible. Jazz is a powerful conduit for this range of emotional experience.
The jazz tradition, as noted earlier, boasts a long legacy of leading innovators who engaged with meditation and other contemplative disci-plines in order to more consistently invoke transcendence and integrate it in their work and lives.15 Exemplifying all-quadrants, creativity-conscious-ness integration, this involves integration of the rich spectrum of exterior structural influences—including third-person syntactic and nonsyntactic elements in diverse and fluid configurations and second-person sociocul-tural influences—along with enlivened first-person experience. We will in the next two chapters begin our probing of how improvisatory creativity and meditation practice work in tandem to facilitate this all-quadrants, quadrivium synthesis, underscoring the idiom’s transformational and unifying potential. We will also explore the ramifications of this from a nondual perspective, in which enlivened first-person inner experience is understood as the alignment of individual consciousness with cosmic intelligence that is the source of creation—at which point the boundaries between inner and outer collapse, save for their purpose as designations of entryways to this extraordinary wholeness.
Lines, Levels, States, and Types
Running through the Quadrants is a broad spectrum of developmental lines, which might be thought of as pathways, or grooves, that serve as channels for this kind of growth. These are very much akin to the educational psychologist Howard Gardner’s notion of “multiple intelli-gences.” Gardner posited that human intelligence is multifaceted, com-prised of linguistic-mathematical, logical, kinesthetic, musical, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal aspects, and that everyone has different propensities for each.16 Thus, one can be highly developed along cer-tain lines and less developed along others, which as Wilber elaborates at length makes it possible for an individual to consistently invoke deep experiences in meditation that are suggestive of significant transpersonal growth, yet be less developed within emotional, interpersonal, or other areas.17 That individuals who display exceptional creativity, or experience what appear to be extraordinary episodes of transcendent awareness, may appear in other areas of life even dysfunctional does not therefore invali-date the peak moments invoked in certain lines of attainment; it simply confirms that considerable growth along one pathway can occur without
commensurate growth along another. This supports the argument for line-rich programs of development. Here it is important to recognize that distinctions between lines and processes can blur, because processes are the means through which one progresses along any given line, and many lines—as will be seen with improvisation and composition in music—are at once pathways, thus structures, as well as processes. This, however, does not undermine the general utility of structure-process distinctions as a conceptual entryway into Integral Theory.
Developmental lines are not only individual phenomena but can manifest on collective scales as well, with every field of study, educa-tion at large, and society as a whole serving as developmental lines in that they are capable of growth toward more expansive, diverse yet uni-fied evolutionary stages. Each of these, moreover, may be thought of in terms of what integralists, after Arthur Koestler, call holons, which are wholes within wholes—structures that at once subsume constituent structures and are in turn subsumed by composite ones.18 Atoms are not only subsumed by molecules, compounds, and infinitely larger structures within the physical world, they are also in the opposite direction compos-ite wholes that subsume increasingly miniscule subatomic phenomena.
Jazz may similarly be thought of as a developmental line within music that exhibits holonic properties in being not only integrated within the broader developmental lines of the arts and the overall knowledge base, but also encompassing numerous constituent lines, including its pitch and rhythmic structures and improvisatory and compositional pathways.
And because, as we will see, jazz is line-rich within its own borders, it has the capacity to significantly impact the broader domains within which it is a constituent part.
Next is the precept of levels, which are enduring developmental stag-es or structurstag-es that may be achieved within a given development line.
As Wilber emphasizes, levels/stages are therefore not to be confused with the temporary glimpses of higher stages or levels of experience, which are states, along a given line that may be invoked, as in the peak experiences of consciousness noted earlier. Levels/stages are permanent stations of growth, states are fleeting episodes of experience that lie beyond one’s current “center of gravity,” or the prevailing station/level/stage of growth at any given point in one’s development.19 States are ephemeral while stages or levels/stages are enduring, and the consciousness line is among those in which distinctions between the two are most prominent. Indeed, as Rhea White and Michael Murphy have observed in sports, the desire to more consistently and permanently integrate transcendent experience, invoked
in passing glimpses of transcendence during their respective forms of creative engagement, may underscore why jazz musicians, athletes, and many other individuals engage with systematic meditation practices.20 It is one thing to invoke peak, transcendent experiences occasionally, it is another is to permanently integrate this expanded awareness so that one’s work and life are grounded in a higher stage development, or higher center of gravity.
Types pertain to qualities such as masculine and feminine that may be identified within a variety of disciplines and which manifest on exterior and interior scales.21 Collective, improvisatory, modal music making will be seen as a manifestation of the feminine and also what George Lewis identifies as an “Afrological” wave within the musical landscape. Heide Göttner-Abendroth echoes the views of other feminist thinkers who sur-mise that artistic expression in matriarchal societies tended toward collec-tive, spontaneous, improvisatory, and inclusive approaches.22 In contrast, individual, compositional, tonal (and post-tonal) musical creativity, as well as the interpretive performance tradition that it has spawned (which while often collective, as in string quartets or symphony orchestras, is predicated on works that were created individually) may be seen as a man-ifestation of the masculine and correlated with the “Eurological” wave.23 Jazz, while at its core an Afrological phenomenon, uniquely straddles these contrasting and complementary musical types/waves, and has thus evolved a composite structural expanse that exhibits strong properties of the differentiated wholeness we will see as characteristic of integral evolutionary trajectories. This will be viewed in terms of both the idiom’s pitch and rhythmic languages, the first not only encompassing but also integrating a formidable portion of the modal/tonal/post-tonal spectrum of the musical world, the second encompassing, among other features, the notion of time feel or groove that is among the most pervasive facets of global musical practice. The origins of this latter feature in African and African American musical cultures is illuminated by what Jeff Press-ing called “Black Atlantic Rhythm,”24 perhaps the most recent significant manifestation of which has prompted Guthrie Ramsey to declare ours the “Age of Hip Hop.”25 Jazz’s important role in the delivery of Black Atlantic Rhythm to the global musical landscape will be considered as fundamental a contribution to cross-cultural syncretism as the idiom’s improvisatory foundations. As will the fact that, among the thousands of musical genres that might be identified in the world, none combines the primary creative processes of both improvisation and composition to nearly the extent found in jazz.
In taking our analysis to the interior dimensions of the structural realm, we will correlate the emergence of the Afrological in contempo-rary musical practice with the emergence of the “divine feminine” that is
In taking our analysis to the interior dimensions of the structural realm, we will correlate the emergence of the Afrological in contempo-rary musical practice with the emergence of the “divine feminine” that is