The Contradictions of Jazz by Paul Rinzler

Rinzler explores “four pairs of opposites in jazz; individualism and interconnectedness, assertion and openness, freedom and responsibility, and creativity and tradition.” He examines each of them in detail in a separate chapter and then discusses how they are opposed. His discussion of the different ways that opposites can be related; mutual exclusion, inverse proportion, gradation, propagation, perspective, dynamic tension, and juxtaposition, was new to me, is well employed, and is of value in thinking about not only the aesthetics of jazz, but other subjects.