In this historical study, I present the emergence and evolution of Jamey Aebersold’s Play-A-Long volumes and their key role in bringing jazz improvisation to formal music education. Drawing on oral histories and using a framework from sound studies, I present chord-scales and pattern playing as Deweyan conceptual technologies that assist beginners in developing a mature technique. I recount how Aebersold learned these as a student of David Baker at Indiana University, then applied the idea through teaching improvisation with the Dorian mode over Davis’s “So What.” In 1967 Aebersold published volume 1, and the Play-A-Long evolved into a system over a dozen years as subsequent volumes included new scale types, like the blues scale; added idiomatic patterns; incorporated his new Scale Syllabus; and licensed standard repertoire. I then describe how these technologies imply the “soloist as such”: a generic model of learning improvisation as a process of learning tunes and tasks from simple to complex around a core unity of theory and performance. This model in particular addressed beginning improvisation and the slogan “Anyone Can Improvise.” Finally, I consider criticisms of the model, note that the chord-scale approach is Black music theory, and suggest future research.

在这项历史研究中，我介绍了 Jamey Aebersold 的 Play-A-Long 卷的出现和演变，以及它们在将爵士即兴演奏引入正规音乐教育方面的关键作用。借鉴口述历史并使用声音研究的框架，我将和弦音阶和模式演奏作为 Deweyan 概念技术，帮助初学者发展成熟的技术。我讲述了 Aebersold 如何在印第安纳大学跟随 David Baker 的学生学习这些知识，然后通过在 Davis 的“So What”上用 Dorian 模式教授即兴演奏来应用这个想法。1967 年 Aebersold 出版了第 1 卷，随着随后的卷包括新的音阶类型，如布鲁斯音阶，Play-A-Long 演变成一个系统。添加惯用模式；加入了他的新音阶教学大纲；和许可的标准曲目。然后，我描述了这些技术如何暗示“独奏者本身”：即一种学习即兴创作的通用模型，即围绕理论和表演的核心统一性从简单到复杂的学习曲调和任务的过程。该模型特别针对开始即兴创作和“任何人都可以即兴创作”的口号。最后，我考虑对模型的批评，注意和弦尺度方法是黑人音乐理论，并建议未来的研究。