Jazz

What does jazz have to do with a memorized stack?

The topic of locating a named card comes up from time to time in conversations, group chats, forums and publications, and invariably includes thoughts and ideas about “jazzing” or “riffing”, both terms popularized by mem-deck luminary Michael Close. In my conversations with mem-deck practitioners from around the world, using the mem-deck as an open index is among the favorite applications, along with related routines such as Mnemonicosis and various versions of ACAAN, which typically share the same basic starting point – having a participant name any card.

I think an important distinction about jazzing is that the decision about which effect you’re performing can happen after a card is named but needs to happen before anything else. In other words, you don’t want to launch into locating and controlling a named card before you’ve decided what effect you’re going to perform. It’s a point I think might be easily overlooked, especially by newcomers to mem-deck work. Jazzing is like a pick-a-path story, where the card named guides what you do next but leads somewhere very specific. Perhaps a common misconception about jazzing is that when you begin, you have no idea where it might lead, and I’m sure some performers approach jazzing this way.

I think the latter is always easy to spot. Thinking about locating a named card, then controlling a named card, then determining an effect with the named card, can easily result in a more complex handling than is necessary, and it would not surprise me if implementing that type of approach in real-time became very obvious to an audience, and tipped aspects of the methodology. I imagine that a performance that is somehow improvised from scratch using any and every tool and technique you have available, would look like speaking in tongues but with cards. Having an open index is a powerful tool, and perhaps as such, seems like a fun thing with which to improvise completely, and it is, BUT we’re talking about improvising at home, to develop ideas, not improvising in front of an audience!

One way to begin exploring the open index is thinking about your stack in groups, perhaps top third, middle third, bottom third and devising an effect ready for each “range”. Add to this a handful of favorite positions (easy locations such as top and bottom obviously), for a few extra paths along which you might proceed after a card is named. You might “group” your stack differently, perhaps with more groups, depending on the effects in your repertoire. But the key is that after a card is named, each potential path should be rehearsed and with a specific effect and handling already in mind. That way, at the point the card is named, as a performer, you don’t need to improvise anything. Having a participant name a card is like offering a selection from a buffet of routines you can perform, but neither your participant or the audience realize that. It shouldn't feel that way to your audience, but you get the idea.

Following a known path (once a card is named) is likely to reduce the possibility of a arriving at a more complex handling than is necessary. For example, in a card from pocket type routine, why control a card to the top or bottom then remove it from your pocket, when a more streamlined method means you can cut out the middle step altogether? If you know you're removing a named card from your pocket before any control happens, you'll already know how how best to proceed with the most streamlined handling.

There are also effects where no positioning as such is necessary, or more specifically that any positioning is built into in the choreography and/or the effect, instead of being a separate step. I enjoy effects that reduce or eliminate what I call “the search”. The search is what usually happens immediately after a card is named, when there is no fixed plan or in poorly constructed routines. The search often becomes evident in whatever comes next in terms of handling (perhaps conspicuously spreading face up or “thumbing” the rear of the deck), as well as being evident by the performer’s sudden change in mental capacity (often mishearing things, slowed speech patterns, and generally temporarily inwardly regressing and assuming their grade two mathematics face). I call this “monkey-brain-face”.

For my money, name-a-card JAZZING looks like this:

NAME A CARD. THEN EFFECT.

Not this:

NAME A CARD. THEN SEARCH. THEN IMPROVISE.

The difference may seem subtle. But…

If you have an interest in name-a-card routines, the open index concept and all things mem-deck, keep an eye open for updates about a new book I'm almost finished writing. AND. ALL. THAT. JAZZ.