JazzTok: Creativity, Community, and Improvisation on TikTok

Abstract

Digital platforms provide many avenues for musicians to organize, share information, and collaborate on projects remotely, though some crucial aspects, like jazz improvisation, are harder to substitute online. Amid various other methods to facilitate digital performances, some musicians are experimenting with improvisation on short video platforms, such as TikTok. This article presents a case study of JazzTok, a digital collective of musicians who create and share jazz arrangements, recorded and edited by members of the community remotely on TikTok. Building on previous research, this article examines how this community of musicians formed in 2020 through repeated interactions improvising musical performances together using the TikTok Duet feature. Duet allows users to create new videos side by side with existing videos posted by other users, and they can be chained together to simulate the experience of musical jamming. This article relies on seventeen qualitative interviews with members of the JazzTok community to illustrate how the Duet feature offers a similar experience to the unpredictable and spontaneous nature of jazz improvisation. This article also explores how algorithmic recommendations influence the formation of digital musical communities of practice and how short video platforms are shifting modes of performance for jazz musicians. This contributes to studies of jazz and culture by suggesting future directions for researching the platformization of musical performances and jazz improvisation.