SAT OwlQuestion bank / Cross-Text Connections
Text 1: Many listeners describe jazz improvisation as pure spontaneity, music invented entirely in the moment. Musicologist Grace Oduya challenges this view. Analyzing hundreds of recorded solos, she found that improvisers draw heavily on stock phrases, called licks, that they have practiced for years and reuse in new combinations. Improvisation, Oduya concludes, is less invention from nothing than rapid assembly from a stored vocabulary.
Text 2: Saxophonist and scholar Leon Petrakis does not dispute that improvisers rely on practiced material, but he denies that this makes improvisation less spontaneous. A speaker in conversation also uses familiar words and phrases, he observes, yet no one calls conversation scripted. What is spontaneous is the choice of which phrase to use, and how to shape it, in response to what the other musicians are playing at that moment.
Based on the texts, how would Petrakis most likely respond to Oduya's conclusion?
He would dispute her finding that improvisers reuse phrases they have practiced.
He would agree that improvisation is essentially scripted, like a rehearsed speech.
He would accept her finding about stock phrases but reject the idea that it makes improvisation less spontaneous, since spontaneity lies in how musicians select and shape those phrases.
He would argue that ordinary conversation is less spontaneous than jazz improvisation.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C
Petrakis "does not dispute" Oduya's evidence about practiced phrases. He disagrees with what she concludes from it: like a speaker choosing familiar words, an improviser is spontaneous in selecting and shaping phrases in the moment. Choice C captures this agreement on facts and disagreement on interpretation.
Choice A is tempting because Petrakis disagrees with Oduya, but he accepts her finding and disputes only her conclusion.
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