(This is an excerpt from the   Article 3 of the Beyond Planning Series: The Living System . The series explores how organizations can learn to swing.) ----- The call:  "Caravan. F minor. Medium swing. Monk's way. Go." That last part of the call matters. Monk's way. Because Monk does not play Ellington like Ellington. He plays the Duke like Monk. In 1955, Thelonious Monk was perceived as too difficult. Too far out. His music was not selling. Critics said mainstream audiences would never...

Building Jazz Ensembles: Structuring Structures for Improvisation (This is the third article in the Beyond Planning Series: Living Systems. The articles explore the intersection of strategy, design, and jazz. You may want to start here with the first article " Beyond Planning Series - Article 1: The Great Unraveling . ") "All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it;Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of thearches and cornices? All music is what...

(This is Part 2 of the Beyond Planning Series. Part 1: The Great Unraveling can be found here .) Learning Jazz: How Coherence Emerges Without Scores The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them—ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down, And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication. — William Cullen...