Garry Winogrand’s street photography remains compelling decades after he took the pictures, capturing raw human emotions that convey beauty, comedy, absurdity, and heartbreak. His photographs represent the act of creating art in the moment. Winogrand once boiled down his approach to a simple, yet revealing koan: “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.”
A woman considers the alien spacecraft that has zoomed into the open garage of her suburban Southern California home.
A man with a bandaged nose in a convertible pugnaciously assesses whether to make you look even worse than he does to demonstrate superiority for the date seated next to him.
The rumpled body of a woman lies in the street next to the curb outside of a Denny’s restaurant. An intruding street pole in the frame gives the appearance that the restaurant’s name is Jenny’s, thus christening the poor woman. Meanwhile, a Porsche zooms past unconcerned. This is all viewed at an angle seemingly drawn from the 1960’s Batman TV series.
Photography is often compared to literature, and Winogrand has received the appellation of a poet many times, whereas others describe his work as a kind of choreography. When considering his photographs, music is a more apt analogy as Winogrand employs an improvisatory process, always in a call-and-response mode, and in constant conversation with the world around him.
If Garry Winogrand’s photography is comparable to music, then what is the musical equivalent of Winogrand’s statement, “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed”? Field recording and sound art are both possible correlations, but improvised music — especially when performed by a solo performer — holds the strongest connection to Winogrand’s work and his tenets about photography because it is the purest form of spontaneous musical expression.
In solo improvisational music, there isn’t another musician to respond to or to help build the sound. Like photographers, solo improvisers generate art in response to the environment and conditions in which they play. This connects to Winogrand’s work through another of his statements. He said that when he was photographing, he felt as though he was a performer: “Sometimes I feel like…the world is a place I bought a ticket to…It’s a big show for me, as if it wouldn’t happen if I wasn’t there with a camera.”
Musicians Bill MacKay, Douglas Andrew McCombs, and Tashi Dorji are guitarists, all of whom have experience performing in various contexts, including performing previously composed music and improvising with other musicians. All three musicians exhibit unique styles, making their music immediately recognizable in any context, like stumbling upon a photograph and knowing it was taken by Garry Winogrand.
MacKay possesses a generous, welcoming, and seemingly effortless fluidity. McCombs’s playing is all about his sweeping, august tone, which conjures cinematic vistas of wide open spaces. Dorji’s work is emotionally transparent and mercurial; spiky and defiant in one performance, while billowy and gentle in another.
We converse with these musicians as they consider their musical improvisation through the lens of Garry Winogrand’s philosophy. These interviews focus primarily on solo improvisation performances to learn about the preparation, experience, and outlook on this unique form of musical expression, and to determine whether the analogy to Winograndian thinking about his work holds true.
Improvisational by Design
All three of the guitar players interviewed approach solo improvisation with a plan in mind. This may be antithetical to the art of improvisation, but Bill MacKay emphasizes it as a necessity: “I know some people might say, ‘Well, that’s anti-improvisation, having a blueprint.’ But, as we all know, improvisation also comes from your vocabulary of things that you’ve built up [over time]. It’s not completely a random outpouring. It has a design to it. Hopefully it’s coming out in a way that remixes all these elements and something new emerges.”
Does he approach solo improvisation performance with a riff or motif in mind ahead of time? Douglas Andrew McCombs replies that it’s less concrete:
“I have an idea in my mind of a shape for the set to take, some peaks and valleys, and things like that, based on my knowledge of some of the things I’m capable of doing. Often it might be related to a specific key I’m comfortable playing in, but I can also diverge from that and, depending on what happens, explore some tributaries. Basically, I just do everything I can to make sure that I’m playing something interesting.
If I hit dead ends, I do have certain crutches that I can lean on. Sometimes it’s just jump-cutting to something else or using a pedal that might do something random that will help me get out of the situation. My goal is to always try to be playing something that’s engaging or interesting to listen to, even if it’s just super quiet; something that will draw people in, little noises, big noises, melodies, anything.”
For Tashi Dorji, there’s no real separation between improvisation and the way he lives his life. “There are always ideas [when starting an improvisation], but there’s never a formula. Because when I play live, that’s when I feel comfortable. I have ideas, but it’s all metaphysical. Philosophical ideas. I feel like there’s a sense of urgency with what’s happening in the world. You have to prepare yourself mentally. Music, this thing I do, it’s part of what I am.
Not to sound pretentious, but I feel like improvisation is really living it. That’s basically it for me. It’s not something that I need to feel like I’m doing something extra. It just feels like part of everything else. That’s who I am. It’s becoming of myself.”
The Structure of Non-Structure
The musicians comment on using genre, concepts, and even other art as a kind of stylistic foundation for the performance. “There were times when [the improvisation] would be maybe a little bit of melody in several sections, where it was still overwhelmingly improvised, but maybe you have a little bit of a raga in one piece and you have something reminiscent of a Latin theme, or could be blues, and you’ve abstractified them all, but you have a little piece of melody and then go off of that. Those are all things that I used.”
Dorji alternates between playing acoustic and electric guitar on tours, and each performance will feed into the next. “When I start a tour, usually I think of an idea to keep some kind of uniformity, depending on what kind of shows I’m playing,” he says. “The last couple of tours, I’ve been doing long-form acoustic guitar ideas, but they weren’t concrete. As I played, it would become. There are some glimpses of drone ideas that I have that I could maybe use and that I could only implement when I play live.”
Dorji also notes that the music he listens to often influences his playing. “There was a time when I was listening to a lot of minimal music like Hindustani and Carnatic and also Phill Niblock or something, and that really fed into what I was playing.”
Sometimes, the stylistic influence will be more overt in a performance’s presentation. In 2024, McCombs played a solo set before a screening of Wim Wenders’ 1984 film Paris, Texas. Of course, the film features Ry Cooder’s unforgettable soundtrack. Opening for the film with his set, McCombs says that he didn’t “divorce” his playing from Cooder’s seminal playing.
“First of all, that soundtrack to that film has been really important to me in a variety of ways,” he says.”What I did was what I would do for a normal solo set…I have a shape for the set in mind and certain events that might occur throughout it. Then a lot of it is improvised. But in that particular instance, I did a little segment in my set that played the Ry Cooder melody thing…That’s not even a Ry Cooder melody; it’s Blind Willie Johnson. So, I played a passage of that within my set.”
MacKay recalls one occasion of using a specific theoretical approach to frame a performance. “I remember doing a show once where I had the key signatures going up with a color corresponding to each of them that roughly maps the chakras as they go up in number and color, up the spine to above your head. So, it was a conceptual thing, but at least it gave me something to focus on every five minutes or so…improvising the whole time but changing keys and pondering a different energy or different color.”
McCombs mentions another inevitable occurrence for an improviser. “Sometimes I draw a total blank. It just depends, but often I can find a way out of it or into something that moves the music forward. Sometimes you just have to stop, and you’re just like, ‘Okay, that’s over.’ Now I have to start a new piece.”
Improvisational Music within the Confines of Context
One of the most famous recordings of improvised music is The Köln Concert, the 1975 release by pianist Keith Jarrett. The back story of that performance, as told in a 2019 episode of Tim Harford’s Cautionary Tales podcast, “Bowie, Jazz, and the Unplayable Piano“, is that the piano Jarrett was supposed to use was barely playable. Jarrett reluctantly agreed to perform since the recording equipment was already set up. Despite — or because of — the limitations of that particular instrument, his performance became the best-selling solo album in jazz history.
MacKay, McCombs, and Dorji consider conditions surrounding their performances, such as the venue, audience, or issues with the guitar and gear. The crowd definitely impacts Dorji’s playing. “When I’m opening for a bigger band with a larger audience, there’s definitely more of a heavier weight…There’s the gaze from the audience. That’s just a human reaction to a certain situation. When there are more bodies gazing at you, it definitely affects your mental capacity. There’s a little bit of nervousness around that.”
Concert patrons also affect MacKay’s playing. “You’re often hoping for that audience that listens really closely, intently. But that can be kind of unnerving, too, if it’s to such an extent that people are afraid to utter a peep, or there’s no spontaneous exhortations of joy or release or something. Or it can be great all the way through, just very intense, and everybody’s with you.
Sometimes the spontaneous thing can be really nice, with a little bit of give, or people can make a little bit of noise. I think all of it affects things in a way. It all becomes part of whatever the total sensorium is of that situation.”
Dorji is clear about how the physical space impacts his performance.“If the venue sounds good, you play better [laughs]. There’s a lot more resonance. I play with space. When [the setting] is more compact with the audience closer, I play with more immediacy. It’s more urgent. With a bigger space, there’s more room.
“It also depends. If I play electric in a bigger room, there’s more of a spatial dissonance. But [with] electric guitar in a small room, it always tends to be louder and more aggressive.”
On the topic of things going wrong, McCombs comments, “Almost all the guitars I use have single coil pickups, which [sometimes] can make a lot of buzzing noises. Some of the things I do, I like to be very quiet, and then the buzz really interferes with that. The other main thing — knock on wood — I’ve sort of been able to figure out over the last few years is pedalboard failures.”
“Twenty years ago, I had a couple of really massive ones where I couldn’t make any sound come out of anything, so I spent a lot of time trying to make sure that that doesn’t happen again by having good equipment. More enterprising people than I would either be able to figure out a pedal failure pretty quickly or just dispense with the pedals altogether. Or just start destroying the amp and making noises.”
MacKay tells a story about a memorable performance while improvising in a duo with guitarist Tyler Beach. “We were playing in Chicago at a really adorable dive bar called The Gallery Cabaret [for] probably 30 or 40 people. [We had] electric guitars and were playing, really abstract, just going for it. And some guy ran up in the middle and just shouted, ‘You guys suck!’ Just like, really vehement [laughs]. Then he ran out of the place, as if we had really disturbed his day. [laughs]”
“I remember in the moment, I was like, ‘This could rattle me, but I’m finding it really humorous.’ It was almost liberating or something and funny, and it didn’t bother me at all. Afterward, I talked with Tyler, and he was extremely disturbed by that event, and it had really thrown his whole energy off.”
Did the improvisational music change after this angry guy in the audience shouted at them?
McKay muses, “It probably did, but the weird thing is, I don’t recall [the man’s behavior] as being extreme, which you think maybe it would have been. Although, on the other hand, I thought, ‘What would Tyler’s reaction have been?’ He may have played it safe and stayed somewhere. Or maybe it wasn’t far from where he already was.”
“Then felt that somehow it was positive [laughs], I probably didn’t go off in a wild new direction. So now I’m thinking the music hewed closely to where it already was. It’s weird. There are definitely many influences [on improvisation]. I think it’s hard to even separate them in a way. They’re just easier to point out when it’s dramatic.”
Improvisation as Inspiration
MacKay says he feels lucky when inspiration from a previous performance feeds into his improvisation. “That’s definitely happened with stuff that’s been recorded, and then you think, ‘Oh, that was the beginning of a tune, right there,’ or “That’s a charming progression. We should return to that.’”
Dorji notes that his recent release, “low clouds hang, this land is on fire”, uses ideas raised in earlier performances. “It definitely has the sounds and aesthetics that I felt a long time ago, playing electric, quieter, a lot more space, melodicism, like swells and quiet, instead of…abstract abruptness.”
McCombs says that his first solo album from 2023, “VMAK<KOMBZ<<<DUGLAS<<6NDR7<<<” was inspired by his solo improvisations. “I sort of reverse-engineered [the album]. The first track is me remembering [an earlier performance] or trying to remember to the best of my ability, and then recreating a particularly good solo set that I had had that year.”
“When I talk about the shape of a set, that’s what I’m talking about. I sort of remember the form and some of what happened in it. Then I try to recreate it. I also add a few little — for lack of a better term — written things that could be inserted as little touch points throughout the improvisation.”
All three guitarists are clear about their preference for improvising with other musicians rather than playing by themselves. McCombs states the obvious advantages: “The main thing is that there’s someone there to play off of and someone who can carry some of the burden when you run out of ideas.”
“That’s the beauty of playing with other people, seeing where the music is going to go, and it’s just not all up to you,” MacKay agrees, “You’re not making all the content…If you get in those effortless zones, well, then it’s effortless. It just rolls along.”
“Improvising with another person is the best,” says Dorji. “There’s both restriction and more room in the music when improvising with others, because you’re constantly navigating each other’s boundaries and what you can create together. That’s more exciting than when you’re improvising alone. [By yourself], there’s way more palette, a lot more room, and also sometimes it’s a limitation because you can only go so far.”
“Solo improvisation is limiting,” he continues, “But also very freeing. You don’t have to deal with gears. You’re just alone, you’re playing, and it’s easier. It’s challenging, too, because there’s nothing else to anchor your performance.”
When improvising with saxophonist Dave Rempis, Dorji recalls,” I usually go kind of bare-handed. Because playing with somebody like Dave is kind of like sprinting. It’s more mental preparation because he’ll just kick your ass [laughs]. I can’t go with an idea. I’m going to have to do some riff, but it’s more like you’re thrown in and you just go. It’s more athletic, and it’s way more exercise and endurance.”
MacKay observes one drawback to improvising with others. “Sometimes, if more than just a few people are improvising together and are hesitant about where the direction is going, or even when they start, you often get into very weird territory, which you could definitely get out of, but sometimes things will go along in that vein for a long time,” says MacKay. “That sometimes feels like a lot of the tension sort of coalesces and takes over the direction.”
Garry Winogrand’s Philosophy
Considering Winogrand’s quotation about his process — “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed” — the musicians relate their approach to their music.
McCombs feels that Winogrand’s outlook aligns with his work. “I play a lot of composed music, and I’m most comfortable playing composed music, but that quote relates directly to improvised music. We’re playing this music to hear what it’s going to sound like. The stress-inducing performance makes me uncomfortable. But having the results — when there are good results — that makes it totally worthwhile.”
On the other hand, when hearing the Winogrand line, Dorji rejects the entire concept outright. “That sounds like a very Western perspective. It’s almost like a colonial gaze. I don’t like things to be captured like that. You don’t need to photograph something to feel that it needs to be captured because things exist in their own fluidity.”
For MacKay, Winogrand’s tenet is about “putting something of definition into the world that wasn’t quite there yet,” he says. “By taking the picture, we understand that you’re taking it [the subject] out of its typical situation. It’s now considered in other situations that aren’t in that ambiance or environment anymore. [The meaning of the image] can go anywhere, and so it really is being considered in a different frame just by existing in a photograph.”
Furthermore, MacKay says that Winogrand’s statement is “a metaphor for creating itself, of seeing objects and things in a different way that’s pure in some sense, or more essential, grabbing the essence somehow. It reminds me a little bit of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets [1943]. In the first section [“Burnt Norton”], he writes, “For the roses / Had the look of flowers that are looked at.” They have the look of somebody looking at them, whether that’s actually what they look like or not, or, rather, whether what is seen is their essence or not.”
Both street photography and solo improvisation are acts centered on performance with the goal of creating art in response to and in conversation with the surrounding environment. Yet the creativity of all four artists discussed in this essay — Winogrand, Dorji, McCombs, and MacKay — is more than simply a seat-of-their-pants reaction. They are also responsive to themselves as artists. Their process draws from years of training, experimentation, and refinement to prepare a structure, context, and mindset for generating art in an instant.
Their art exists in a singularity with fluency, emotion, and imagination. Whether an image of a bandaged man’s stare or a piercingly beautiful musical passage, both are distinct moments that reveal a basic instinct, a compulsion even, to create an immediate expression that is of the self and of the world. It is, in short, improvisational.