“Controlled Freedom”
Chapter 1 approaches managerial theory as an entry point for examining the relationship between jazz and risk. If management theorists have looked to jazz practice as an analogy for risk-taking, jazz affords us with a powerful window onto a more complex narrative of risk in American life. This chapter develops a distinction between risk and uncertainty crafted by economic theorist Frank Knight, where uncertainty implies a conception of risk in which the parameters of risk are impossible to quantify. Chapter 1 culminates with an examination of postbop, as it was realized by the 1960s Miles Davis Quintet and subsequent artists: the embrace of “controlled freedom” by the Davis Quintet brought an unprecedented level of virtuosity to bear upon improvisatory risk-taking.