Disclaimer. This is probably the most conceited thing I'll ever write on this website.
I like playing music with bands, but most of my bands don't jam at all, and I don't really care for jamming, either. I can do it, but... I would rather write, play, and try to refine songs and the arrangements to play them in fun, interesting ways. And to suggest that this somehow means I appreciate music at a lower level is a bit daft. I believe myself to be a good musician, and I believe myself to be a good songwriter. I come from the classical traditional where scores are written, and sure, you can improvise a grace note or a cadenza, but also, you compose full pieces. Then, I took jazz lessons and adapted to jazz, which, outside of free jazz, is often still pretty well defined in structure, though you do improvise, but jazz players know who the writers are. And even in a lot of "let's see what happens" kind of jazz, you often agree on scales and where you might go before you start playing. And now I play in the pop genre, which obviously has very defined songs, but I don't feel that it stifles me.
Maybe some people who prefer loose structure don't understand this, but there's an incredible amount of freedom in following a very rigid structure. This is why many poets choose to write sonnets. The structure of a sonnet is so restrictive at first, but once you have command of the structure, it actually guides you step by step. It is almost as though if you are trying to say something, the syllable and rhyme structure then help you distill what you're trying to say into something that can then fit into this neat, little box. It becomes a formula. Someone who only writes free verse can say whatever he or she wants, but when you're writing a sonnet, it's almost like you have a copilot.
So yeah, I can appreciate good, improvisational music. My issue with jamming in rock settings has always been that... in my experience, if the musicians aren't all that educated, a jam is only as creative as the least creative person in the room. And you need a lot of skill to battle inertia and for a group to start doing creative things. And because of that, the musical output is often unsatisfying for me, and ultimately not as complicated and interesting as something that one person sitting down and writing it from A to Z might have been able to come up with. And I guess I've never, ever been with musicians in a band where everybody was on that creative level. And if they're not on that level, someone please just tell them what to play. Does that sound bad? The creative process is honestly not that important for me if it's not producing output, and I don't care if it was dictatorial if the output is good, and I don't care that the process was beautiful and democratic if the output is predictable and repetitive. The output is what matters for me. Beethoven had an amazing life story that came with his music with his deafness and madness, but honestly, does it matter? You listen to that 7th symphony, and none of that story even matters, because the written notes are absolutely pristine.
And people who want to jam, I don't know, lot of times, I wish I could tell people that no, really, you really need to learn to read music, read Mozart, read Bach, learn to play Miles, learn to play Coltrane, and then come back to me, if you want to jam at a level that is even worth it for me. I need to believe that it's going somewhere to pour my heart and soul into it at real time, and I need to appreciate your chops as a musician and a writer before I even want to be part of a spontaneous creative process. If you can't keep up, it's not worth it. And that's because jamming is real time.
Even merely creatively collaborating with others is hard enough. At least, show me your best writing. Is it good? Do you write good changes when you sit down and write? If you can do all that, and then do it in real time, let's jam. It's like you don't want to see someone paint abstract because they can't paint realistic. You don't want to hear free poetry from someone who uses lack of structure as a crutch. But in my experience, I think most people who can write really well also just prefer to write and won't go up to another good writer and say, "let's jam." In fact, most writers often don't like it if you offer unwarranted suggestions, so even though I also play with people who are good writers, when they write, I let them alone unless they specifically ask me for an idea.
As for why I'm willing to let structure be my copilot, though, is because I respect structure and the traditions that they rise from. And the best part of playing pop music is that even though I never play the song the same way twice, there is enough structure to hide behind, and all of my improvisations and bad decisions don't derail the song.
So yeah. That's why I don't jam.
