John Cage conceived of indeterminacy in close historical relationship to modern jazz improvisation during the 1950s but disavowed the latter through a strategy of negation and a rationale based on personal taste. The acquisition of taste is intentional, and Cage's taste for jazz shifted according to his status and identity within the avant-garde, from an interest in hot music that began in the late 1930s to an intransigent rejection of improvisation in the late 1940s until the close of his career in 1992. This essay examines the social basis of Cage's jazz distaste by analyzing his early contact with experimental composer and jazz historian William Russell, his first magnetic tape work Imaginary Landscape No. 5 (1952), which sampled popular jazz records, and a 1965 performance with the Joseph Jarman Quartet in Chicago.
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