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Research Report

Is conceptual processing in music automatic? Anelectrophysiological approach

Jérôme Daltrozzo⁎, Daniele SchönMediterranean Institute of Cognitive Neurosciences, CNRS and University of the Mediterranean, Marseille, France

A R T I C L E I N F O

⁎ Corresponding author. INCM-CNRS, 31 ChemE-mail addresses: jerome.daltrozzo@inser

0006-8993/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevidoi:10.1016/j.brainres.2009.03.019

A B S T R A C T

Article history:Accepted 6 March 2009Available online 21 March 2009

Recent evidence suggests that music perception, much alike language perception, involvesthe cognitive processing of concepts, that is abstract general ideas. In a previous study(Daltrozzo and Schön, Conceptual processing in music as revealed by N400 effects on wordsand musical targets. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, In Press), we reported the effect ofthe presentation of a musical excerpt (the context) on the perception of a word, whileparticipants judged the conceptual relatedness between the two stimuli. Event-RelatedPotentials (ERPs) showed a N400 effect: a larger N400 to words judged unrelated to theircontext compared to related words. In the present experiment, we decided to test theinfluence of the relatedness task on the N400 effect by using a more implicit task: lexicaldecision. We recorded behavioral and ERP data while participants were presented 50 relatedand 50 unrelated pairs (excerpt context/word target). An N400 effect was again observed.However, the N400 effect found with a lexical decision was more than two times smallerthan with a relatedness judgment task and was significant in a later latency range: 500 to650 ms instead of 300 to 550 ms with a relatedness judgment. These differences areinterpreted as reflecting the task-induced modulation of explicit (strategic) mechanismsinvolved in the N400 effect.

© 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:LanguageMusicConceptPerceptionERPN400

1. Introduction

In a previous experiment (Daltrozzo and Schön, in press) wereported the effect of the presentation of short musicalexcerpts (about 1 s) on the perception of words. We recordedEvent-Related Potential (ERP) time-locked to the display ofwords. Words were presented after a conceptually relatedmusical excerpt (e.g., the word “madness” is displayed afterlistening an excerpt from “Paraguay, Guarani-Nandeva etAyoreo”. that possibly evoked the concept of “madness” onthe sole basis of its musical structure) and after a conceptuallyunrelated excerpt. Participants judged whether the excerpt–word pairs were or were not (conceptually) related. In other

in Joseph Aiguier, 13402m.fr (J. Daltrozzo), schon

er B.V. All rights reserved

words, they performed a (conceptual) Relatedness JudgmentTask (RJT). Words judged as “related” elicited a larger negativeERP component than those judged as “unrelated”. This effectwas interpreted as a modulation of a N400, possibly reflectinga matching process between the concepts evoked by emo-tional feelings to the musical excerpts and the conceptsconveyed by thewords. The N400 component is a negative ERPcomponent, peaking around 400 ms post-stimulus onset witha centro-parietal distribution, reflecting semantic mecha-nisms (Kutas and Hillyard, 1980) and more generally con-ceptual processing (Castle, Van Toller, and Milligan, 2000;Fogelson, Loukas, Brown, and Brown, 2004; Ganis, Kutas, andSereno, 1996; McPherson andHolcomb, 1999; Nigam, Hoffman,

Marseille cedex 20, France.@incm.com (D. Schön).

.

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and Simons, 1992; Orgs, Lange, Dombrowski, and Heil, 2006;Sarfarazi, Cave, Richardson, Behan, and Sedgwick, 1999; VanPetten and Rheinfelder, 1995). In our previous study the RJTencouraged participants to focus on the conceptual related-ness between excerpts and words. Since the N400 is wellknown to be sensitive to strategic (i.e., explicit/conscious)mechanisms, that can be enhanced by the level of attention(e.g., Brown and Hagoort, 1993; Matsumoto, Iidaka, Nomura,and Ohira, 2005; Ruz, Madrid, Lupanez, and Tudela, 2003), theobserved N400 effect could be due to task-induced strategies.In that case, the N400 effect might disappear under a differenttask or if the participant has no task to perform. This resultwould mean that, within a more ecological environment, thatis, outside a laboratory, while one is listening to music andperceives words (e.g., from a conversation or from a book)without having to perform a task, this music would notinfluence the cognitive processing of the words. Thus, the aimof the present study was to test whether a N400 effect wouldremain when participants perform a different task than theRJT, wherein their attentional focus is moved away from theexcerpt–word relatedness.

If the mechanisms underlying the N400 effect depend onstrategic mechanisms (i.e., a conscious or explicit processmodulated by the level of attention), the use of an indirect task(that does not ask to focus on excerpt–word relatedness),should reduce or eliminate the effect. Alternatively, if theN400effect is not affected by strategic mechanisms, the use of anindirect task should not show a reduction of the effect. In thiscase, the mechanisms underlying the effect would be inter-preted as automatic (mandatory) and implicit (independent ofthe level of attention). The implicit versus explicit nature of themechanisms underlying the N400 effect to word perceptionhas been extensively studied. Several studies suggested thatN400 conceptual relatedness effects could be elicited byimplicit mechanisms alone (Anderson and Holcomb, 1995;Deacon, Uhm, Ritter, Hewitt, and Dynowska, 1999; Dehaene etal., 2001; Holcomb, 1988, 1993; Kiefer, 2002; Kiefer and Brendel,2006; Kiefer and Spitzer, 2000; Misra and Holcomb, 2003; ReissandHoffman, 2006; Rolke,Heil, Streb, andHennighausen, 2001;Schnyer, Allen, and Forster, 1997; Stenberg et al., 2000) whileseveral others showed that this effect is essentially due toexplicit processing (e.g., Brown and Hagoort, 1993; Matsumotoet al., 2005; Ruz et al., 2003). Therefore, the two types ofmechanisms seem to contribute the N400 effect. However,since all the above-mentioned studies tested only semanticrelatedness effects, i.e., a particular type of conceptual proces-sing, it is not clear whether the N400 effect generated by othertypes of conceptual mechanisms (e.g., effect of musicalconcepts on word perception) is also the product of implicitand explicit processes.

In the present study, we used a Lexical Decision Task(LDT) wherein participants have to decide if a presentedletter series is a word or a pseudoword (i.e., a pronounceable,orthographically legal letter series that resemble a real word).We predicted that implicit and explicit mechanisms wouldalso contribute to the N400 effect. Consequently, weexpected that task-induced strategic mechanisms would beevidenced by a smaller N400 effect with a LDT compared to aRJT. However, we also predicted that the N400 effect wouldnot disappear with the LDT because implicit processes would

be unaffected by the task manipulation. The effect of thetask (RJT versus LDT) will be tested by comparing the dataobtained with LDT with these reported in Daltrozzo andSchön (in press) using a RJT. At the behavioral level, sinceconceptual relatedness effects can also be seen with Reac-tion Time (RT) (Meyer and Schvaneveldt, 1971), for instancewhen excerpt–word relatedness speeds the LDT (Poulin-Charronnat, Bock, Grieser, Meyer, and Koelsch, 2006), wepredicted faster LDT to related compared to unrelatedexcerpt–word pairs.

2. Results

2.1. Behavioral results

The participants' average accuracy was 99.09% (Mean±SEM:99.09±0.39% for related pairs and 99.09±0.37% for unrelatedpairs). Although, there was a tendency for faster responses tothe related (Mean±SEM: 604±23 ms) compared to the unre-lated pairs (610±26 ms), this difference did not reachsignificance (Wilcoxon Z=0.57, n.s., N=22).

2.2. Event-related brain potentials results

As can be seen from Fig. 1, during the LDT, the visual wordpresentation elicited several ERP in the two experimentalconditions, i.e., related or unrelated pairs. A N1 is clearlyevident at most electrode sites, peaking around 80 ms. It isfollowed by a positive (150ms)-negative (190ms) complex (P2–N2). A negative component, the N400, is then elicited. Mostimportantly, the amplitude of the N400 is larger for unrelatedcompared to related words and this effect starts around250 ms and lasts until about 750 ms (Fig. 1).

To analyze in detail how these components were modu-lated by the independent variables manipulated in thisexperiment using a LDT and in Daltrozzo and Schön (inpress) using a RJT, data were analyzed with a repeatedmeasure ANOVAs with Task (RJT/LDT)×Relatedness (related/unrelated)×Anteroposterior (frontal, central, and parietalROIs)×Hemisphere (left/right) as within-subjects factorsusing 50 ms windows.

Amain effect of Relatedness was significant within the 150to 250ms latency range [F(1, 34)=5.49, p=.025] and within 300–550 ms [F(1, 34)=6.20, p=.018]. Task, Relatedness, and Ante-roposterior interacted between 300 and 400 ms [F(2, 68)=4.19,p=.032] but this interaction was no longer significant with aMcCarthy and Wood correction [F(2, 68)=3.14, p=.067], indi-cating an interaction between Task and Relatedness withouttopographic effect. Furthermore, Task and Relatedness inter-acted between 400 and 500 ms [F(1, 34)=6.96, p=.013] indica-ting a larger effect of Relatedness with RJT (M=−1.76 μV)compared to LDT (M=−0.19 μV).

To analyze in detail how these components were modu-lated by the independent variables manipulated for eachlevel of the Task, a repeated measure ANOVAs with Related-ness (related/unrelated)×Anteroposterior (frontal, central,and parietal ROIs)×Hemisphere (left/right) as within-subjectsfactors using 50 ms windows was performed for each level ofthe Task.

Fig. 1 – Grand averaged ERPs to related (thin lines) and unrelated (thick lines) word targets (N=22 participants; vertical unit:microvolt; horizontal unit: millisecond) and isopotential map of the difference waves (grand averaged ERPs to unrelated minusrelated targets) 550 ms post-stimulus onset (unit: microvolt).

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For the first level of the Task (i.e., RJT), a main effect ofRelatedness was significant within the 300 to 550 ms latencyrange [F(1, 13)=5.93, p=.030] indicating a significant N400effect (unrelated minus related words: M=−1.45 μV).

For the second level of the Task (i.e., LDT), a main effectof Relatedness was significant within the 550 to 650 mslatency range [F(1, 21)=4.80, p=.040] indicating a significantN400 effect (M=−0.66 μV). Furthermore, Relatedness inter-acted with Hemisphere within the 500 to 600 ms latencyrange [F(1, 21)=5.03, p=.036] but this interaction was nolonger significant with a McCarthy and Wood correction [F(1,21)=0.75, n.s.], indicating an effect of Relatedness withouttopographic effect.

3. Discussion

In this study we addressed the question of whether listeningto a musical excerpt affects the processing of a following wordat a strategic or at an automatic (and implicit) level. At this aimwe compared behavioral and ERP data to the presentation ofexcerpt–word pairs under a direct task: a Relatedness Judg-

ment Task (RJT) (Daltrozzo and Schön, in press) and under anindirect task: a Lexical Decision Task (LDT) wherein partici-pants have to decide if a visually presented (target) letterseries is a word or not. Each target was preceded by a musicalexcerpt, and we manipulated the relatedness betweenexcerpts and targets. Based on previous findings (Daltrozzoand Schön, in press; Poulin-Charronnat et al., 2006), wehypothesized that a musical excerpt would influence theprocessing of a following word. This influence would beevidenced by a shorter Reaction Time (RT) to the task (“RTeffect”) and a smaller N400 to words within related comparedto unrelated contexts (“N400 effect”). The ERP to wordspresented after a related musical excerpt showed a reducednegativity between 300 and 550 ms compared to unrelatedwords. The effect of excerpt–word relatedness interacted withthe task (RJT vs. LDT) between 300 and 500 ms. With RJT, arelatedness effect was found between 300 and 550 ms with arelatively large size (1.45 μV) compared to LDT. Indeed, withLDT the effect found between 500 and 650 ms was weaker(0.66 μV between 550 and 650 ms). At the behavioral level,results did not indicate RT effects.

The lack of RT effect replicated the results foundwith a RJT.However, unlike the RJT, the LDT was expected to show a RT

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effect. Indeed, the LDT is the original task used for theobservation of RT relatedness effects (Meyer and Schvane-veldt, 1971). The basic procedure of the LDT involves measur-ing the time needed to decide if a letter series is a word or not.The term Lexical Decision Task was first coined by Meyer andSchvaneveldt (1971). Since then, the LDT, often combined withthe manipulation of the relatedness between a word and astimulus context, has been used in hundreds of studies toinvestigate lexical access in the semantic memory (over 1300published papers listed by PUBMED on June 2008 with thekeyword “lexical decision”). Recently, Poulin-Charonnat et al.(2006) asked participants to perform a LDT using musicalcontexts. They found faster RTs to words in a relatedcompared to an unrelated musical context. We see twopossible explanations for the failure to replicate the findingsof Poulin-Charonnat et al. First, while they used excerpts ofabout 11 s, our excerpts lasted only for one second. Thus, ifmusic conveys conceptual information, 11 s of music wouldobviously carry more concepts than only 1 s. This differencemay in turn result in a larger RT effect with long compared toshort musical contexts. Second, the use of explicit strategiessuch as labelization (i.e., associations between the musicalmaterial and, for instance, the name of the composer, themusical form or style, the name of objects, people or otherenvironmental aspects previously perceived and encoded inepisodic memory as associated to the musical material) maypossibly increase with the duration of themusical excerpt andin turn increase the RT effect.

Compared to our previous experiment with the samerelated and unrelated pairs using a RJT (Daltrozzo andSchön, in press), the contribution of strategies was reduced.Indeed, the reason for using an indirect task (a LDT) instead ofa direct task (a RJT) was to check whether the relatednesseffect found in our previous study was only due to theparticipants' focus on the relatedness between the context(i.e., the musical excerpt) and the target word or could alsooccur without this task-induced selective attention. If wecompare the (nonsignificant) RT effect found here (i.e., 6 ms)with the trend found by Daltrozzo and Schön (in press), i.e.,21 ms, it seems that using an indirect instead of a direct taskreduced markedly the relatedness effect. Interestingly, aneffect size reduction is also found with the N400 effect (i.e.,0.66 μV with the LDT instead of 1.45 μV with the RJT). Thisstrong effect size reduction suggests thatmore than half of therelatedness effects observed with the RJT was in fact driven bythe participants' focus on the excerpt–word relatedness.

This conclusion seems contradictory with the results ofKoelsch Kasper, Sammler, Schulze, Gunter, and Friederici(2004). In that study, long musical excerpts (about 10 s) werefollowed by the presentation of related or unrelated visualwords. This relatedness effect was tested with the N400 undertwo different tasks, that is, a RJT and a Memory Task (MT). Theauthors found that the N400 effect (difference betweenresponses to related and unrelated targets) did not changesignificantly with the task. Unlike the instructions given forthe RJT, participants performed the MT without beinginformed of the conceptual (un)relatedness between thecontext and the target. They were asked “to attend to the stimuliin preparation for memory tests” (pp. 306). Most importantly,participants had to memorize all the material (musical

excerpts and words) to perform the MT. Recognition accuracywas 71%. One may argue that, in order to have such a goodperformance, participants had to be highly attentive to thepresented excerpt–word pairs. Given this high level of atten-tion to both music and word items and given the rather longduration of musical stimuli, it is possible that they noticed theconceptual (un)relatedness of the excerpt–word pairs eventhough they were not informed of this aspect before the test.Therefore, the lack of difference betweenMT and RJTmight bedue to the fact that participants did realize, in the memorytask, that there was a conceptual relation manipulationbetween musical prime and verbal target.

Compared to the MT, the LDT is possibly more efficient inreducing the participants' attention on the excerpt–wordrelatedness. Indeed, since the LDT forced the participants torespond as fast as possible, it is unlikely that they had the timeand resources to set also their attention to other aspects thanthe word's lexicality. Furthermore, they were explicitly told toignore the musical stimuli. Finally, the musical stimuli lasted1 s rather than 10 s in Koelsch et al., drastically reducing thetime allowed to set up strategies. Therefore, although wecannot claim that the N400 effect under the LDT was not at allgenerated by strategic effects, our result provides somesupport for the influence of musical excerpts on wordperception under a more task-independent design and at aless explicit level.

While Koelsch et al. (2004) and Daltrozzo and Schön (inpress) found N400 effects in the usual time window (between200 and 600 ms), the present study shows a late effect (i.e.,between 500 and 650 ms). According to several studies(Connolly, Phillips, Stewart, and Brake, 1992; Holcomb, 1993;Wang and Yuan, 2008), the latency of the N400 effect can bedelayed under a mask compared to an unmasked condition.Masking is known to impair more explicit than implicitmechanisms (McNamara, 2005). Thus, these results suggestthat when the mechanisms generating the N400 effectbecome less explicit, the N400 effect is delayed. Therefore,the later latency of the N400 effect found with LDT comparedto RJT may reflect that less explicit processing contributed tothe former effect compared to the latter. This conclusionassumes that masking primarily affects the level of explicitprocessing. However, other interpretations of the effect ofmasking have been proposed, for instance that maskingaffects the level of representation.

The present study compares the behavioral and ERPresponses under two different tasks: LDT and RJT. Onelimitation of our results (and these of Koelsch et al., 2004) isthat different groups of participants were included for eachtask. Therefore, it cannot be fully excluded that the smallerand delayed N400 effect found here compared to Daltrozzoand Schön (in press) is due to a different participant sampleinstead of a different task. Even if this might contribute to thereduction and delay of the N400 effect, the conclusion stillremains that a N400 effect was found using an indirect task(LDT) rather than a direct task (RJT) in an experimental designthat tends to reduce strategic factors. A second limitation ofour study is that we tested only the effect of the task when thewords were the targets, following a musical context. However,in Daltrozzo and Schön (in press), it was found that aconceptual relatedness effect on the N400 could also be

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found when musical excerpts are used as targets (following aword context). Thus, it would be of interest to test with a taskmanipulation if a N400 effect on excerpt targets is alsogoverned by strategic mechanisms. Future studies are neededto check conceptual processing during and following musicperception while the task is manipulated on the sameparticipants. In this regard, other indirect tasks than LDTcould be used, for instance a semantic categorization ormemory task.

To summarize, the late latency of the N400 effect reportedin the present study suggests that the underlyingmechanismswere less explicit. As predicted, the amplitude of this effectwas smaller with a LDT compared to a RJT. These differencesstem probably from task-related strategies. The data reportedhere support the view thatmost of the (conceptual) processingof music and language perception can interact at an explicit(strategic) level and that if automatic (and implicit) mechan-isms remain, they have a weak effect.

4. Experimental procedures

4.1. Participants

Twenty four volunteer nonmusicians were tested in theexperiment. However, because of artifacts in the ERP data of2 participants, only 22 were retained for analyses. All wereright handed, neurologically normal, had normal or corrected-to-normal vision, normal audition, and were native Frenchspeakers (Mean (SD): 25.0 (3.6) years, education: 16.5 (2.4)years, 11 women). All participants were paid for theirparticipation to the experiment.

4.2. Stimuli

One-hundred French nouns (one or two syllables) (e.g., “délire”[“madness”], “magie” [“magic”], “courage” [“courage”], see otherexamples in the Appendix) were presented to musicalexperts. They were asked to find a highly related 1 s excerptfor each word (e.g., for the word “magie” [“magic”], an excerptof “Into a Dream” from Pat Metheny interpreted by PatMetheny and Jim Hall at guitars, 1998). The 100 related pairs(word–excerpt) were presented to 15 nonmusicians who ratedeach pair for their relatedness on a 9-points scale. Weretained only the 50 most related pairs for the ERP experi-ments. Finally, fifty unrelated pairs were built from thismaterial by matching the stimuli in a different order. The 50related and the 50 unrelated pairs were presented in apseudo-random order counterbalanced across participants.Therefore, each target appeared once with a related contextand once with an unrelated context (order was counter-balanced across participants). This material was identical to aprevious experiment, for details see Daltrozzo and Schön (inpress). In order to ask the participant to perform a lexicaldecision task, we completed the above material with 100excerpt–pseudoword pairs. These pairs were derived from the50 excerpt–word pairs that were not previously selectedaccording to the participants' relatedness scores (see above).Pseudowords were derived from words by substituting letterswithin each word so that the remaining letter series was

pronounceable, orthographically legal, and resembled realwords. Fifty other excerpt–pseudoword pairs were built fromthese 50 excerpt–pseudoword pairs by matching the stimuliin a different order. Therefore, each participant was pre-sented 100 excerpt–word pairs and 100 excerpt–pseudowordpairs.

4.3. Procedure

Participants were comfortably seated in a Faraday box. Theonset of the excerpt (duration range: 972 to 1299 ms)presentation was followed 800 ms later (i.e., a StimulusOnset Asynchrony (SOA) of 800 ms) by the presentation of avisual word or pseudoword (duration: 200 ms). The visualwords/pseudowords averaged 10 cm long and 1.5 cm high andwere presented at about 70 cm, subtending a vertical angle of1.2° and a mean horizontal angle of 8.1°. The words/pseudo-words were displayed in white lower case on a dark back-ground in the center of a 13-in. computer screen. Subjectswere instructed to decide, as quickly as possible, whether theseries of letterswas aword or a pseudoword by pressing one oftwo buttons. They were told that musical excerpts would bepresented during the test but they did not have to payattention to them to perform the task. The associationbetween hand side (left or right) and response (word orpseudoword) was balanced across participants. The wordpresentation was followed 2 s later by the visual presentationof “XXXXX” (duration: 2.7 s). Participants were instructed toblink their eyes during the presentation of this series of “X”and to avoid blinking at other times.

4.4. Data acquisition and analysis

The electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded from 32 scalpelectrodes located at standard positions over frontal, central,parietal, occipital, and temporal areas (International 10/20system sites: Fz, Cz, Pz, Oz, Fp1, Fp2, Af3, Af4, F3, F4, C3, C4, P3,P4, Po3, Po4, O1, O2, F7, F8, T3, T4, T5, T6, Fc5, Fc1, Fc2, Fc6, Cp5,Cp1, Cp2, and Cp6). The data were then rereferenced offline tothe algebraic average of the left and right mastoids. Trialscontaining ocular artifacts, movement artifacts, or amplifiersaturation were excluded from the averaged ERP waveforms.The EEG was amplified by Biosemi amplifiers (ActiveTwosystem) with a band-pass of 0–102.4 Hz and was digitized at512 Hz.

ERP datawere analyzed by computing themean amplitude,starting 100 ms before the onset of the word presentation andending 1000 ms after. Repeated-measures Analysis of Var-iance (ANOVA) was used for statistical assessment. To test thedistribution of the effects, 6 regions of interest (ROIs) wereselected as levels of two topographic within-subjects factors(i.e. Anteroposterior and Hemisphere): left (Af3, F3, FC1) andright (Af4, F4, FC2) frontal, left (C3, Cp1, Cp5) and right (C4, Cp2,Cp6) central, and left (P7, Po3, O1) and right (P8, Po4, O2)parietal. Note that ANOVAs including the midline electrodeswere also performed. However, because no major differenceswere found between these two types of analyses, we onlyreported those including ROIs. We used latency windows of50 ms in the 0 to 1000 ms range. All reported p-values wereadjusted with the Greenhouse–Geisser correction for

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nonsphericity, when appropriate. Sidak tests were used inpost-hoc comparisons. The reported p-values are corrected formultiple comparisons. McCarthy and Wood correction wasperformed, when appropriate (McCarthy and Wood, 1985).

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the FrenchNational Agency for Research (ANR 2005–8 “Music and memory”).

Appendix

Examples of thematerial of words and related excerpts (soundsfiles of these examples can be downloaded at http://www.incm.cnrs-mrs.fr/pperso/attach/schon/daltrozzo_schon_ex1.zip):

Words

Related excerpt references

Magie (magic)

“Into a Dream” Pat Metheny interpreted byPat Metheny and Jim Hall, guitars (1998)

Délire (madness)

“Paraguay, Guarani-Nandeva et Ayoreo”.Ocora. Ayoreo people, Chaco désert, Paraguay

Blessant(wounding)

"Concerto Grosso" Alfred Garrievitch Schnittke

Courage(courage)

“Szàszcsàvàs band 3” Szekely Verbunk.Thermal Confort, Budapest

Heureux (happy)

“The Days Of Wine And Roses” Marcini Mercerinterpreted by Dexter Gordon, saxophone (1975)

Laid (ugly)

“Mr PC” John Coltrane interpreted by JohnColtrane, saxophone (1965)

Hâte (hasten)

“Donna Lee” Charlie Parker interpreted byBireli Lagrene, guitar (1994)

Léger (light)

“Young One“ Jim Hall interpreted byJim Hall, guitar, and Gil Goldstein, piano (1989)

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