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Originally Posted by Dan Gilbert
1. Obviously they weren't, but I don't think you can argue that many very famous jazz tunes were written and performed under the influence, as they say. I remember seeing some footage of Theloneus Monk walking into a room, and just walking around in really erratic circles because he was so high, ending up finding the piano bench, and then playin' some classic Monk. It's considered great Jazz, but how can one process complex thought when you are so high you can't really walk? Seems to me that those scales and modes were just ingrained in him enough that he was able to place right-sounding notes in right-sounding places, and that's really all that Jazz requires.
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Monk was in no way known as a druggie. He probably had some psychological issues, hence the weirdness, but he was still amazingly creative. And complexity doesn't require you to think about every little aspect of what you're doing. Do you think Mozart was thinking about the theory behind every note that he wrote down before he wrote it? Just because you have used these ideas enough that you no longer have to think about it doesn't mean that they aren't complex.
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2. The amount of musical education you have does contribute to the sophistication of your music, though.
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It does, but you don't need to have a sophisticated musical education to create complex music. Take Berlioz for example, self-taught. Besides, lots of jazz musicians have/had a very strong musical education. Your example of Monk, well he went to Julliard.
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3. Although fugues may have roots in improvisation, i doubt these improvised fugues were ever as complex as the Bach inventions or whatnot. And I would suppose that classical music which is improvised is less complex than classical music which is premeditated. There may be great classical music which sounds improvisatory, but I think most people on this site would agree that they could not improvise a piece of music which they are as proud of as the music for which they have provided a score.
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Sometimes improvising music brings out things that you wouldn't expect that are much more satisfying than scored music. The reason is you don't have to worry about all the little technicalities of writing down what you hear in your head, you simply have to play it which for a lot of people is way more natural. Here check this tune out and come back and tell us how you can find it to not be completely amazing:
YouTube - Chick Corea & Hiromi Uehara - Spain
You know how much of that track was written down? The lead melody and the original chords (which were definitely morphed into something different). I think you'd probably spend months and months trying to score a song that sounded so fluid and incorporated all the complexities that these two inject into it.