The role of improvisation in innovation (Creativity)
Innovation is very often the result of improvisation--a word that evokes jazz as a metaphor. Improvisation is spontaneous experimentation within some kind of framework, although it can be completely free-form. Adaptation is its own designer: Improvisation is seen in nature through adaptations to conditions. What a plant or animal needs to be is what it looks like.
Improvisation evokes a sense of disorder and risk: "Should we be spending time just riffing on projects with deadlines?" In fact, jazz recordings were done in a few days--compared to weeks or months for pop or rock records. Jazz musicians already had established the framework (jazz standards or chord changes), as opposed to rock musicians going into a studio with nothing written. David Bowie, who always loved jazz, and managed to do a jazz album as his requiem, understood its framework and its capacity for improvisation. He did it throughout his career or tried to incorporate it.
Takeaway:
Even if you don't play music, perhaps improvising on something will make you appreciate jazz in the way that it uses it. (For example, instead of writing what you know about, talk about it instead. Talking is more improvisatory than writing because you can go off on tangents/digressions easier. Interesting improvisations have lots of digressions in them, yet are constrained by the tune itself.