In this article, educational scholars L. Janelle Dance, Rochelle Gutierrez, and Mary Hermes share insights from their lived experience as qualitative researchers trying to work in collaboration with diverse populations. They refer to these insights as "improvisations on conventional qualitative methods," reminding readers that their methodological approaches have been more collaborative than unilateral, more fluid than unyielding, more like the reciprocal creativity of jazz than the directed orchestration of classical music. Calling on us to expand our previous conceptions of cultural intuition and reciprocity, these authors offer powerful examples of how their communities shaped their research processes. (Contains 14 notes and 1 figure.)