Free jazz

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Free jazz" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Free jazz or Free Form in the early- to mid-1970s

The ambiguity of free jazz presents problems of definition. Although it is usually played by small groups or individuals, free jazz big bands have existed. Although musicians and critics claim it is innovative and forward-looking, it draws on early styles of jazz and has been described as an attempt to return to primitive, often religious, roots. Although jazz is an American invention, free jazz musicians drew heavily from world music and ethnic music traditions from around the world. Sometimes they played African or Asian instruments, unusual instruments, or invented their own. They emphasized emotional intensity and sound for its own sake, exploring timbres.

Characteristics

Some jazz musicians resist any attempt at classification. One difficulty is that most jazz has an element of improvisation. Many musicians draw on free jazz concepts and idioms, and free jazz was never entirely distinct from other genres, but free jazz does have some unique characteristics. Pharoah Sanders and John Coltrane used harsh overblowing or other extended techniques to elicit unconventional sounds from their instruments. Like other forms of jazz it places an aesthetic premium on expressing the "voice" or "sound" of the musician, as opposed to the classical tradition in which the performer is seen more as expressing the thoughts of the composer.

Earlier jazz styles typically were built on a framework of song forms, such as twelve-bar blues or the 32-bar AABA popular song form with chord changes. In free jazz, the dependence on a fixed and pre-established form is eliminated, and the role of improvisation is correspondingly increased.

Other forms of jazz use regular

altered dominant and blues phrases in this music.

Guitarist Marc Ribot commented that Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler "although they were freeing up certain strictures of bebop, were in fact each developing new structures of composition."^[3] Some forms use composed melodies as the basis for group performance and improvisation. Free jazz practitioners sometimes use such material. Other compositional structures are employed, some detailed and complex.^[2]: 276

The breakdown of form and rhythmic structure has been seen by some critics to coincide with jazz musicians' exposure to and use of elements from non-Western music, especially African, Arabic, and Indian. The atonality of free jazz is often credited by historians and jazz performers to a return to non-tonal music of the nineteenth century, including

Many critics, particularly at the music's inception, suspected that abandonment of familiar elements of jazz pointed to a lack of technique on the part of the musicians. By 1974, such views were more marginal, and the music had built a body of critical writing.[7]

Many critics have drawn connections between the term "free jazz" and the American social setting during the late 1950s and 1960s, especially the emerging social tensions of racial integration and the

Keith Johnson of AllMusic describes a "Modern Creative" genre, in which "musicians may incorporate free playing into structured modes—or play just about anything."^[9] He includes John Zorn, Henry Kaiser, Eugene Chadbourne, Tim Berne, Bill Frisell, Steve Lacy, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and Ray Anderson in this genre, which continues "the tradition of the '50s to '60s free-jazz mode".^[9]

Ornette Coleman rejected pre-written chord changes, believing that freely improvised melodic lines should serve as the basis for harmonic progression. His first notable recordings for Contemporary included Tomorrow Is the Question! and Something Else!!!! in 1958.^[10] These albums do not follow typical 32-bar form and often employ abrupt changes in tempo and mood.^[11]

The free jazz movement received its biggest impetus when Coleman moved from the west coast to New York City and was signed to Atlantic. Albums such as The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century marked a radical step beyond his more conventional early work. On these albums, he strayed from the tonal basis that formed the lines of his earlier albums and began truly examining the possibilities of atonal improvisation. The most important recording to the free jazz movement from Coleman during this era, however, came with Free Jazz, recorded in A&R Studios in New York in 1960. It marked an abrupt departure from the highly structured compositions of his past. Recorded with a double quartet separated into left and right channels, Free Jazz brought a more aggressive, cacophonous texture to Coleman's work, and the record's title would provide the name for the nascent free jazz movement.^[8]: 314

Pianist Cecil Taylor was also exploring the possibilities of avant-garde free jazz. A classically trained pianist, Taylor's main influences included Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver, who prove key to Taylor's later unconventional uses of the piano.^[11]: 792 Jazz Advance, his album released in 1956 for Transition showed ties to traditional jazz, albeit with an expanded harmonic vocabulary. But the harmonic freedom of these early releases would lead to his transition into free jazz during the early 1960s. Key to this transformation was the introduction of saxophonist Jimmy Lyons and drummer Sunny Murray in 1962 because they encouraged more progressive musical language, such as tone clusters and abstracted rhythmic figures. On Unit Structures (Blue Note, 1966)^[12] Taylor marked his transition to free jazz, as his compositions were composed almost without notated scores, devoid of conventional jazz meter, and harmonic progression. This direction influenced by drummer Andrew Cyrille, who provided rhythmic dynamism outside the conventions of bebop and swing^{[8]: 319–320} Taylor also began exploring classical avant-garde, as in his use of prepared pianos developed by composer John Cage.^[11]: 794

One of Ayler's key free jazz recordings is Spiritual Unity, including his often recorded and most famous composition, Ghosts, in which a simple spiritual-like melody is gradually shifted and distorted through Ayler's unique improvisatory interpretation. Ultimately, Ayler serves as an important example of many ways which free jazz could be interpreted, as he often strays into more tonal areas and melodies while exploring the timbral and textural possibilities within his melodies. In this way, his free jazz is built upon both a progressive attitude towards melody and timbre as well as a desire to examine and recontextualize the music of the past.^[13]

In a 1963 interview with Jazz Magazine, Coltrane said he felt indebted to Coleman.

The title track of Charles Mingus' Pithecanthropus Erectus contained one improvised section in a style unrelated to the piece's melody or chord structure. His contributions were primarily in his efforts to bring back collective improvisation in a music scene that had become dominated by solo improvisation as a result of big bands.^[4]

Outside of New York, a number of significant free jazz scenes appeared in the 1960s. They often gave birth to collectives. In Chicago, numerous artists were affiliated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, founded in 1965.^[17] In St. Louis, the multidisciplinary Black Artists Group was active between 1968 and 1972.^[18] Pianist Horace Tapscott founded the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and Union of God's Musicians and Artists Ascension in Los Angeles.^[19] Although they did not organize as formally, a notable number of free jazz musicians were also active in Albert Ayler's hometown of Cleveland. They included Charles Tyler, Norman Howard, and the Black Unity Trio.^[20]

By the 1970s, the setting for avant-garde jazz was shifting to New York City. Arrivals included Arthur Blythe, James Newton, and Mark Dresser, beginning the period of New York loft jazz. As the name may imply, musicians during this time would perform in private homes and other unconventional spaces. The status of free jazz became more complex, as many musicians sought to bring in different genres into their works. Free jazz no longer necessarily indicated the rejection of tonal melody, overarching harmonic structure, or metrical divide, as laid out by Coleman, Coltrane, and Taylor. Instead, the free jazz that developed in the 1960s became one of many influences, including pop music and world music.^[21]

Paul Tanner, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill have suggested,

the freer aspects of jazz, at least, have reduced the freedom acquired in the sixties. Most successful recording artists today construct their works in this way: beginning with a strain with which listeners can relate, following with an entirely free portion, and then returning to the recognizable strain. The pattern may occur several times in a long selection, giving listeners pivotal points to cling to. At this time, listeners accept this – they can recognize the selection while also appreciating the freedom of the player in other portions. Players, meanwhile, are tending toward retaining a key center for the seemingly free parts. It is as if the musician has learned that entire freedom is not an answer to expression, that the player needs boundaries, bases, from which to explore.^[22]

Tanner, Gerow and Megill name Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor, John Klemmer, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Alice Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Anthony Braxton, Don Cherry, and Sun Ra as musicians who have employed this approach.^[22]

Other media

Canadian artist

New York Eye and Ear Control is Canadian artist Michael Snow's 1964 film with a soundtrack of group improvisations recorded by an augmented version of Albert Ayler's group and released as the album New York Eye and Ear Control.^[26] Critics have compared the album with the key free jazz recordings: Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation and John Coltrane's Ascension. John Litweiler regards it favourably in comparison because of its "free motion of tempo (often slow, usually fast); of ensemble density (players enter and depart at will); of linear movement".^[27] Ekkehard Jost places it in the same company and comments on "extraordinarily intensive give-and-take by the musicians" and "a breadth of variation and differentiation on all musical levels".^[28]

French artist Jean-Max Albert, as trumpet player^[29][30] of Henri Texier's first quintet, participated in the 1960s in one of the first expressions of free jazz in France. As a painter, he then experimented plastic transpositions of Ornette Coleman's approach. Free jazz, painted in 1973, used architectural structures in correspondence to the classical chords of standard harmonies confronted with an unrestrained all over painted improvisation.^[31] Jean-Max Albert still explores the free jazz lessons, collaborating with pianist François Tusques in experimental films : Birth of Free Jazz, Don Cherry... these topics considered through a pleasant and poetic way.^[32]

In the world

Founded in 1967, the Quatuor de Jazz Libre du Québec was Canada's most notable early free jazz outfit.^[33] Outside of North America, free jazz scenes have become established in Europe and Japan. Alongside the aforementioned Joe Harriott, saxophonists Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, trombonist Conny Bauer, guitarist Derek Bailey, pianists François Tusques, Fred Van Hove, Misha Mengelberg, drummer Han Bennink, saxophonist and bass clarinetist Willem Breuker were among the most well-known early European free jazz performers.^[34] European free jazz can generally be seen as approaching free improvisation, with an ever more distant relationship to jazz tradition. Specifically Brötzmann has had a significant impact on the free jazz players of the United States.^[35]

Japan's first free jazz musicians included drummer

• Rivelli, Pauline; Levin, Robert, eds. (1979). Giants of Black Music. New York: Da Capo Press. Articles from Jazz & Pop Magazine. Reprint of the 1970 edition, New York: World Publishing Co.
• Sinclair, John; Robert Levin (1971). Music & Politics. New York: World Publishing Co.
• Sklower, Jedediah (2006). Free Jazz, la catastrophe féconde. Une histoire du monde éclaté du jazz en France (1960-1982). Collection logiques sociales. Paris: Harmattan.
  ISBN 2-296-01440-2
  .
• Such, David Glen (1993). Avant-Garde Jazz Musicians: Performing "Out There". Iowa City: University Of Iowa Press.
  ISBN 0-87745-435-3
  (pbk.).
• Szwed, John F. (2000). Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz. New York: Hyperion.
  ISBN 0-7868-8496-7
  .
• Gray, John (1991). Fire Music: A Bibliography of the New Jazz, 1959-1990. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
  ISBN 9780313278921
  .
• Mazzola, Guerino (2008). Flow, Gesture, and Spaces in Free Jazz. Heidelberg, D: Springer.
  ISBN 978-3540921943
  .
• Gray, John (2019). Creative Improvised Music: An International Bibliography of the Jazz Avant-Garde, 1959-Present. Nyack, NY: African Diaspora Press.
  ISBN 9780984413485
  .
• Schwartz, Jeff (2018). Free Jazz: A Research and Information Guide. New York:
  ISBN 9781138232679
  .
• Levin, Robert, "Free Jazz: The Jazz Revolution of the '60s"

References