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Old 01-08-2021, 05:32 PM
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Default Free Jazz genre. Any fans?

I’m into most forms of jazz. Free or avant-garde Jazz... I’ve never been able to successfully crack that nut. It just doesn’t connect with me on most occasions. I keep trying... The improvisation and the apparent lack of structure just sounds like everyone is tuning or warming up with their instruments at once...

“Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during this period believed that the bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz that had been played before them was too limiting. They became preoccupied with creating something new and exploring new directions. The term "free jazz" has often been combined with or substituted for the term "avant-garde jazz". Europeans tend to favor the term "free improvisation". Others have used "modern jazz", "creative music", and "art music".’

I know why I don’t connect with it. I like structure and form that follows traditional blues and other jazz forms.


“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 meters and pulsed rhythms, usually in 4/4 or (less often) 3/4. Free jazz retains pulsation and sometimes swings but without regular meter. Frequent accelerando and ritardando give an impression of rhythm that moves like a wave.[1]

Previous jazz forms used harmonic structures, usually cycles of diatonic chords. When improvisation occurred, it was founded on the notes in the chords. Free jazz almost by definition is free of such structures, but also by definition (it is, after all, "jazz" as much as it is "free") it retains much of the language of earlier jazz playing. It is therefore very common to hear diatonic, altered dominant and blues phrases in this music.’




So if there are “Free Jazz’ fans among us, what are your favorites that perhaps can open that door for me to appreciate this alternative to the more traditional Jazz I love?
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Old 01-09-2021, 09:48 AM
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Serge, there is free jazz and there is FREE jazz!
It can get very weird at times, and I guess you have to be on (a lot of) drugs to appreciate that stuff.

I began at the end of the 50s with Ornette Coleman.

I like this album of his (even own the SACD) and the free movement started with it:




Lonely Woman is a brilliant composition.
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Old 01-09-2021, 09:52 AM
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There are a lot of musicians who played in the same style in the 60s.
In fact John Coltrane, who is not always mentioned when we talk about free jazz, also played freely on a lot of his 60s albums.

Other examples of this genre: Frank Wright, Albert Ayler, the pianist Cecil Taylor and drummers Pierre Courbois, Han Bennink, Milford Graves en Sunny Murray.
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Old 01-09-2021, 11:37 AM
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Serge, I completely agree and I too struggle with any music that lacks a rhythm or tempo that you can follow. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, just doesn’t suit my taste. I often find myself looking at what others here are spinning or streaming to help me discover more artists, especially Jazz, that came before me. I was born in 61. There was a lot of Popular jazz from the late 50’s, but a more than considerable amount, “free jazz”. It’s funny. To me it’s like broccoli, I want to like it, I just don’t. No matter how many times I try it.
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Old 01-09-2021, 11:59 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JDCheek View Post
Serge, I completely agree and I too struggle with any music that lacks a rhythm or tempo that you can follow. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, just doesn’t suit my taste. I often find myself looking at what others here are spinning or streaming to help me discover more artists, especially Jazz, that came before me. I was born in 61. There was a lot of Popular jazz from the late 50’s, but a more than considerable amount, “free jazz”. It’s funny. To me it’s like broccoli, I want to like it, I just don’t. No matter how many times I try it.
+1 except I was born in 62 and like broccoli

Serge thanks for starting this post and I too will be following along playing any suggestions to help expand my appreciation of free jazz. Now if we can just get a few more suggestions from other forum members.
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Old 01-09-2021, 12:33 PM
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Default Free Jazz genre. Any fans?

Like Coltrane, his disciple Pharoah Sanders could range freely at times. Scattered in amongst his meditative pieces are some wilder bits worthy of free jazz. And then of course there’s The Heliocentric Sounds of Sun Ra.

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Old 01-09-2021, 01:03 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bart View Post
There are a lot of musicians who played in the same style in the 60s.
In fact John Coltrane, who is not always mentioned when we talk about free jazz, also played freely on a lot of his 60s albums.

Other examples of this genre: Frank Wright, Albert Ayler, the pianist Cecil Taylor and drummers Pierre Courbois, Han Bennink, Milford Graves en Sunny Murray.
Bart, a certain amount of improvisation was absolutely necessary if the music was going to go places. Music does not and should not stand still.

Considering the frustration of acceptance of the musicians and the music that was Jazz during the time when society was not ready for a change, some giants emerged in their improvisational skills.

I think the accepted list of those "Giants of Improvisation" according to some articles I found would be Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Pat Metheny of the Jazz Fusion genre that followed.

I am not sure why Art Pepper did not make the list but to me his improvisations on the Alto Sax are certainly deserving the title. After watching a documentary on Art Pepper, it was very evident how he put into music that, which he had a hard time putting into words... When one listens to Art with that knowledge, the emotional side of his music is even more apparent and appreciated. Chet Baker on the other hand, another West Coast Jazz musician did not improvise much but was still able to play with tons of soul and emotion.

Of course some of the musicians stayed true to form, like Duke Ellington, while Coleman Hawkins made a huge impact on the Big Band before introducing Bepop to his style and evolving.

Music is a passion and a hobby that can be enjoyed on many levels and layers. One can simply listen and enjoy or one can study all the intricate and finely woven web of interconnections and detailed history which would perhaps take more than a life time.

One thing for sure, between Youtube and now streaming platforms like Qobuz/Tidal/Spotify/Amazon/Apple/Youtube music, etc... Discovering music has become exponentially easier and virtually FREE. Explore, study, enjoy....


Getting back to improvisations, it was Thelonious Monk that made me curious as to his unusual piano playing when I was a teenager just beginning to appreciate a bit of Jazz here and there... I thought it was very cool how he played unusual chords and clustered notes on the piano but yet is still made sense... Here is a great example of Thelonious playing. Blue Monk


https://youtu.be/_40V2lcxM7k
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Old 01-09-2021, 02:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JDCheek View Post
Serge, I completely agree and I too struggle with any music that lacks a rhythm or tempo that you can follow. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, just doesn’t suit my taste. I often find myself looking at what others here are spinning or streaming to help me discover more artists, especially Jazz, that came before me. I was born in 61. There was a lot of Popular jazz from the late 50’s, but a more than considerable amount, “free jazz”. It’s funny. To me it’s like broccoli, I want to like it, I just don’t. No matter how many times I try it.
It may take some time for the ears and the music lover inside to open up to certain genres and embrace them. Some genres will never be appreciated by our generation. I was born towards the end of the 60s so too old to fully embrace 99% of today's RAP music.

On occasion I can enjoy a bit of Deep House, a bit of Electronic, Trance, Dance or as it is collectively known, "EDM" that is quite popular with the youngsters but it is not a serious passion.

Free or Avant-garde variation of Jazz may indeed be the broccoli equivalent to our ears but I still eat it from time to time. The trick is to find the style in which it was cooked that is more pleasant, as I will try with the Free Jazz performers and albums.
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Old 01-09-2021, 02:40 PM
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Originally Posted by Antonmb View Post
Like Coltrane, his disciple Pharoah Sanders could range freely at times. Scattered in amongst his meditative pieces are some wilder bits worthy of free jazz. And then of course there’s The Heliocentric Sounds of Sun Ra.

Tony, Sun Ra was perhaps in a league all of his own with his "cosmic" music and theatrical performances and pushing the boundaries of experimental.

I've never completely connected with Sun Ra myself but it is a fun listen from time to time.

I also wondered if he was the influence on the future of "space-music" which is a sub-genre of New Age music but that does not seem to be the case.



From Wikipedia

In 1928, the German composer Robert Beyer published a paper about "Raummusik" (spatial music),[38] which is an entirely different sense of the term. Karlheinz Stockhausen, who became a colleague of Beyer in Cologne in 1953, used the expression "space music" in this sense when describing his early development as a composer: "The first revolution occurred from 1952/53 as musique concrète, electronic tape music, and space music, entailing composition with transformers, generators, modulators, magnetophones, etc., the integration of all concrete and abstract (synthetic) possibilities within sound (also all noises) and the controlled projection of sound in space."[39] In the sense meant here, he stated in 1967, "Several have commented that my electronic music sounds 'like on a different star,' or 'like in outer space.' Many have said that when hearing this music, they have sensations as if flying at an infinitely high speed, and then again, as if immobile in an immense space."[40] A number of Stockhausen's later compositions (not all of them electronic music) take outer space as their theme: Sternklang (Star Sound, 1971), Ylem (1972), Sirius (1975–77), several components of the opera-cycle Licht (Weltraum (Outer Space, 1991–92/1994), Michaelion (1997), Komet (Comet, 1994/1999), Lichter—Wasser (Lights—Waters, 1998–99)), and the so-called "Urantia" subcycle of Klang (Sound, 2006–2007), extending from its thirteenth "hour", Cosmic Pulses to its twenty-first "hour" Paradies.

Music historian Joseph Lanza described the emerging light music style during the early 1950s as a precursor to modern space music. He wrote that orchestra conductor Mantovani used new studio technologies to "create sound tapestries with innumerable strings" and in particular, "the sustained hum of Mantovani's reverberated violins produced a sonic vaporizor foreshadowing the synthesizer harmonics of space music
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Old 01-10-2021, 01:32 AM
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As if the answer was seeking me out for some higher purpose...

Was going over and sorting some CDs and SACDs and opened up the Miles Davis Kind of Blue insert which read the following:


IMPROVISATION IN JAZZ
BY BILL EVANS


There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.

The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see well find something captured that escapes explanation.

This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflections, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician.

Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording.

As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time. Miles Davis presents here frameworks which are exquisite in their simplicity and yet contain all that is necessary to stimulate performance with sure reference to the primary conception.

Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played. Therefore, you will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a "take."

Although it is not uncommon for a jazz musician to be expected to improvise on new material at a recording session, the character of these pieces represents a particular challenge.

Briefly, the formal character of the five settings are: "So What" is a simple figure based on 16 measures of one scale, 8 of another and 8 more of the first, following a piano and bass introduction in free rhythmic style. "Freddie Freeloader" is a 12-measure blues form given new personality by effective melodic and rhythmic simplicity. "Blue in Green" is a 10-measure circular form following a 4-measure introduction, and played by soloists in various augmentation and diminution of time values. "All Blues" is a 6/8 12-measure blues form that produces its mood through only a few modal changes and Miles Davis' free melodic conception. "Flamenco Sketches" is a series of five scales, each to be played as long as the soloist wishes until he has completed the series.





That did help a bit but I've always really enjoyed "Kind of Blue"...
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