I whole heartly agree!

i'd like to consider myself in that 1% although i still have issues with the style. especially with the more modern free-improv i hear.

people like ornette coleman and eric dolphy didn't have any problems playing their music freely but there was still a lot of complimentary interplay between the musicians. the individuals within their groups were all free to play what they liked but they also all realized that they were a group and still played as such. but most of the more modern 'free' stuff i hear sounds more like a bunch of individuals playing at the same time instead of playing together. and while that style of absolute chaos 'can' result in great music, i think the slightly more organized chaos of the early coleman / dolphy styles resulted in better output.

Well, there's the difference. You seem to like Free Jazz, with has planning and structure with free soloists, but still have issues with total Free-Improv. Nothing wrong with that. If you don't like it, you don't like it, and with this sort of music, I think it's forgivable!

Your problem as Seba pointed out, is with Free Improv and not Free Jazz.


I forgot to ask in the last thread, but what have you heard that you didn't like? It rightly might have been junk. Like every other genre (well except for the UH and some others ), there is the masterpieces, good, and junk. For the Sergio Leone fans, The Good, the Bad and the UH.


As well as all the things that go in between all 3.

that's part of my problem. i don't know the names of what i don't really like because i actually listen to it on the radio (gotta love late night cbc radio2 for playing something you'll NEVER hear on commercial radio ) a lot of times it seems to be collaborations between various artists, lots of japanese names too.

i think i border the line on the free improv though. i like the elements of planned structure within free jazz as a platform for the soloists, but why can't those structural elements be freely created in the moment too? i suppose that would be free improv, but a lot of what i heard seems to shy away from any form of cohesion within the dynamic rhythmic structures. and i think that's what bugs me most

Have you heard Keith Jarrett's "Koln Concert"? In all technicality, that's a completely improvised performance, but it's one of the most melodic, structured pieces of Jazz you'll ever hear. It's not Free Jazz, as he still adheres to clearly defined chords and such, but it's done right on the spot.

Also, you may want to check out this thread: http://www.radiomute.com/musicthread16511.html (Melodic Free Jazz)

I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it stupid, but it certainly smacks of elitism. Which is not, in my opinion, a compliment. It also implies a certain amount of arrogance, on the parts of both the artist and the audience.

I've never like Free-Improv, for many of the reasons elucidated in the original quote. I don't need music to be completely accessible (Thelonious Monk's "Brilliant Corners" is one of my favorite pieces of music), but I do think it needs a certain purpose. A piece of music needs to be going somewhere; it needs to be reaching for something
beyond itself. Free-Improv is the musical epitome of self-involvement, it seems to me, on several levels. The subculture is self-involved, taking pride in its own small numbers. The music as a whole is involved primarily with itself; there seems to be no true struggle to relate to or represent a greater reality. And the musicians are self-involved (as musicians, not as people), inasmuch as each is improvising on his own and is thus separated from the other musicians who are playing.

Or so it seems to me. But since I've never enjoyed Free-Improv in the least, I must admit that I'm not going to be able to provide a lot of examples. Let me ask you all this, in a spirit of honest inquiry: What pieces should I listen to that might change my mind? (I don't have much of a budget these days, but I'll try to get access to the stuff somewhere, if it will be worth my time.) The "Koln Concert" was mentioned, and I'll take a look at that. But will it offer a counterexample to what I'm claiming above?

spoko.

I know a lot of chicago freejazz musicians up here, the vandermark crew and
all. They love what they do, for sure...but i get so freaking tired of hearing the
same ole sounds coming up over and over again within these musicians, and
them thinking that they're onto something new! just cuz you and the five other
musicians on stage are going apeshit and screaming, bleeding, fussing all over
the place, doesn't mean that it's even nouveau, or avantgarde...just simply a
temper tantrum as a collective...like a contained riot in a glass cage...let me out
let me out!!! this kind of noodling is okay for short periods of time, as contrast
to arrangement, not as a means to an end. it's kinda like if you placed 4 freejazz
musicians in different rooms right next to each other, and they could see each
other...and they were all jacking off. pretty much like that.

this is why i hold my John coltrane, archie shepp, andrew hill, sam rivers, albert
ayler, and many others (who knew how to include melodicism, tradition, composed
arrangement, and spazmotic collective improv) so dear to my heart...they could
find the balance. and this is what is lacking in modern improv-sprited so-called
freejazz. mr braxton is absolutely right in what he says...it's too bad that much
of his music goes against what he says...but so few people really practice what
they preach. the words in the quote still ring vibrantly and truthfully on the subject
of freejazz. so right on Anthony!

i can't fucking stand keith jarret. the way he phrases things on the piano sounds so... tacky and fake. his chord changes are reminiscent of an advanced smooth jazz. plus hearing him sing along doesn't help.

now that my rant is done...


i was surprised to see braxton say something like that, since i think he is probably the most guilty of all of playing too freely and doing the whole freak out thing

To each their own. I'm mostly only interested in his completely improvised performances (( I really need to get my hands on the Sun Bear Concerts box soon )), his trio recordings seem kind of mediocre to me, like a watered down Bill Evans, but I do enjoy them from time to time. They're certainly better than a lot of the garbage that passes for Jazz these days.

As for his "singing", I really don't mind, as it's not as if he mikes himself.