The term “free jazz” was widely adopted after a disc of that name by saxophonist Omette COLEMAN (released in I960) provided an appropriate label for a style of music that abandoned many of the principles common to all types of jazz. Coleman’s double quartet (in which he was joined by trumpeters Don Cherry and Freddie HUBBARD, saxophonist Eric DOLPHY, bassists Scott LaFaro and Charlie Haden, and drummers Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell) recorded an extended improvisation that filled two sides of an LP. The band was both a roll call of pioneering players in the genre, and a demonstration of a new approach to jazz improvisation, which Coleman had already begun in his earlier discs Something Else! (1958) and Tomorrow Is the Question (1959).
This approach abandoned chordal instruments such as the piano or guitar, the basses did not have to supply a continuous pulse or underlying harmony, and the drummers played intricate polyrhythms, rather than merely “keeping time” as earlier jazz drummers had done. Melodies were introduced fleetingly by one soloist, picked up and developed by another, or replaced by a new melodic idea. In one fell swoop, jazz could no longer be defined in terms of improvised solos over a repeated chord sequence, variations on a familiar melody, relying on a pre-set arrangement, or creating a sense of swing using a rhythm section and lead musicians. Instead, those characteristics became elements in a much broader concept of improvisation.
Coleman succeeded in influencing a generation of jazz musicians because his own improvisations were (and continued to be) intensely melodic. Many are atonal…not conforming to conventional ideas of pitch and harmony…but they are logical and memorable. Often, Coleman’s long, linear melodies use sounds drawn from the blues of his native Texas, and provide the thematic basis for his ensembles, who are selected for their ability in collective improvisation.
Coleman (who went on to develop his ideas into the theory of “harmolodics”) provided a name and a modus operandi for the free jazz movement that drew in many other American and European musicians. John COLTRANE adopted free ideas in his later albums starting with Ascension (1965), but he mainly explored ideas of dissonance between instruments and the extremes of tone and range on his saxophone. Other players who used screeches, squeaks and similar unconventional performance practices were saxophonists Albert Ayler, John Gilmore (in Sun Ra’s theatrical Arkestrd) and Pharoah Sanders. More recently, the German saxophonist Peter Brotzmann and New Yorker John Zorn have investigated the improvisational possibilities of extreme volume.
In the 1960s, many U.S. free jazz players were drawn into politically motivated collective organisations, which both helped to promote an initially uncommercial branch of music, and offered cross fertilisation with other radical black artists, writers, and political figures. Principal among these were Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the St. Louis-based Black Artists’ Group. The former spawned the Art Ensemble of Chicago (formed while its members were in Paris in 1969) which became the best-known of these ensembles. The Art Ensemble added elaborate costumes, face-paint, exotic instruments, and a theatrical style of presentation to the formidable improvisatory skills of its members, notably trumpeter Lester Bowie, saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, and bassist Malachi Favors. When they were joined by drummer Famadou Don Moye in 1970, they introduced to free jazz the rhythms of urban funk and soul. Coleman subsequently took a similar course by incorporating rap and hip-hop into his electric band Prime Time. He also adopted new instruments, teaching himself trumpet and violin with the intention of avoiding the limitations of a conventional playing technique.
Free jazz has continued to develop, both at the level of individual instrumentalists extending the boundaries of pitch, range, timbre, and tone, and of ensembles seeking new ways of improvising. At an individual level, much pioneering work has been done by saxophonists Joe Harriott, John Surman, Evan Parker, Trevor Watts, Louis Sclavis, and David Murray, by trumpeter Tomas Stanko, by trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, by pianists Cecil Taylor, Joachim Kuhn, Howard Riley and Keith Tippett, by drummer Tony Oxley, and by guitarist Derek Bailey.
Bailey, through a succession of annual events in London known as “company” weeks, created an informal series of ensemble settings in which collective playing was explored. Similar large-scale free ensembles have been put together by trombonist Paul Rutherford, whose Iskrastra is an 18-piece band.
In Eastern Europe, free jazz became a rallying point for political protest against the Iron Curtain regimes of the Cold War. Pianist Joachim Kuhn, from Leipzig but working in Prague, created an aggressive keyboard style. In Poland, trumpeter Tomas Stanko and pianist Adam Makowikz, composer Krzysztof Komeda, saxophonist Zbigniew Seifert and violinist Michal Urbaniak shared the urge to protest and modelled their free jazz on Coleman, but were allowed to travel in the West as ambassadors for their music.
Another major influence on free jazz musicians has been the “world music” movement. Trumpeter Don Cherry researched and incorporated traditional music from many parts of the world into his bands. In particular, the rhythms of world music have become an important ingredient in free music, notably through the work of South African drummer Louis Moholo and Brazilian percussionist and berimbau player Nana Vasconcelos.
Alyn Shipton
SEE ALSO:
ALEATORY MUSIC; JAZZ; MODAL JAZZ.
Jost, Ekkehard. Free Jazz
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1994);
Litweiler, John. The Freedom Principle: Jazz after 1958
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1984).
Art Ensemble of Chicago: Urban Bushmen;
Don Cherry: Symphony for Improvisers;
Omette Coleman: Free Jazz;
John Coltrane: Ascension; Joachim Kuhn: Piano;
Cecil Taylor: Conquistador.
