Avant-garde jazz
Encyclopedia
Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation
that combines avant-garde
art music
and composition with jazz
. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz
, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which improvisation
may take place. This structure may be composed note for note in advance, partially or even completely.
. Based in New York City
, musicians such as Charles Mingus
, Miles Davis
, and John Coltrane
introduced modal
improvisation and experimented with atonality
and dissonance
. Sun Ra
, Cecil Taylor
, and Ornette Coleman
became controversial jazz innovators, outside the range of what many fans considered listenable.
's increasingly experimental work, and the Impulse!
label became the flagbearers of the avant-garde jazz scene. Musicians associated with this high-volume variety of avant-garde jazz (sometimes referred to as "fire music") included Archie Shepp
, Albert Ayler
, McCoy Tyner
, Don Cherry
, Pharaoh Sanders, and Alice Coltrane
. Some of these musicians also began to take on an oppositional relationship to the mainstream music industry, preferring to release records themselves through independent labels such as ESP-Disk
. This wing of avant-garde jazz was taken as emblematic of the Black Power
movement, and also sometimes had mystical
intentions.
Musicians who incorporated the innovations of free
and avant-garde jazz, but remained within a more conventional framework, recorded for Blue Note Records
. Miles Davis
's second quintet (Wayne Shorter
, Herbie Hancock
, Ron Carter
, and Tony Williams), as well as others such as Eric Dolphy
and Andrew Hill
, are the best-remembered representatives of this style.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
began pursuing their own variety of avant-garde jazz. The AACM musicians (Muhal Richard Abrams
, Anthony Braxton
, Roscoe Mitchell
, Hamid Drake
, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago) tended towards eclecticism
, and incorporated developments in 20th century classical music
(particularly Karlheinz Stockhausen
and John Cage
) as well as funk
and ska
, in addition to Dixieland
and other elements of jazz history. Rahsaan Roland Kirk
also made use of pastiche
.
. It is questionable whether this can be considered a form of avant-garde jazz, though Miles Davis
's recordings of this period, in particular, appear quite innovative and take inspiration from serialism
and aleatoric music
, just as the AACM
did. In any case, hardcore jazz fans tended to regard early jazz fusion as a commercial sell-out move. However, by the early-to-mid-1970s, many free jazz icons, such as Albert Ayler
, Archie Shepp
, and Ornette Coleman
were experimenting with rock
and funk
. Coleman
would eventually develop the free funk
style, which would be further explored by the M-Base
musicians in the 1980s.
Jazz also became considerably more international in the 1970s, as saxophonists Gato Barbieri
(Argentine), Kaoru Abe
(Japanese), Peter Brötzmann
(German), and pianists Sergey Kuryokhin
(Russian), Egberto Gismonti
and Hermeto Pascoal
(Brazil) attest. European free jazz
, in particular, began to develop. Evan Parker
and Derek Bailey were pioneers of the new non-idiomatic style. Some veteran avant-garde jazz musicians (Charlie Haden
), and much of the new blood, including a number who had played with Miles Davis
in the 1970s (Dave Holland
, Keith Jarrett
, Chick Corea
) and several Europeans (Jan Garbarek
, among them), began to record for the ECM
label. The ECM sound, invariably recorded by Manfred Eicher
, tended towards an elegant, refined, polished style that owed a great deal to the history of classical music
. ECM also released recordings of minimalist
and medieval music
, and work by the Art Ensemble of Chicago (who were considerably messier than the ECM stereotype would indicate). A number of the AACM and ECM musicians would collaborate with one another, for example in the group Circle
.
Many of the AACM
musicians moved to New York City, where they provided the nucleus of the loft jazz
scene. The World Saxophone Quartet
also emerged from this milieu.
and his classicist approach, and a resulting diminution of the visibility of the avant-garde. However, as avant-garde jazz was a prime influence on no wave
, New York City became the center of a new crop of aggressive improvisors: John Zorn
, Borbetomagus
, the Lounge Lizards
, James Chance
, James Blood Ulmer, Sonny Sharrock
, Diamanda Galás
, Bill Laswell
(who also worked on Herbie Hancock
's funk
and electro recordings) and Bill Frisell
(who had also recorded with the ECM
musicians) among them. This development is referred to as punk jazz
.
John Zorn
, in particular, became an iconic figure in the "downtown" music scene, performing in free jazz
, free improvisation
, and a variety of rock
and extreme music styles. Many of these musicians actually resided in Brooklyn; Tim Berne
is a prominent representative.
. Most prominent are David Boykin, Aaron Getsug, Nicole Mitchell
and Karl E. H. Seigfried
- all of whom came up through Fred Anderson
's Velvet Lounge
. Other players include Ken Vandermark
, Jeff Parker
, and Kevin Drumm
; these musicians had connections to the post-rock
or noise rock
scenes.
Likewise, there was an increase in vitality in the remnants of the loft jazz
scene in New York, centered around David S. Ware
. Matthew Shipp
, Susie Ibarra
, and William Parker
practised a more traditional variety of avant-garde jazz than the punk jazz-inflected downtown musicians, though some collaboration did occur between the two camps. Matthew Shipp
eventually collaborated with illbient
and alternative hip hop
musicians (DJ Spooky
, Anti-Pop Consortium, El-P), and moved towards a distinctive brand of nu jazz
comparable to that of Craig Taborn
.
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
that combines avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
art music
Art music
Art music is an umbrella term used to refer to musical traditions implying advanced structural and theoretical considerations and a written musical tradition...
and composition with jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
may take place. This structure may be composed note for note in advance, partially or even completely.
1950s
The origins of avant-garde jazz are in the innovations of the immediate stylistic successors of Charlie ParkerCharlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
. Based in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, musicians such as Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, and John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
introduced modal
Modal jazz
Modal jazz is jazz that uses musical modes rather than chord progressions as a harmonic framework. Originating in the late 1950s and 1960s, modal jazz is characterized by Miles Davis's "Milestones" Kind of Blue and John Coltrane's classic quartet from 1960–64. Other important performers include...
improvisation and experimented with atonality
Atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
and dissonance
Consonance and dissonance
In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...
. Sun Ra
Sun Ra
Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...
, Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
, and Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
became controversial jazz innovators, outside the range of what many fans considered listenable.
1960s
John ColtraneJohn Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
's increasingly experimental work, and the Impulse!
Impulse! Records
Impulse! Records was an American jazz record label, originally established in 1960 by producer Creed Taylor as a subsidiary of ABC-Paramount Records, based in New York City...
label became the flagbearers of the avant-garde jazz scene. Musicians associated with this high-volume variety of avant-garde jazz (sometimes referred to as "fire music") included Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...
, Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer.Ayler was among the most primal of the free jazz musicians of the 1960s; critic John Litweiler wrote that "never before or since has there been such naked aggression in jazz" He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved...
, McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...
, Don Cherry
Don Cherry (jazz)
Donald Eugene Cherry was an innovative African-American jazz cornetist whose career began with a long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He went on to live in many parts of the world and work with a wide variety of musicians.-Biography:Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and...
, Pharaoh Sanders, and Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane, née McLeod was an American jazz pianist, organist, harpist, and composer.-Biography:...
. Some of these musicians also began to take on an oppositional relationship to the mainstream music industry, preferring to release records themselves through independent labels such as ESP-Disk
ESP-Disk
ESP-Disk is a New York-based record label, founded in 1964 by lawyer Bernard Stollman.From the beginning, the label's goal has been to provide its recording artists with complete artistic freedom, unimpeded by any record company interference or commercial expectations—a philosophy summed-up by the...
. This wing of avant-garde jazz was taken as emblematic of the Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
movement, and also sometimes had mystical
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
intentions.
Musicians who incorporated the innovations of free
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
and avant-garde jazz, but remained within a more conventional framework, recorded for Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
. Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
's second quintet (Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, Ron Carter
Ron Carter
Ron Carter is an American jazz double-bassist. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on that...
, and Tony Williams), as well as others such as Eric Dolphy
Eric Dolphy
Eric Allan Dolphy was an American jazz alto saxophonist, flutist, and bass clarinetist. On a few occasions he also played the clarinet and baritone saxophone. Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence in the 1960s...
and Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill was an American jazz pianist and composer.Hill is recognized as one of the most important innovators of jazz piano in the 1960s...
, are the best-remembered representatives of this style.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians is a non-profit organization, founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States, by pianist/composer Muhal Richard Abrams, pianist Jodie Christian, drummer Steve McCall, and composer Phil Cohran....
began pursuing their own variety of avant-garde jazz. The AACM musicians (Muhal Richard Abrams
Muhal Richard Abrams
Muhal Richard Abrams is an American educator, administrator, composer, arranger, clarinetist, cellist, and jazz pianist in the Free jazz medium. Abrams compresses both contemporary and traditional ideas into lean, elegant pieces.- Biography :Abrams attended DuSable High School in Chicago...
, Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...
, Roscoe Mitchell
Roscoe Mitchell
Roscoe Mitchell is an African American composer, jazz instrumentalist and educator, mostly known for being "a technically superb—if idiosyncratic—saxophonist." He has been called "one of the key figures" in avant-garde jazz who has been "at the forefront of modern music" for the past...
, Hamid Drake
Hamid Drake
Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. He lives in Chicago, IL but spends much of his time traveling around the world for concerts and studio dates....
, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago) tended towards eclecticism
Eclecticism in music
Eclecticism is used to describe a composer's conscious use of styles alien to his nature, or from one or more historical styles. The term is also used pejoratively to describe music whose composer, thought to be lacking originality, appears to have freely drawn on other models .-Sources:* Kennedy,...
, and incorporated developments in 20th century classical music
20th century classical music
20th century classical music was without a dominant style and highly diverse.-Introduction:At the turn of the century, music was characteristically late Romantic in style. Composers such as Gustav Mahler and Jean Sibelius were pushing the bounds of Post-Romantic Symphonic writing...
(particularly Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
and John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
) as well as funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
and ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
, in addition to Dixieland
Dixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
and other elements of jazz history. Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute and many other instruments...
also made use of pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
.
1970s
The 1970s saw the development of jazz fusionJazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
. It is questionable whether this can be considered a form of avant-garde jazz, though Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
's recordings of this period, in particular, appear quite innovative and take inspiration from serialism
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
and aleatoric music
Aleatoric music
Aleatoric music is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer...
, just as the AACM
Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians is a non-profit organization, founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States, by pianist/composer Muhal Richard Abrams, pianist Jodie Christian, drummer Steve McCall, and composer Phil Cohran....
did. In any case, hardcore jazz fans tended to regard early jazz fusion as a commercial sell-out move. However, by the early-to-mid-1970s, many free jazz icons, such as Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer.Ayler was among the most primal of the free jazz musicians of the 1960s; critic John Litweiler wrote that "never before or since has there been such naked aggression in jazz" He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved...
, Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...
, and Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
were experimenting with rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
. Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
would eventually develop the free funk
Free funk
Free funk is a term that Allmusic and writer Scott Yanow use to describe a combination of avant-garde jazz with funk music that developed in the 1970s. Leaders of the genre include Ornette Coleman and his Prime Time group, Ronald Shannon Jackson and his group Decoding Society, Jamaaladeen Tacuma...
style, which would be further explored by the M-Base
M-Base
The term "M-Base" is used in several ways. In the 1980s, a loose collective of young African-American musicians including Steve Coleman, Graham Haynes, Cassandra Wilson, Geri Allen, Robin Eubanks, and Greg Osby emerged in Brooklyn with a new sound and specific ideas about creative expression...
musicians in the 1980s.
Jazz also became considerably more international in the 1970s, as saxophonists Gato Barbieri
Gato Barbieri
Leandro Barbieri , better known as Gato Barbieri , is an Argentinean jazz tenor saxophonist and composer who rose to fame during the free jazz movement in the 1960s and from his latin jazz recordings in the 1970s.-Biography:Born to a family of musicians, Barbieri began playing music...
(Argentine), Kaoru Abe
Kaoru Abe
was an influential Japanese avant-garde alto saxophonist, who is often regarded as having the greatest abrasive saxophone sound.He generally performed solo. He was married to the author Izumi Suzuki, and a cousin to singer Kyu Sakamoto. He died of a drug overdose at the age of 29.-References:* Yuko...
(Japanese), Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann is a German artist and free jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.Brötzmann is among the most important European free jazz musicians. His rough, lyrical timbre is easily recognized on his many recordings.-Early life:...
(German), and pianists Sergey Kuryokhin
Sergey Kuryokhin
Sergey Kuryokhin was a Russian film actor, film composer, pianist, music director, experimental artist and writer, based in St. Petersburg, Russia.-Biography:Kuryokhin began his acting career as a piano and keyboard player with a school band in Leningrad...
(Russian), Egberto Gismonti
Egberto Gismonti
Egberto Gismonti Amin is a Brazilian composer, guitarist and pianist.Gismonti began his formal music studies at the age of six on piano. After studying classical music for 15 years, he went to Paris to study orchestration and analysis with Nadia Boulanger and the composer Jean Barraqué, a disciple...
and Hermeto Pascoal
Hermeto Pascoal
Hermeto Pascoal is a Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist. He was born in Lagoa da Canoa, Alagoas, Brazil. Pascoal is a greatly beloved musical figure in the history of Brazilian music, known for his abilities at orchestration and improvisation, as well as being a record producer and...
(Brazil) attest. European free jazz
European free jazz
European free jazz is a part of the global free jazz scene with its own development and characteristics. It is hard to establish who are the founders of European free jazz because of the different developments in different European countries...
, in particular, began to develop. Evan Parker
Evan Parker
Evan Shaw Parker is a British free-improvising saxophone player from the European free jazz scene.Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free jazz and free improvisation, and has pioneered or substantially expanded...
and Derek Bailey were pioneers of the new non-idiomatic style. Some veteran avant-garde jazz musicians (Charlie Haden
Charlie Haden
Charles Edward Haden is an American jazz musician. He is a double bassist, probably best known for his long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman...
), and much of the new blood, including a number who had played with Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
in the 1970s (Dave Holland
Dave Holland
Dave Holland is an English jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader who has been performing and recording for five decades. He has lived in the United States for 40 years....
, Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as...
, Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
) and several Europeans (Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek
Jan Garbarek is a Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist, active in the jazz, classical, and world music genres. Garbarek was born in Mysen, Norway, the only child of a former Polish prisoner of war Czesław Garbarek and a Norwegian farmer's daughter...
, among them), began to record for the ECM
ECM (record label)
ECM is a record label founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969 by Manfred Eicher. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a wide variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres...
label. The ECM sound, invariably recorded by Manfred Eicher
Manfred Eicher
Manfred Eicher is a German record producer and the founder of ECM Records and its subsidiaries.Eicher studied music at the Academy of Music in Berlin. He is a record producer and a double-bass player. In 1969 he founded a record label in Munich called ECM - Edition of Contemporary Music...
, tended towards an elegant, refined, polished style that owed a great deal to the history of classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
. ECM also released recordings of minimalist
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
and medieval music
Medieval music
Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...
, and work by the Art Ensemble of Chicago (who were considerably messier than the ECM stereotype would indicate). A number of the AACM and ECM musicians would collaborate with one another, for example in the group Circle
Circle (jazz band)
Circle was an avant garde jazz ensemble active in 1970 and 1971. The group arose from pianist Chick Corea's early 1970s trio with Dave Holland on bass and Barry Altschul on drums and percussion with the addition of Anthony Braxton in a leading role on several reed instruments...
.
Many of the AACM
Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians is a non-profit organization, founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States, by pianist/composer Muhal Richard Abrams, pianist Jodie Christian, drummer Steve McCall, and composer Phil Cohran....
musicians moved to New York City, where they provided the nucleus of the loft jazz
Loft jazz
The Loft jazz scene was a cultural phenomenon that occurred in New York City during the mid-1970s, at venues such as Environ, Ali's Alley, and Studio Rivbea, all in former industrial loft spaces in NYC's SOHO district...
scene. The World Saxophone Quartet
World Saxophone Quartet
The World Saxophone Quartet is a jazz ensemble founded in 1977, implementing elements of free funk and African jazz into their musical routines.-History:...
also emerged from this milieu.
1980s
The 1980s saw the pre-eminence of Wynton MarsalisWynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...
and his classicist approach, and a resulting diminution of the visibility of the avant-garde. However, as avant-garde jazz was a prime influence on no wave
No Wave
No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...
, New York City became the center of a new crop of aggressive improvisors: John Zorn
John Zorn
John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...
, Borbetomagus
Borbetomagus
Borbetomagus are a free improvisation/noise music group. They are cited by critics as pioneers of aggressive improvised noise music.- Biography :...
, the Lounge Lizards
The Lounge Lizards
The Lounge Lizards are a jazz group formed in 1978 by saxophone player John Lurie.Initially a tongue in cheek "fake jazz" combo, drawing on punk rock and no wave as much as jazz, The Lounge Lizards have since become respected for their creative and distinctive sound.-History:Lounge Lizards were...
, James Chance
James Chance
James Chance, also known as James White , is an American saxophonist, songwriter and singer....
, James Blood Ulmer, Sonny Sharrock
Sonny Sharrock
Warren Harding "Sonny" Sharrock was an American jazz guitarist. He was once married to singer Linda Sharrock, with whom he sometimes recorded and performed....
, Diamanda Galás
Diamanda Galás
Diamanda Galás is an American avant-garde composer, vocalist, pianist, organist, performance artist and painter.Galás has been described as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror", with her three and a half octave vocal range. She often screams, hisses and growls...
, Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner....
(who also worked on Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
's funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
and electro recordings) and Bill Frisell
Bill Frisell
William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...
(who had also recorded with the ECM
ECM (record label)
ECM is a record label founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969 by Manfred Eicher. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a wide variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres...
musicians) among them. This development is referred to as punk jazz
Punk jazz
Punk jazz describes the amalgamation of elements of the jazz tradition with the instrumentation or conceptual heritage of punk rock...
.
John Zorn
John Zorn
John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...
, in particular, became an iconic figure in the "downtown" music scene, performing in free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
, free improvisation
Free improvisation
Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
, and a variety of rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and extreme music styles. Many of these musicians actually resided in Brooklyn; Tim Berne
Tim Berne
Tim Berne is an American jazz saxophone player and composer.Described by critic Thom Jurek as commanding "considerable power as a composer and ... frighteningly deft ability as a soloist," Berne has composed and performed prolifically since the 1980s...
is a prominent representative.
1990s
The 1990s saw a return in visibility to the Chicago jazz scene, including players with links to the AACMAssociation for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians is a non-profit organization, founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States, by pianist/composer Muhal Richard Abrams, pianist Jodie Christian, drummer Steve McCall, and composer Phil Cohran....
. Most prominent are David Boykin, Aaron Getsug, Nicole Mitchell
Nicole Mitchell (musician)
Nicole Mitchell is an American jazz flautist and former president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians .-Biography:...
and Karl E. H. Seigfried
Karl E. H. Seigfried
Karl E. H. Seigfried is a German-American jazz, rock, and classical bassist, guitarist, composer, bandleader, writer and educator based in Chicago....
- all of whom came up through Fred Anderson
Fred Anderson
Fred Anderson may refer to:*Fred Anderson , former National Football League defensive lineman*Fred Anderson , Major League Baseball player...
's Velvet Lounge
Velvet Lounge
Located on Chicago's South Side, the Velvet Lounge is one of the city's longest-running jazz clubs. Hundreds of established modern jazz musicians have played in the club, leading to its reputation as "dusty epicenter of Midwest's free form jazz scene....
. Other players include Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark is an American jazz composer and saxophone and clarinet player.A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered compositions, which typically balance intricate orchestration with passionate...
, Jeff Parker
Jeff Parker (musician)
Jeff Parker is an American jazz and rock guitarist based in Chicago. Parker is best known as an experimental musician, working with avant-garde electronic, rock, and improvisational groups....
, and Kevin Drumm
Kevin Drumm
-Biography:Emerging from the city's improvised music scene, in the 1990s he became one of the world's pre-eminent prepared guitar players. Since then his work has expanded to include electroacoustic compositions and live electronic music made with laptop computers and analog modular synthesizers...
; these musicians had connections to the post-rock
Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the influence and use of instruments commonly associated with rock, but using rhythms and "guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures" not traditionally found in rock...
or noise rock
Noise rock
Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...
scenes.
Likewise, there was an increase in vitality in the remnants of the loft jazz
Loft jazz
The Loft jazz scene was a cultural phenomenon that occurred in New York City during the mid-1970s, at venues such as Environ, Ali's Alley, and Studio Rivbea, all in former industrial loft spaces in NYC's SOHO district...
scene in New York, centered around David S. Ware
David S. Ware
David Spencer Ware , is an American jazz saxophonist.Ware grew up in Scotch Plains, New Jersey and graduated from Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School. He attended the Berklee College of Music and worked in New York City as a cab driver for 14 years, later returning to Scotch Plains to live...
. Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp is an American pianist, composer and bandleader.Shipp was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, and began playing piano at six years old. His mother was a friend of trumpeter Clifford Brown....
, Susie Ibarra
Susie Ibarra
Susie Ibarra is a Contemporary Composer and Percussionist who has worked and recorded with jazz, classical, world, and Indigenous musicians. She is known for her work as a performer in avant-garde, jazz, world and new music...
, and William Parker
William Parker (musician)
William Parker is an American free jazz double bassist, poet and composer.-Biography:Parker was not formally trained as a classical player, though he did study with Jimmy Garrison, Richard Davis, and Wilbur Ware and learned the tradition. Parker is one of few jazz bassists who regularly plays arco...
practised a more traditional variety of avant-garde jazz than the punk jazz-inflected downtown musicians, though some collaboration did occur between the two camps. Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp is an American pianist, composer and bandleader.Shipp was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, and began playing piano at six years old. His mother was a friend of trumpeter Clifford Brown....
eventually collaborated with illbient
Illbient
Illbient is a term allegedly coined by DJ Olive to describe the iconoclastic music being produced by a community of artists based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York in 1994...
and alternative hip hop
Alternative hip hop
Alternative hip hop is a sub-genre of hip hop music. Allmusic defines it as follows: -Origin:...
musicians (DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky
Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...
, Anti-Pop Consortium, El-P), and moved towards a distinctive brand of nu jazz
Nu jazz
Nu jazz is an umbrella term coined in the late 1990s to refer to music that blends jazz elements with other musical styles, such as funk, soul, electronic dance music, and free improvisation...
comparable to that of Craig Taborn
Craig Taborn
Craig Taborn is an American keyboardist and composer. Playing piano, organ, and Moog synthesizer, Taborn has worked mostly in jazz, although he also does dark ambient and techno music....
.
Notable avant-jazz musicians
- George AdamsGeorge Adams (musician)George Rufus Adams was an American jazz musician who played tenor saxophone, flute and bass clarinet. He is best known for his work with Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Roy Haynes and in the quartet he co-led with pianist Don Pullen, featuring bassist Cameron Brown and drummer Dannie Richmond...
- The Bad PlusThe Bad PlusThe Bad Plus are a jazz trio from the United States, consisting of pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, and drummer Dave King, originating from Minneapolis, MN.-History:...
- Django BatesDjango BatesDjango Bates , is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and band leader. He plays the piano, keyboards and the tenor horn. He currently lives in Copenhagen where he is a professor at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory and leader of the StoRMChaser orchestra.-Career:Django Bates was born in Beckenham,...
- Han BenninkHan BenninkHan Bennink is a Dutch jazz drummer and percussionist. On occasion his recordings have featured his playing on clarinet, violin, banjo and piano....
- Ed BlackwellEd BlackwellEd Blackwell was an American jazz drummer born in New Orleans, Louisiana, known for his extensive work with Ornette Coleman....
- Ernest DawkinsErnest DawkinsErnest Dawkins is an American jazz saxophonist, principally active in free jazz and post-bop.Ernest Khabeer Dawkins was a neighbor of Anthony Braxton as a child. He played bass and drums early in life before switching to saxophone in 1973...
- Scott FieldsScott FieldsScott Fields , is a guitarist, composer and band leader. He is best known for his attempts to blend music that is composed and music that is written and for his modular pieces...
- Mike GarsonMike GarsonMike Garson is an American pianist, most notable for his work with David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Billy Corgan, Free Flight, and The Smashing Pumpkins.- Early career :...
- Charles GayleCharles GayleCharles Gayle is a free jazz saxophonist, pianist, bass clarinetist, and percussionist.-Biography:Charles Gayle was born in Buffalo, New York. Some of Gayle's history is unclear. He was apparently homeless for approximately twenty years, playing saxophone on street corners and subway platforms...
- Globe Unity OrchestraGlobe Unity OrchestraThe Globe Unity Orchestra is a free jazz ensemble.Globe Unity was formed in autumn 1966 with a commission received by Alexander von Schlippenbach from the Berlin Jazz Festival...
- Joe HarriottJoe HarriottJoseph Arthurlin 'Joe' Harriott was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone....
- Roy HaynesRoy HaynesRoy Owen Haynes is an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Haynes is among the most recorded drummers in jazz, and in a career lasting more than 60 years has played in a wide range of styles ranging from swing and bebop to jazz fusion and avant-garde jazz...
- Theo JörgensmannTheo JörgensmannTheodor Franz Jörgensmann is a jazz and free-improvising Basset clarinet player and composer. He has been a professional musician since 1975.-Activities:...
- Jeanne LeeJeanne LeeJeanne Lee was an American jazz singer, poet and composer. Best known for a wide range of vocal styles she mastered, Lee collaborated with numerous distinguished composers and performers which included Gunter Hampel, Ran Blake, Carla Bley, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, and many...
- Joe McPheeJoe McPheeJoe McPhee is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist born in Miami, Florida, a player of tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone, the trumpet, flugelhorn and valve trombone...
- Medeski, Martin, & Wood
- Misha MengelbergMisha MengelbergMisha Mengelberg is a Dutch jazz pianist and composer. He won the Gaudeamus International Composers Award in 1961.-Biography:...
- Kenny Millions
- Don PullenDon PullenDon Pullen was an American jazz pianist and organist. Pullen developed a strikingly individual style throughout his career. He composed masterworks ranging from blues to bebop and modern jazz...
- Sam RiversSam RiversSamuel Carthorne Rivers , is an American jazz musician and composer. He performs on soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica and piano....
- Arto TunçboyacıyanArto TunçboyaciyanArto Tunçboyacıyan is an Armenian-Turkish musician. A famous avant-garde folk artist , he appeared on more than 200 records in Europe before arriving in the United States, where he went to work with numerous jazz legends including Chet Baker, Al Di Meola, and Joe Zawinul as well as a semi-regular...
- Alexander von SchlippenbachAlexander von SchlippenbachAlexander von Schlippenbach is a German jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:...