Free jazz
Encyclopedia
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. Each in their own way, free jazz musicians attempted to alter, extend, or break down the conventions of jazz, often by discarding hitherto invariable features of jazz, such as fixed chord changes or tempo
s. While usually considered experimental and avant-garde, free jazz has also oppositely been conceived as an attempt to return jazz to its "primitive", often religious roots, and emphasis on collective improvisation.
Free jazz is most strongly associated with the 1950s innovations of Ornette Coleman
and Cecil Taylor
and the later works of saxophonist John Coltrane
. Other important pioneers included Charles Mingus
, Eric Dolphy
, Albert Ayler
, Archie Shepp
, Joe Maneri
and Sun Ra
. Although today "free jazz" is the generally-used term, many other terms were used to describe the loosely-defined movement, including "avant-garde", "energy music" and "The New Thing". During its early- and mid-60s heyday, much free jazz was released by the independent ESP Disk label.
Free jazz uses jazz
idioms, and like 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. Many free jazz musicians, notably Pharoah Sanders
and John Coltrane, use harsh overblowing techniques or otherwise elicit unconventional sounds from their instruments. Earlier jazz styles typically were built on a framework of song forms, such as the twelve-bar blues or the 32-bar AABA popular song form
, with a set framework of chord
changes. In free jazz, the dependence on a fixed and pre-established form is eliminated, and the role of improvisation
is correspondingly increased. As guitarist Marc Ribot
has remarked, free jazz musicians like Ornette Coleman
and Albert Ayler
, "although they were freeing up certain strictures of bebop, were in fact each developing new structures of composition."
Typically this kind of music is played by small groups of musicians, but some has more. For example, John Coltrane's 1965 album Ascension, uses eleven musicians. Many critic
s, particularly at the music's inception, suspected that the abandonment of familiar elements of jazz pointed to a lack of technique on the part of the musician
s. Today such views are more marginal, and the music has built up a tradition and a body of accompanying critical writing
. It remains less commercially popular
than most other forms of jazz.
Other forms of jazz use clear regular meter
s and strongly-pulsed rhythm
s, usually in 4/4 or (less often) 3/4. Free jazz normally retains a general pulsation and often swings but without regular meter, and often with frequent accelerando
and ritardando, giving an impression of the rhythm moving in wave
s. Despite all of this, it is still very often possible to tap one's foot to a free jazz performance
; meter is more freely variable but has not disappeared entirely.
Non-free jazz forms used harmonic
structures (usually cycles of diatonic chord
s). Improvisers played solos using notes based on the notes in the chords. Free jazz almost by definition dispenses with 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.
This breakdown of form and rhythmic structure may be due to the free jazz musicians’ use of elements from exotic 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 field holler
s, street cries, and jubilees (part of the “return to the roots” element of free jazz). This suggests that perhaps the movement away from tonality was not a conscious effort to devise a formal atonal system, but rather a reflection of the concepts surrounding free jazz. Eventually, jazz became totally “free” by removing all dependence on chord progressions and instead using polytempic and polyrhythmic structures.
Finally, some forms use composed melodies as the basis for group performance and improvisation. Free jazz practitioners sometimes use such material, and sometimes do not. In some music which is called "free jazz", other compositional structures are employed, some of them very detailed and complex; the music of Anthony Braxton
furnishes many examples. It would perhaps be best to call this modern or avant-garde jazz, reserving the term "free jazz" for music with few or no pre-composed elements.
and a pair of 1949 recordings for Capitol by a group led by Lennie Tristano
, "Intuition" and "Digression".
The mid-1950s recordings of Ornette Coleman
for Contemporary (Something Else! and Tomorrow Is the Question) and the first two albums by Cecil Taylor
(Jazz Advance and Looking Ahead) mark the beginnings of free jazz, though they still retain a hold on bebop and hard bop languages. The movement received its biggest impetus (and its name), however, when Coleman moved from the West Coast to New York and was signed to Atlantic Records: albums such as The Shape of Jazz to Come
and Change of the Century
marked a radical step beyond his more conventional early work, and when he released a 1960 recording titled Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation
, the name stuck to the movement as a whole.
Much of Sun Ra
's music could be classified as free jazz, especially his work from the 1960s, although Sun Ra said repeatedly that his music was written and boasted that what he wrote sounded more free than what "the freedom boys" played. Music by Sun Ra, especially The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (1965), was, in fact, steeped in what could be referred to as a new black mysticism.
Some of bassist Charles Mingus' work was also important in establishing free jazz. Of particular note are his early Atlantic albums, such as The Clown, Tijuana Moods, and most notably Pithecanthropus Erectus, the title song of which contained one section that was freely improvised in a style unrelated to the song's melody or chordal structure. His contributions were primarily in his efforts to bring back the importance of collective improvisation in a music scene that had become dominated by solo improvisation (as a result of the development of the big band). His music did reflect the ideas of freedom, but also looked back, drawing upon bop and even swing styles.
Since the mid-1950s, saxophonist Jackie McLean
had been exploring a concept he called "The Big Room", where the often strict rules of bebop
could be loosened or abandoned at will. Similarly, Cecil Taylor
, the most prominent free jazz pianist, began stretching the bop boundaries as early as 1956.
The Jimmy Giuffre
Trio (with Paul Bley
and Steve Swallow
) received little attention during their original incarnation from 1960–62, but afterwards were regarded as one of the most innovative free jazz ensembles.
Eric Dolphy's work with Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, and Chico Hamilton
, along with his solo work, helped to set the stage for free jazz in the music community.
In Europe, free jazz first flowered through the experiments of expatriate Jamaican alto saxophonist Joe Harriott
. Beginning in the late 1950s, he worked on his own distinctive concept of what he termed free form. These explorations were parallel to Coleman's in many respects but Harriott's work was barely known outside of England. Beginning in the mid-1960s, players such as guitarist Derek Bailey, saxophonists Peter Brötzmann
and Evan Parker
and drummer John Stevens
developed an idiom that came to be called "free improvisation
". It drew sustenance from free jazz while moving much further from jazz tradition (often drawing equally on contemporary composers such as Anton Webern
and John Cage
for inspiration).
Free jazz has primarily been an instrumental genre. However, Jeanne Lee
was a notable free jazz vocalist; others such as Sheila Jordan
, Linda Sharrock
, and Patty Waters
also made notable contributions to the genre.
Much of the multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton's
music could be classified as free jazz. His Ghost Trance Music, which introduces a steady pulse to his music, also allows the simultaneous performance of any piece by the performers. Braxton has recorded with many of the free jazz musicians, including Ornette Coleman and European free improvisers such as Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, and the Globe Unity Orchestra.
Some musicians of the time combined performance with teaching. Max Roach
and Archie Shepp taught at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst
. After receiving his doctorate from Columbia University Teachers College
in 1971, William Byrd taught at Howard University
for several years. William “Billy” Taylor taught at the C.W. Post College in Long Island
while maintaining several other musical activities, including co-founding Harlem’s Jazzmobile in 1965, serving as the bandleader for the David Frost Show, working as a music commentator for the CBS “Sunday Morning” show, and publishing several compositions and the book “Jazz Piano: A Jazz History” (1983). George Russell, hailed as “the great pathbreaker” for encouraging the use of modes by free jazz composers and performers, was a faculty member at the New England Conservatory. David Baker received two degrees from and later taught at Indiana University in Bloomington, and also performed actively.
The 1960s free jazz ethos was continued in the New York 1970s "loft jazz
" scene (in locations such as Sam Rivers' Studio RivBea), and the 1980s "downtown" scene associated with places such as the Knitting Factory. A younger generation of players including David S. Ware
, Matthew Shipp
, William Parker
and Joe Morris
continued to play free jazz inspired by the ground-breaking work of the 1960s New Thing. Like other styles of jazz, free jazz also adopted elements of contemporary rock, funk and pop music: Ornette Coleman was a leader in this vein, embracing electric music with his 1970s band Prime Time, and a number of other players including James Blood Ulmer, Sonny Sharrock
, and Ronald Shannon Jackson
forged styles combining elements of free jazz and fusion
.
The 1981 documentary film
Imagine the Sound
explores free jazz through interviews with and performances by Archie Shepp, Paul Bley, Cecil Taylor and Bill Dixon.
Many musicians are keeping the free jazz style alive in the present day. Two major scenes are based in New York and Chicago. In New York, players include Charles Gayle
, William Parker
, Matana Roberts
, Chad Taylor, John Zorn
, Medeski Martin and Wood, Assif Tsahar
, Tom Abbs
, Kenny Werner
, and Chris Speed
. In Chicago, notable performers are Fred Anderson
, Nicole Mitchell
, Ernest Dawkins
, Karl E. H. Seigfried
, Ken Vandermark
, and Hamid Drake
.
, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill have suggested that
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.
Keith Johnson of Allmusic describes a "Modern Creative" genre, in which "musicians may incorporate free playing into structured modes -- or play just about anything." Johnson 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".
, saxophonists Peter Brötzmann
, Evan Parker
, trombonist Conny Bauer
, guitarist Derek Bailey, pianist Fred Van Hove
and drummer Han Bennink
were among the most well-known early European free jazz performers. 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. A relatively active free jazz scene behind the iron curtain
produced musicians like Tomasz Stanko
, Zbigniew Seifert
, Vladimir Chekasin, Vyacheslav Ganelin
and Vladimir Tarasov
. Japanese guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi
and saxophonist Kaoru Abe
, among others, took free jazz in another direction, approaching the energy levels of noise
. Some international jazz musicians have come to North America and become immersed in free jazz, most notably Ivo Perelman
from Brazil
and Gato Barbieri
of Argentina
(this influence is more evident in Barbieri's early work). American musicians like Don Cherry
, John Coltrane
, Milford Graves
, and Pharoah Sanders
integrated elements of the music of Africa
, India
, and the Middle East
for a sort of World music
-influenced free 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...
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
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
, and modal jazz
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...
, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s. Each in their own way, free jazz musicians attempted to alter, extend, or break down the conventions of jazz, often by discarding hitherto invariable features of jazz, such as fixed chord changes or tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
s. While usually considered experimental and avant-garde, free jazz has also oppositely been conceived as an attempt to return jazz to its "primitive", often religious roots, and emphasis on collective improvisation.
Free jazz is most strongly associated with the 1950s innovations of 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....
and 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 the later works of saxophonist 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...
. Other important pioneers included 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...
, 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...
, 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...
, Joe Maneri
Joe Maneri
Joseph Gabriel Esther "Joe" Maneri , was an American jazz composer, saxophone and clarinet player. Violinist Mat Maneri is his son....
and 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...
. Although today "free jazz" is the generally-used term, many other terms were used to describe the loosely-defined movement, including "avant-garde", "energy music" and "The New Thing". During its early- and mid-60s heyday, much free jazz was released by the independent ESP Disk label.
Definition
There is no universally accepted definition of free jazz, and any proposed definition is complicated by many musicians in other styles drawing on free jazz, or free jazz sometimes blending with other genres. Many musicians also tend to reject efforts at classification, regarding them as useless or unduly limiting.Free jazz uses 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...
idioms, and like 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. Many free jazz musicians, notably Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders is a Grammy Award–winning American jazz saxophonist.Saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world." Emerging from John Coltrane's groups of the mid-60s Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on...
and John Coltrane, use harsh overblowing techniques or otherwise elicit unconventional sounds from their instruments. Earlier jazz styles typically were built on a framework of song forms, such as the twelve-bar blues or the 32-bar AABA popular song form
Thirty-two-bar form
The thirty-two-bar form, often called AABA from the musical form or order in which its melodies occur, is common in Tin Pan Alley songs and later popular music including rock, pop and jazz...
, with a set framework of chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
changes. In free jazz, the dependence on a fixed and pre-established form is eliminated, and the role of 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...
is correspondingly increased. As guitarist Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...
has remarked, free jazz musicians like 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....
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...
, "although they were freeing up certain strictures of bebop, were in fact each developing new structures of composition."
Typically this kind of music is played by small groups of musicians, but some has more. For example, John Coltrane's 1965 album Ascension, uses eleven musicians. Many critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
s, particularly at the music's inception, suspected that the abandonment of familiar elements of jazz pointed to a lack of technique on the part of the musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
s. Today such views are more marginal, and the music has built up a tradition and a body of accompanying critical writing
Music criticism
See also Music journalism for reporting on classical and popular music in the media.The Oxford Companion to Music defines music criticism as 'the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres'. In this...
. It remains less commercially popular
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
than most other forms of jazz.
Other forms of jazz use clear regular meter
Metre (music)
Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...
s and strongly-pulsed rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
s, usually in 4/4 or (less often) 3/4. Free jazz normally retains a general pulsation and often swings but without regular meter, and often with frequent accelerando
Accelerando
Accelerando may refer to:* Accelerando , a 2005 science fiction novel by Charles Stross* Accelerando, an increase in musical tempo*Accelerando, an album by Kappa...
and ritardando, giving an impression of the rhythm moving in wave
Wave
In physics, a wave is a disturbance that travels through space and time, accompanied by the transfer of energy.Waves travel and the wave motion transfers energy from one point to another, often with no permanent displacement of the particles of the medium—that is, with little or no associated mass...
s. Despite all of this, it is still very often possible to tap one's foot to a free jazz performance
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
; meter is more freely variable but has not disappeared entirely.
Non-free jazz forms used harmonic
Harmonic
A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...
structures (usually cycles of diatonic chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
s). Improvisers played solos using notes based on the notes in the chords. Free jazz almost by definition dispenses with 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
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
phrases in this music.
This breakdown of form and rhythmic structure may be due to the free jazz musicians’ use of elements from exotic 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 field holler
Field holler
Field Hollers as well as work songs were African American styles of music from before the American Civil War, this style of music is closely related to spirituals in the sense that it expressed religious feelings and included subtle hints about ways of escaping slavery, among other things...
s, street cries, and jubilees (part of the “return to the roots” element of free jazz). This suggests that perhaps the movement away from tonality was not a conscious effort to devise a formal atonal system, but rather a reflection of the concepts surrounding free jazz. Eventually, jazz became totally “free” by removing all dependence on chord progressions and instead using polytempic and polyrhythmic structures.
Finally, some forms use composed melodies as the basis for group performance and improvisation. Free jazz practitioners sometimes use such material, and sometimes do not. In some music which is called "free jazz", other compositional structures are employed, some of them very detailed and complex; the music of 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...
furnishes many examples. It would perhaps be best to call this modern or avant-garde jazz, reserving the term "free jazz" for music with few or no pre-composed elements.
History
Early recorded examples of free-form improvisation include solo guitar works by the French guitarist Django ReinhardtDjango Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
and a pair of 1949 recordings for Capitol by a group led by Lennie Tristano
Lennie Tristano
Leonard Joseph Tristano was a jazz pianist, composer and teacher of jazz improvisation. He performed in the cool jazz, bebop, post bop and avant-garde jazz genres. He remains a somewhat overlooked figure in jazz history, but his enormous originality and dazzling work as an improviser have long...
, "Intuition" and "Digression".
The mid-1950s recordings of 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....
for Contemporary (Something Else! and Tomorrow Is the Question) and the first two albums by 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...
(Jazz Advance and Looking Ahead) mark the beginnings of free jazz, though they still retain a hold on bebop and hard bop languages. The movement received its biggest impetus (and its name), however, when Coleman moved from the West Coast to New York and was signed to Atlantic Records: albums such as The Shape of Jazz to Come
The Shape of Jazz to Come
The Shape of Jazz to Come is an influential album by Ornette Coleman. It was his debut album for Atlantic Records who released it in late 1959....
and Change of the Century
Change of the Century
Change of the Century is an album, recorded in 1959 and originally released in 1960, by jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman . This was Coleman's second Atlantic album and his fourth overall...
marked a radical step beyond his more conventional early work, and when he released a 1960 recording titled Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation
Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation
Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation is the sixth album by jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, recorded in 1960. Its title established the name of the then-nascent free jazz movement...
, the name stuck to the movement as a whole.
Much of 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...
's music could be classified as free jazz, especially his work from the 1960s, although Sun Ra said repeatedly that his music was written and boasted that what he wrote sounded more free than what "the freedom boys" played. Music by Sun Ra, especially The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (1965), was, in fact, steeped in what could be referred to as a new black mysticism.
Some of bassist Charles Mingus' work was also important in establishing free jazz. Of particular note are his early Atlantic albums, such as The Clown, Tijuana Moods, and most notably Pithecanthropus Erectus, the title song of which contained one section that was freely improvised in a style unrelated to the song's melody or chordal structure. His contributions were primarily in his efforts to bring back the importance of collective improvisation in a music scene that had become dominated by solo improvisation (as a result of the development of the big band). His music did reflect the ideas of freedom, but also looked back, drawing upon bop and even swing styles.
Since the mid-1950s, saxophonist Jackie McLean
Jackie McLean
John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, born in New York City.-Biography:McLean's father, John Sr., played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra...
had been exploring a concept he called "The Big Room", where the often strict rules of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
could be loosened or abandoned at will. Similarly, 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...
, the most prominent free jazz pianist, began stretching the bop boundaries as early as 1956.
The Jimmy Giuffre
Jimmy Giuffre
James Peter Giuffre was an American jazz clarinet and saxophone player, composer and arranger. He is notable for his development of forms of jazz which allowed for free interplay between the musicians, anticipating forms of free improvisation.-Biography:Born in Dallas, Texas, of Italian ancestry,...
Trio (with Paul Bley
Paul Bley
Paul Bley, CM is a pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz movement of the 1960s as well as his innovations and influence on trio playing.-Biography:...
and Steve Swallow
Steve Swallow
Steve Swallow is a jazz double bass and bass guitarist and composer born in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.One of the leading bassists in jazz, Swallow is noted for collaborations with Jimmy Giuffre, Gary Burton and Carla Bley...
) received little attention during their original incarnation from 1960–62, but afterwards were regarded as one of the most innovative free jazz ensembles.
Eric Dolphy's work with Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, and Chico Hamilton
Chico Hamilton
Chico Hamilton , is an American jazz drummer and bandleader.-Early life through 1960s:Hamilton was born in Los Angeles, California. He had a fast-track musical education in a band with Charles Mingus, Illinois Jacquet, Ernie Royal, Dexter Gordon, Buddy Collette and Jack Kelso...
, along with his solo work, helped to set the stage for free jazz in the music community.
In Europe, free jazz first flowered through the experiments of expatriate Jamaican alto saxophonist Joe Harriott
Joe Harriott
Joseph Arthurlin 'Joe' Harriott was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone....
. Beginning in the late 1950s, he worked on his own distinctive concept of what he termed free form. These explorations were parallel to Coleman's in many respects but Harriott's work was barely known outside of England. Beginning in the mid-1960s, players such as guitarist Derek Bailey, saxophonists 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:...
and 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 drummer John Stevens
John Stevens
John Stevens may refer to:In politics, law and public service:*John H. Stevens , built the first house west of the Mississippi in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota*John L. Stevens , U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Hawai'i...
developed an idiom that came to be called "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....
". It drew sustenance from free jazz while moving much further from jazz tradition (often drawing equally on contemporary composers such as Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
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...
for inspiration).
Free jazz has primarily been an instrumental genre. However, Jeanne Lee
Jeanne Lee
Jeanne 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...
was a notable free jazz vocalist; others such as Sheila Jordan
Sheila Jordan
Sheila Jordan is an American jazz singer and songwriter. Jordan has recorded as a session musician with an array of critically acclaimed artists in addition to a notable solo career....
, Linda Sharrock
Linda Sharrock
Linda Sharrock is an American jazz singer....
, and Patty Waters
Patty Waters
Patty Waters is a jazz vocalist, best known for her free jazz recordings in the 1960s for the ESP-Disk label. Although she has rarely recorded since then, she is more and more recognized as a vocal innovator whose influence extends beyond jazz....
also made notable contributions to the genre.
Much of the multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton's
Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...
music could be classified as free jazz. His Ghost Trance Music, which introduces a steady pulse to his music, also allows the simultaneous performance of any piece by the performers. Braxton has recorded with many of the free jazz musicians, including Ornette Coleman and European free improvisers such as Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, and the Globe Unity Orchestra.
Some musicians of the time combined performance with teaching. Max Roach
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...
and Archie Shepp taught at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a public research and land-grant university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States and the flagship of the University of Massachusetts system...
. After receiving his doctorate from Columbia University Teachers College
Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College, Columbia University is a graduate school of education located in New York City, New York...
in 1971, William Byrd taught at Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
for several years. William “Billy” Taylor taught at the C.W. Post College in Long Island
Long Island University C.W. Post Campus
The C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University is a private institution of higher education located in Brookville in Nassau County, New York, United States...
while maintaining several other musical activities, including co-founding Harlem’s Jazzmobile in 1965, serving as the bandleader for the David Frost Show, working as a music commentator for the CBS “Sunday Morning” show, and publishing several compositions and the book “Jazz Piano: A Jazz History” (1983). George Russell, hailed as “the great pathbreaker” for encouraging the use of modes by free jazz composers and performers, was a faculty member at the New England Conservatory. David Baker received two degrees from and later taught at Indiana University in Bloomington, and also performed actively.
The 1960s free jazz ethos was continued in the New York 1970s "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 locations such as Sam Rivers' Studio RivBea), and the 1980s "downtown" scene associated with places such as the Knitting Factory. A younger generation of players including 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....
, 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...
and Joe Morris
Joe Morris (guitarist)
Joe Morris is an American jazz guitarist. In addition to leading his own groups, he has recorded with William Parker, Whit Dickey, Rob Brown, Joe Maneri and others...
continued to play free jazz inspired by the ground-breaking work of the 1960s New Thing. Like other styles of jazz, free jazz also adopted elements of contemporary rock, funk and pop music: Ornette Coleman was a leader in this vein, embracing electric music with his 1970s band Prime Time, and a number of other players including 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....
, and Ronald Shannon Jackson
Ronald Shannon Jackson
Ronald Shannon Jackson is an American jazz drummer. He was born in Fort Worth, Texas.Jackson is notable for his unusual approach to his instrument, which draws as much inspiration from military and parade bands as from traditional jazz drumming.He is the only person to have recorded and performed...
forged styles combining elements of free jazz and fusion
Jazz 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,...
.
The 1981 documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Imagine the Sound
Imagine the Sound
Imagine the Sound is a 1981 Canadian documentary film about free jazz, directed by Ron Mann. It features interviews with and musical and dramatic performances by pianist Cecil Taylor, saxophonist Archie Shepp, trumpeter Bill Dixon and pianist Paul Bley. The film has been digitally restored and was...
explores free jazz through interviews with and performances by Archie Shepp, Paul Bley, Cecil Taylor and Bill Dixon.
Many musicians are keeping the free jazz style alive in the present day. Two major scenes are based in New York and Chicago. In New York, players include Charles Gayle
Charles Gayle
Charles 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...
, 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...
, Matana Roberts
Matana Roberts
Matana Roberts is a jazz saxophonist, composer and improviser based in New York City. She is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians...
, Chad Taylor, 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...
, Medeski Martin and Wood, Assif Tsahar
Assif Tsahar
Assif Tsahar is an Israeli tenor saxophonist and bass clarinetist. He has lived in New York City since 1990.He has performed with Cecil Taylor, Butch Morris, William Parker, Mat Maneri, Hamid Drake, Peter Kowald, Susie Ibarra, Rashied Ali, Warren Smith, Wilbur Morris, Le Quan Ninh, John Tchicai,...
, Tom Abbs
Tom Abbs
Tom Abbs is an American multi-instrumentalist and filmmaker. He works primarily in the fields of jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation, and plays double bass, tuba, cello, violin, didgeridoo, and wooden flute, often playing several of these instruments simultaneously.Originally from Washington...
, Kenny Werner
Kenny Werner
Kenny Werner is an American jazz pianist.-Biography:Kenny Werner is a world-class pianist and composer. His prolific output of compositions, recordings and publications continue to impact audiences around the world....
, and Chris Speed
Chris Speed
Chris Speed is an American saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He studied classical piano from the age of five, and began clarinet at eleven. In high school he took up the tenor saxophone and began studying jazz...
. In Chicago, notable performers are Fred Anderson
Fred Anderson
Fred Anderson may refer to:*Fred Anderson , former National Football League defensive lineman*Fred Anderson , Major League Baseball player...
, 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:...
, Ernest Dawkins
Ernest Dawkins
Ernest 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...
, 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....
, 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...
, and 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....
.
Legacy
Writers Paul TannerPaul Tanner
-Career:Tanner gained fame by playing trombone with Glenn Miller's band from 1938 until 1942, later working as a studio musician in Hollywood. He was a professor at UCLA and also authored or co-authored several academic and popular histories related to jazz....
, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill have suggested that
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.
Tanner, Gerow and Megill name 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,...
, Cecil Taylor, John Klemmer
John Klemmer
John Klemmer is an American saxophonist, composer, song writer and arranger.He was born in Chicago, Illinois and began playing guitar at age 5 and alto saxophone at age 11. His other early interests included graphics and visual art, writing, dance, puppetry, painting, sculpting and poetry...
, 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...
, Pharoah Sanders, 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:...
, Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane, née McLeod was an American jazz pianist, organist, harpist, and composer.-Biography:...
, 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...
, Anthony Braxton, Don Cherry, and Sun Ra as musicians who have employed this approach.
Keith Johnson of Allmusic describes a "Modern Creative" genre, in which "musicians may incorporate free playing into structured modes -- or play just about anything." Johnson includes John Zorn, Henry Kaiser
Henry Kaiser (musician)
Henry Kaiser is an American guitarist and composer.Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the "first generation" of American free improvisers.-Biography:His grandfather was the...
, Eugene Chadbourne
Eugene Chadbourne
Eugene Chadbourne is an American improvisor, guitarist and banjoist. Highly eclectic and unconventional, Chadbourne's most formative influence is free jazz. He has also been a reviewer for Allmusic and a contributor to Maximum RocknRoll.Chadbourne started out playing rock and roll guitar, but...
, 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...
, 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...
, Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy , born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was a jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone....
, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and Ray Anderson
Ray Anderson (musician)
Ray Anderson is an independent jazz trombone and trumpet player. Anderson is a boisterous trombonist who is masterful at multiphonics. Trained by the Chicago Symphony trombonists, he is regarded as pushing the limits of the instrument. He is a contemporary and colleague of trombonist/composer...
in this genre, which continues "the tradition of the '50s to '60s free-jazz mode".
Free jazz in the world
Outside of North America, free jazz scenes have become established in Europe and Japan. Alongside the aforementioned Joe HarriottJoe Harriott
Joseph Arthurlin 'Joe' Harriott was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone....
, saxophonists 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:...
, 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...
, trombonist Conny Bauer
Conny Bauer
Konrad "Conny" Bauer is a free jazz trombonist. He is the brother of the trombonist Hannes Bauer....
, guitarist Derek Bailey, pianist Fred Van Hove
Fred Van Hove
Fred Van Hove is a Belgian jazz musician and a pioneer of European free jazz. He is a pianist, accordionist, church organist, and carillonist, an improviser and a composer...
and drummer Han Bennink
Han Bennink
Han Bennink is a Dutch jazz drummer and percussionist. On occasion his recordings have featured his playing on clarinet, violin, banjo and piano....
were among the most well-known early European free jazz performers. European free jazz can generally be seen as approaching 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....
, 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. A relatively active free jazz scene behind the iron curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
produced musicians like Tomasz Stanko
Tomasz Stanko
Tomasz Stańko is a Polish trumpeter, composer and improviser. Often recording for ECM, Stańko is strongly associated with free jazz and the avant-garde....
, Zbigniew Seifert
Zbigniew Seifert
Zbigniew Seifert was a Polish jazz violinist.Seifert was born in Kraków, Poland in 1946. He played alto saxophone early in his career and was strongly influenced by John Coltrane...
, Vladimir Chekasin, Vyacheslav Ganelin
Vyacheslav Ganelin
Vyacheslav "Slava" Ganelin is a Lithuanian Jewish jazz musician and composer. Primarily a pianist, he also plays other keyboards as well as bass, guitar, and percussions...
and Vladimir Tarasov
Vladimir Tarasov
Vladimir Tarasov is a Russian animator and animation director. He studied at the Moscow Polygraphic Institute from 1965 until 1970....
. Japanese guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi
Masayuki Takayanagi
Masayuki 'Jojo' Takayanagi was a Japanese jazz / free improvisation / noise musician. He was active in the Japanese jazz scene from the late 1950s. In the 1960s he formed New Directions , which recorded several albums throughout the 70s...
and saxophonist 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...
, among others, took free jazz in another direction, approaching the energy levels of noise
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
. Some international jazz musicians have come to North America and become immersed in free jazz, most notably Ivo Perelman
Ivo Perelman
Ivo Perelman is a Brazilian free jazz saxophonist born in Sao Paulo.Perelman learned to play guitar, cello, clarinet, trombone, and piano while young, and concentrated on tenor sax from age 19. He attended the Berklee College of Music for one semester and then dropped out, moving to Los Angeles in...
from Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and 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...
of Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
(this influence is more evident in Barbieri's early work). American musicians like 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...
, 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...
, Milford Graves
Milford Graves
Milford Graves is an American jazz drummer and percussionist, most noteworthy for his early avant-garde contributions in the early 1960s with Paul Bley and the New York Art Quartet...
, and Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders is a Grammy Award–winning American jazz saxophonist.Saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world." Emerging from John Coltrane's groups of the mid-60s Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on...
integrated elements of the music of Africa
Music of Africa
Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from sub-Saharan African music traditions....
, India
Music of India
The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...
, and the Middle East
Arab music
Arabic music or Arab music is the music of the Arab World, including several genres and styles of music ranging from Arabic classical to Arabic pop music and from secular to sacred music....
for a sort of World music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
-influenced free jazz.
External links
- "Where Did Our Revolution Go? Free Jazz Turns Fifty" by Ted Gioia, (Jazz.com).
- The Real Godfathers of Punk by Billy Bob Hargus (July 1996).
- Free Jazz: The Jazz Revolution of the '60s by Robert Levin (June 2006).
- "A new approach to Jazz"