Avant-Garde Music and Art. Discussions?

[Enlightened Rogue]

***

[mr. beaumont]

I love a lot of it.

I find the best "out there" stuff is usually by folks with good technical skills who could be "in," if they wanted to...but they choose out.

Eric Dolphy is a prime example of this. And later period Trane, of course.

You always run the risk with music of taking something too far outside convention and it brings the "that isn't jazz" crowd out. There's the "that isn't Art" crowd too, but sometimes that's valid...when the art is all concept and no execution...it gets lame fast. I remember a guy in art school, he did a painting of a fetus. It was very weak, technically. And then at critique he sprayed cow's blood on it, there was some statement to it, I forget, because that shit is forgettable. The critique however, was memorable: "Who cares what the statement was, your painting wasn't any good."

Or maybe that's like the people out there who just want to make noise...that's fine too, but it's emperor's new clothes music, to me.

Painting I suppose can be a little different...the history is so long, compared to jazz. If you can come up with something really new, it can be exciting...Pollock...I really liked the abstract expressionists...and I love non-representational art. To me, that stuff looks like jazz sounds.

[Peter C]

Gotta have earplugs when viewing Kandinsky.

[omphalopsychos]

I think it’s interesting and some of it is extremely moving (Matana Roberts). Other examples of it can be alienating. I used to appreciate it more but have felt burned out it due to a sense that people in this scene get away with faking it big time.

[supersoul]

I love a lot of it.
I find the best "out there" stuff is usually by folks with good technical skills who could be "in," if they wanted to...but they choose out.

I agree with this. The best "out" stuff is where someone has put in the time, worked hard and followed their muse, and their muse has taken them to someplace that's considered out.

To me, I don't really pay attention to things being in or out, just if it moves me. So I end up listening to smooth jazz followed by something John Cagean followed by outlaw country followed by west coast cool jazz to... well you get the idea. Speaking as a listener, there are often interesting things in every genre. Sometimes avant-garde is too self-consciously trying to be weird, when it's actually just retreading the same ground as things from decades ago. Unless it is finding new life in it, it's probably not going to be interesting to me for very long.

The worst "out" stuff is crap that tries to use the "avant-garde" or "experimental" as a way of excusing it's lack of content.




Henri Matisse -> I really like those color cutouts he did at the end of his life. Just colored paper and scissors!

Eric Dolphy -> esp with Charles Mingus

Wassily Kandinsky -> I also like Piet Mondrian and his absolute rejection of, uh, angles that weren't 90 degrees.

Ralph Towner and his group Oregon -> especially when Collin Walcot was still with them

Jackson Pollack -> he's one of the few Abstract Expressionists I have never really gotten into.

Der Blaue Reiter group of artists 1911-1914 -> In Berlin there's a museum dedicated to Die Brücke, the rivals of Der Blaue Reiter.

and Charles Mingus -> esp with Eric Dolphy (!)

[pingu]

I like Song X
Does that count ?

[Mick-7]

Oregon is not free jazz, I think the genre, which they pretty much founded, is called "world music" - or "new age" if it's mediocre (which could never be said about Oregon).

It's hard to define what free or avant-garde jazz is, the innovators created their own musical language or style, people like Ornette Coleman (who now-a-days is considered pretty much mainstream) Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Sam Rivers, late John Coltrane with Pharoah Sanders, Andrew Hill, Anthony Braxton, Paul Bley, and many more.

Guitar wise, Derek Bailey may be considered the father of the domain - check out: Ballads - Derek Bailey | Album | AllMusic

Here is Al Music's definition of the genre:
Avant-Garde Jazz Music Artists | AllMusic

At one time I listened to a lot of this type of music, two of the best concerts I ever attended were by Sam Rivers and Sun Ra, the latter not due solely to the music but for the stage show that came with it: elaborate costumes, dancers, and Sun Ra's huge multi-colored organ that resembled an alien space craft. It was a psychedelic trip without the psychedelic drug.

Sam Rivers was just remarkably inventive musically, this album illustrates that:
Streams - Sam Rivers | Album | AllMusic

I find the best "out there" stuff is usually by folks with good technical skills who could be "in," if they wanted to...

Yes, it's actually much harder to play than mainstream music because you have no conventional structures to fall back on, it becomes obvious right away if you're merely a random noise generator.

[Mick-7]

“Song X” with Pat Metheny and Ornette Coleman? That will get you into the club.

Or kicked out of the club.

Pat made a recording with Derek Bailey, which I have not heard, just noticed it on All Music:
Tap: John Zorn's Book of Angels, Vol. 20 - Pat... | AllMusic

[Litterick]

Derek Bailey: "There was this shop on Charing Cross Road. I used to work there Saturdays; and if somebody bought a guitar, they got a lesson with me, free. Their first lesson, imagine that; what a start."

[ccroft]

I like this simple definition: the term avant-garde refers to innovative or experimental concepts or works, or the group of people producing them.

That leaves lots of room for me to listen to and look at a lot of different styles that were once, or are now considered avant-garde. It's about commitment and the spirit of adventure.

And while there's fakery going on in free music, there's plenty of folks faking it in other genres too. Somehow that criticism doesn't stick to them in quite the same way though.

For some good current and interesting free playing I like Mark Kleinhaut. Especially with the cello.

[ragman1]

[princeplanet]

One of my favourite cartoons of all time.

[Christian Miller]

Boom! Crossover with the film score thread

Shore had rather interesting early career…


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[Christian Miller]

Hello. I see that free jazz/free jazz guitar has been discussed once or twice on the site. It has been a few years though. Is the avant-garde something that interests or repulse you? Do you lump all avant/free art into the garbage, love it all, or have sifted through it, liking some but not all? Do play or practice freely or ever thought about trying?

I enjoy avant-garde music and art. Artists and musicians such as Henri Matisse, Eric Dolphy, Wassily Kandinsky, Ralph Towner and his group Oregon, Jackson Pollack, Der Blaue Reiter group of artists 1911-1914, and Charles Mingus are some examples of artists/musicians that I have enjoyed their work. I have always liked the process of working with the “idea” of something. A description as opposed to a name, A painting where a room has no dimensional lines, but you know it’s a room. Music where percussion will play the piano’s line or the guitar becomes a bumble bee contstantly buzzing your ear.

After over half a century lived thus far I have also picked up on a few things. Abstract/Free/Avant-Garde arts are excellent aids in working through ADHD, PTSD, chronic anxiety and depression episodes. A sound, object, one note, or brush stroke can help center one’s thoughts. I have had adhd, chronic anxiety and depression since I was a kid. I just didn’t know it until after being diagnosed with ptsd. Free music and art are one of the things used to help treat me. That was an eye opener. It explains why I have always enjoyed “jam”, free form music over a strict song structure, and a picture of shape and color over portrait for as long as I can remember.

Which brings me to what “is” free music/art? There are as many answers as there are practioners and patrons of free music/art. We all have our own way of looking,hearing,and participating in the music and art. No answer is right or wrong.

I enjoy acoustic instruments and music more than electric. Jazz(all genres),blues, jam band tunes, acoustic instruments are where it’s at for me. I think though that certain situations can influence the overall process. In my experience, electric bands are more consistent in getting a whole audience of people to go “outside” free with them. They do this by leaving signposts in the tunes for the musicians and the band. Drop in lines and phrases that everyone recognize and meet along the journey. It keeps everybody from getting lost. Volume and effects can help with this.

Playing free on acoustic instruments seems T me more daring and “free”. You can go anywhere like a park, the beach, downtown, top of a mountain, etc. You don’t need a band per se, you use the sounds around you. Songbirds, wind rustling, water tumbling, hum of traffic. Throw in an occasional car honk or limb breaking from a tree. Working this way can also help with breaking away from regular song structures. It’s a conversation instead of a book. The story hasn’t been wrote, may not be, or could be left unresolved. Whatever you like.

I am not a schooled musician, counselor, or doctorate. These are just things learned, practiced, and used by me through life’s scenes and changes. What are your thoughts p, if any, about the avant-garde? Do you see it as a value to the arts and man’s condition? Or is it just all a rickety house waiting to fall down?

If it isn’t a rickety building about to fall down is it really risking anything?

Is there really an avant garde these days?


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[ragman1]

The secret is out.

Shhh, it's hard enough trying to pass myself off as a guitarist

[Kirk Garrett]

If it isn’t a rickety building about to fall down is it really risking anything?

Is there really an avant garde these days?


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Good question. I think the idea of an “avant garde” implies the existence of a “garde” to begin with, which is doubtful anymore in the longstanding arts like painting, literature, and perhaps even jazz (though I’m less knowledgeable here.)

I roughly agree with Richard Danto that the history of art has essentially stopped, and now the focus is on personal expression which happens to be mostly autobiographical…and really anything goes.

On the other hand, there are doubtless new arts, new extensions of old art forms and [insert tedious discussion of AI.]

Edit: I’ll just add that the work produced by my favorite contemporary artists is significantly derivative of much older artwork, the way Yann Kebbi’s stuff looks just like Saul Steinberg’s stuff.

[sgcim]

In the recent book "3 Kinds of Blue" they start attacking Bill Evans for not being 'modern enough after he left the Miles Davis Sexet. He responds in the 70s, about "This preoccupation 'what's the most modern' instead of who's making the most beautiful, human music.[the most modern may very well be the most beautiful as well,but to make just avant-garde the criteria has gotten to be almost a sickness, especially in jazz".

[ccroft]

..."This preoccupation 'what's the most modern' instead of who's making the most beautiful, human music.[the most beautiful} may very well be the most beautiful as well,but to make just avant-garde the criteria has gotten to be almost a sickness, especially in jazz".

I'd agree. That's why I like the definition I posted earlier: "innovative and experimental". If any artist gets too pre-occupied with newness and originality they're not creating art. They're wasting time thinking about what the other guy's doing. I think the arts are really about creating something you yourself find interesting, beautiful, exciting and so on. Sometimes it's innovative and sometimes it isn't.

Just trying to just be different or more modern has nothing to do with artistic creation. Too predictable: all it creates is baseless ego trash.

BTW, I love a lot of the music that Bill would be talking about here, and I love Bill just as much.

What does 'most modern' mean today? One day in the future, human and beautiful will be the avant-garde.
[insert tedious discussion of AI.] (thanks Kirk!)

[RLetson]

Two immediate reactions to the Warelis, et al. material: First, I suspect that they're used to each other--the bass and drums both seemed to anticipate what the piano might be about to do. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Second, I listened to a lot of stuff like this 50-60 years ago when I was exploring electronic music, musique concrète, and such. (The bits of Derek Bailey I've heard also occupy this space.) As it turned out, it didn't wear well with me--the records (as in LPs) have languished on the basement archive shelves since we moved to this house in 1977.

I find the terms for these areas of art interesting--they're metaphoric, but then, lots of descriptors are. But I wonder, "Free from what?" and "Ahead of what garde?" Are these artists scouting out into enemy territory? Or just unknown territory? (I have no problem with calling it art--though I reserve the right to add an adjective like "bad" or "banal" or "boring" or "annoying.")

[sgcim]

I'd agree. That's why I like the definition I posted earlier: "innovative and experimental". If any artist gets too pre-occupied with newness and originality they're not creating art. They're wasting time thinking about what the other guy's doing. I think the arts are really about creating something you yourself find interesting, beautiful, exciting and so on. Sometimes it's innovative and sometimes it isn't.

Just trying to just be different or more modern has nothing to do with artistic creation. Too predictable: all it creates is baseless ego trash.

BTW, I love a lot of the music that Bill would be talking about here, and I love Bill just as much.

What does 'most modern' mean today? One day in the future, human and beautiful will be the avant-garde.
[insert tedious discussion of AI.] (thanks Kirk!)

Yeah, I agree with you, but when I was studying composition in college (during the Ice Age) You had to write that 12- tone serial crap.
I went to one teacher, and he said that he hated Schoenberg, but loved Webern, and wanted me to write some Webern stuff. Next semester I went to another composition teacher, and he told me he loved Schoenberg, but he said Webern just sounded like a bunch of farts!

That's when I realized I would just get my degree and get out of there. I got a teaching degree, and never looked back. The new fad in classical music is all this woke crap. It's dead, but don't worry, jazz will follow the same path and die, too, if it's not dead already.
Academia has a way of "icing and scrimping" the creative act (to quote Henry James,by way of William Gaddis) till they're lifeless.

[henryrobinett]

Oregon is not free jazz, I think the genre, which they pretty much founded, is called "world music" - or "new age" if it's mediocre (which could never be said about Oregon).

It's hard to define what free or avant-garde jazz is, the innovators created their own musical language or style, people like Ornette Coleman (who now-a-days is considered pretty much mainstream) Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Sam Rivers, late John Coltrane with Pharoah Sanders, Andrew Hill, Anthony Braxton, Paul Bley, and many more.

Guitar wise, Derek Bailey may be considered the father of the domain - check out: Ballads - Derek Bailey | Album | AllMusic

Here is Al Music's definition of the genre:
Avant-Garde Jazz Music Artists | AllMusic

At one time I listened to a lot of this type of music, two of the best concerts I ever attended were by Sam Rivers and Sun Ra, the latter not due solely to the music but for the stage show that came with it: elaborate costumes, dancers, and Sun Ra's huge multi-colored organ that resembled an alien space craft. It was a psychedelic trip without the psychedelic drug.

Sam Rivers was just remarkably inventive musically, this album illustrates that:
Streams - Sam Rivers | Album | AllMusic




Yes, it's actually much harder to play than mainstream music because you have no conventional structures to fall back on, it becomes obvious right away if you're merely a random noise generator.

Yeah I don’t know. Some or even a lot of what Oregon did was free improvisation. World Music, yes. Especially coming from Paul Winters Consort. Colin Walcott. I have heard them about 5 times. All those were in the mid to late 70s. Big fan. A lot of their free improv was like Varese meets Art Ensemble. But their strength was in tube composition- Towner especially.


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[Christian Miller]

@Christian Miller asked in reply:

1. If it isn’t a rickety building about to fall down is it really risking anything?

No. It is much harder and riskier to stand. Once you fall what’s left? Nothing. It is much riskier to remain standing and continue. The crescendo is in the struggle, the falling only a slow fading away.

Is there really an avant garde these days?

Yes. As always it isn’t a mainstream concern, but there are communities, groups, and musicians in many areas into avant garde. If you like the avant garde/free jazz and question its existence just attend a day at the “Big Ears Festival” in Knoxville, every year late March. It will open your ears, eyes, and mind at what is going on in the scene.

I would love to see some free jazz players/arts festival let loose in the Sphere in LV,Nv. That would be fun I think.

The risk is that it might fall down, not that it certainly will.


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[Christian Miller]

In the recent book "3 Kinds of Blue" they start attacking Bill Evans for not being 'modern enough after he left the Miles Davis Sexet. He responds in the 70s, about "This preoccupation 'what's the most modern' instead of who's making the most beautiful, human music.[the most modern may very well be the most beautiful as well,but to make just avant-garde the criteria has gotten to be almost a sickness, especially in jazz".

Everybody Hates Bill Evans (apparently)


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[Christian Miller]

Understood.

I’d say that the scariest thing as an artist (for me) is not having any concrete way to evaluate what I’ve done.

But if you are doing something new, that must be the case by definition. Evaluation has to come from within - did it feel right etc?

It’s much less scary to make art that has a concrete well defined aesthetic. But that cannot obviously be new.

I’m not dunking on the latter. In fact the idea of self consciously pursuing the first idea of art is apparently a very modern idea. However, we do tend to celebrate those that went out on a limb. Novelty can also be surprisingly incremental in hindsight, although I don’t get this feeling so much from 20th century art and music.

I also have very little respect for the self conscious drive towards novelty for its own sake. I don’t get this sense from Ornette’s music - like all the best art it’s organic.

These days, I think we are in a more classical mindset. It’s hard to say though. In many ways mainstream culture has become much more narrowly defined.

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[jameslovestal]

Jimmy Bruno talks about his dislike of “modern angular” playing so prevalent today. I agree to a point. Like anything else used excessively, it loses its effect on the music. The potency is lost.

I think avant garde/free music is most effective in song forms when used sparingly and to expand the music. Not just for shock value or like a gimmick. My thoughts are that free music works better on its own when played live before an audience and/or using present surroundings to play to and with.

One man's shock value or gimmick might be another man's view of musicality.