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Hey there,
im a 17year-old who has been brought up and participated on the Free Jazz circuit of London since i was a minor and have grew up on the likes of john stevens and miles' electric years with guitarists like pete cosey and zappa ringing in my ears!
-Now that im a major {mind the pun} i decided to get to grips with bop and words like arpeggio that decribe part of our practice but am now struggling to retain the sheer essence of music that comes without the thinking and be able to play free jazz again.
I was wondering why people like derek bailey are so slated in the world of scales and grace notes, most musicians attempting to analise his playing style and not getting it disregard it as unskillfull. Is this because we are scared of what cant be described by categorizing it into what we already concieve?
Im finding it really hard to get my points/queries across... this is my first
time on any kind of forum
!!
So the best thing i feel i can do is ask you what you think (as guitarists yourselves) of bailey and his quite anarchistic style of play...
Heres a link to his wikipedia (bare in mind he does understand, to qoute Bird "all that modal shit") -> Derek Bailey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Heres a link to his stuff, (his straiter stuff, if you will) ->
I look forward to hearing your different approaches of free jazz soon !
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05-01-2011 01:49 PM
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Watching Derek play you could tell he had command of the guitar. I played free jazz in a side project for a for 5 or 6 years, we actually gigged a few times a month. It was fun and useful but nothing I care to ever do again.
My biggest issue with free jazz is 90 percent of the time the musicians are not reacting off of the other players.
By the way I really liked your link, new one for me, I had Topography of the Lungs and some others.Last edited by Billnc; 05-01-2011 at 02:22 PM.
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free jazz is dead.
today, free only means the price of the tickets one needs to get in to listen to this stuff.
my advice? if you want to be a radical, use effects.
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This is the key here. And the shame is, probably the best known exponents of "free-jazz" are some of the worst offenders. Descending into cacaphony within seconds, with nowhere to go dynamically, each in their own oblivion, head down, plodding away. Usually more skilled in self-promotion than anything else, quite a few of these folks were at the right place at the right time and somehow managed to associate themselves with the right people.
Originally Posted by Billnc
I would not include Derek Bailey in this group - he interacts / listens.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the musicians who's music I am able to enjoy in a more free setting are the ones that are also able to play straight ahead, and have obviously put in the time to learn their instrument.
It takes some digging and an open mind, but there is some great free music out there, some that work more with form, some more without.
I think though, that this paradigm in music can be a bit exclusionary, as it's ultimately more important that the musicians involved in a performance
communicate freely and to their own satisfaction than it is to 'entertain' the audience.
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You have to know the rules to break them.
When I hear players playing free, I can pretty much tell in a song or two if they can play "straight" or if they're just a noisemaker.
When free jazz is played well, it can be amazing. When it's played by hacks who don't really have control of the instrument, the result is often bad, bad, bad.
There's always exceptions, but those players are real treasures--few and far between.
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+1. I call this the "Picasso Theory". The man could paint all sorts of abstractions but could paint anything he wanted to as well. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I read in a biography of Mingus that one of his sons, who became an artist, came to him with some really abstract, out sort of painting, figuring that Mingus as the abstract composer would really dig it. He took one look at it and exclaimed "Now go paint me an apple".
I have no problem with free as long as the cats doing it can also get through rhythm changes without stumbling.
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We would start our free improvs with a title, everything was always titled before we'd play. If it went well that title would be used again and we were expected to remember our motifs etc for that jam. Eventually many of these pieces became legitimate compositions and people would actually request by title. "Aunt Bea Takes a Shine to the Handyman" etc. The really noisy ones we would sometimes perform twice, side by side to prove we knew what we were doing. Originally Posted by Spirit59
To keep the audience on our side we would throw in comedy, playing accordions with mannequin arms etc. Then back to the art of it.
Derek and Charlie Haden would have been a very cool match.
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That pretty much sums it up for me. Originally Posted by Billnc
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I've got to admit that I don't listen to free jazz. I really don't understand it so I can't criticize it. I know that it may sound like a lot of noise but I'm sure there's got to be a lot more to it. I did however listen to another one of Derek Bailey's cuts called Niigata Snow. If I've listened to it correctly, I can hear a lot of Japanese Koto influence and a lot of imagery of snow falling in the Japanese countryside. Then again, it could just be a matter of suggestive thinking.
Last edited by hot ford coupe; 05-01-2011 at 05:44 PM.
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Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch makes free jazz somewhat ok with me; great album. The rest is not my bag thus far. I own a collection of it and retry it every few months to hear if I "get" it.
When there is one foot in tradition and the other in free jazz, neat things happen. I dig the borederlands, but not beyond.
Bill Evans had pretty interesting thoughts on free jazz since he was in that era... about 7min in:
Last edited by JonnyPac; 05-01-2011 at 07:04 PM.
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Yeah, Dolphy's Out To Lunch is only "free" as far as the note choice in some of the solos, which is kind of a given today in most adventurous jazz. The tunes have a form and a harmonic structure - same with Ornette's early work - as much as it gets recognition for being "free", it's actually quite structured.
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i agree with Evans. free jazz is for the players. it is/was too self indulgent and unstructured and that is why it never caught on with a signficant audience and never will. its one of those things that college kids like to get into for about a month when they are opening up their minds to intellectual exploratons, then they let it go. Originally Posted by JonnyPac
if somebody could do it in a way that made everyone sit up and take notice and say - "yeah man! that's the way to do it!" it might be different. has anyone ever really done that? Coltrane and some of Miles stuff is about as far as most audiences are willing to go.
it seems to me that anybody can howl at the moon, or doodle, or scratch their strings or honk their horn or whatever. bfd.
if you want to do it as a hobby with you friends (or fellow academics
), go for it. just don't quit your day job.
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One thing that annoys me about free jazz, is it is very rarely 'pretty'. I do believe that it is possible to convey conventional ideals beauty in a free format, yet no one I know of does it.
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I've been around...gigged in late 60's and early 70's when there was almost an audience for what your talking about. The difficultly with playing free is you need exceptional talent, not many can cover...or you need to be aware of what non-free jazz is. Simply because one becomes comfortable of believes he or she hears what one is playing does not give it creditability... If your ears are not hip to what's been done... your only playing what's free with what you have to say... could have already been said, and possible much better. What is your goal... personal development, discovery, education... enjoyment... entertainment... As with most music... good musicians can make something sound great and average musicians can make something sound lousy... Reg
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Most of the free jazz I've heard, with very few exceptions, sounds like 3 year old's banging away on musical instruments, pretending to play music.
It's the "Emperor's New Clothes" of jazz.Last edited by Drumbler; 05-02-2011 at 11:29 AM.
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"Free jazz" can be truly amazing. I recall a "free jazz" concert given by Howard Roberts and Joe Diorio at G.I.T for a small audience of dedicated jazz guitar students from the first graduating class. They stepped up on the stage, sat down back to back and one of them (I think it was Joe) played a chord. Howard responded and they were off on a musical journey I will never forget. The whole thing was call and response with no rehearsal,no plan and no words exchanged between them. It was just two master musicians doing what they do best.
wiz
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Free Jazz of the 60's was all about raw emotion it was as much a musical political as anything else. Since then Free Improv is all about spontaneity as well as emotion. There used to be a Free Jazz club around here and most night the music started with a lone sax player. They others players would showup and join in. As the night went on assorted musicians would come and go, and the some nights the music started by that lone sax was the "tune" for the entire night.
Free Jazz is just one of those things you get it and listen to it or your don't. Either way fine.
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How about Dom Minasi:
Welcome to DomMinasi.com
I would say this is about as free as it gets on the guitar.
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I tend to agree with this. I like a bit of pretty in everything I listen to. Originally Posted by Billnc
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Just went and listened to that again. Sonny at his best. It's free, but has some structure. Originally Posted by Billnc
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Speaking of Sonny, when I was doing free jazz, a part of the more serious side of the set included A Love Supreme. I tuned the guitar DAEADG to get Tyner's open piano sound, fifths on the bottom and 4ths on top. I'd play slide in this tuning, doubling the bass on the low strings and playing the top strings for the chords. When the mayhem would begin it was a cross between David Gilmour on the Syncopated Pandemonium section of A Saucerful of Secrets and Many Mansions. Interesting upper harmonics with that tuning. Even though 12 string guitars use a high G (I figured that would be upper tolerance) That sucker broke every time. On a good night the audience would join in on the chant.
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Derek Bailey was a huge influence on Bill Frisell's use of harmonics. Bailey was really a master at mixing harmonics w/ fretted notes. His music may be hard to listen to but you can't really question the fact that he had tremendous facility on the guitar.
PJ
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I try to take each player on an individual basis and on each individual performance. I consider a commitment to improvisation and freedom from habitual response to be a virtue regardless whether the form is a one chord vamp, 32 bar song form, long form structures or creating forms spontaneously along the way. Interaction is important as is evolution of dynamics. These are elements I have found both present and lacking in many stylistic leanings within the music lexicon. I enjoy listening to songs from around the world sung in languages that I do not speak and I can enjoy listening to players working within a different sound canvas as well. I hope we can reach for a more nuanced approach than casting "free jazz" as a singular entity. In NYC there has long been an active "downtown music" scene including a successful annual Vision festival. I have found the players in those musical circles often to be highly trained musicians, great readers and in most cases aware of jazz history and evolution.
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I love free jazz played by real jazz musicians, but it's the free jazz played by the fakers, that I can't dig.
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Labels can be so conveniently damning. I'll be the first to admit that there are "free jazz" players that don that label to identify with something they don't understand nor have the right to be associated with. There are people that hear only a "fire in a petshop" when they aren't fluent enough in the language of improvisation an ensemble may have developed. Some people may see only a circus act in The Art Ensemble of Chicago, dismiss Dave Tronzo because he doesn't even play on changes they know or lament Coltrane's descent into chaos after he left Miles. Free improvisation covers a huge spectrum and what it has in common is the obligation of the players to create something that employs the entirety of each player's experience and works with all factors present.
There is free jazz that is profoundly beautiful, spacious and melodic.
Though you might not think of it as such, what is it in Keith Jarrett's Koln concert that is different from any other free jazz?
It surely is a different mindset. Anyone that attends a Bill Frisell concert, especially an ensemble group, has witnessed at least 30% of his time in free improvisation, but if it winds up finding the structure of "What the world needs now" then the audience says "what an amazing introduction."
Yes, there are some people that will hate a music as soon as the word Free Jazz appears in their perception, and there are some people that will applaud a player as soon as they recognize a familiar head and a steady beat. Maybe Free Improv players have to work harder because they don't have the luxury of using familiar song form to hang a connection to the audience with-but done well, I can better understand why it is that I play.
DavidLast edited by TH; 06-20-2011 at 04:21 AM. Reason: unintentional icon
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