Avant-garde jazz developed from the mid-50’s and was mostly called free jazz from the 70s onwards. Avant-garde is an originally military term that, in the world of art refers to deliberately breaking existing norms. This is often done to experiment, to stand up to other artists or to make a political statement.
Anyone hearing avant-garde jazz for the first time is likely to be confused, if not averse. In that case, it is important to remember that all art forms have avant-garde. Some examples of classically oriented avant-garde composers of the 20th century include Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Philip Glass. Listening to their compositions helps to get a first idea of this kind of music and perhaps to begin appreciating it. Therefore, here you can listen to Karlheinz Stockhausen’s composition ‘Gruppen’ (1955 – 1957), played by Ensemble Intercontemporain, which consists of no less than three orchestras.
Already somewhat used to avant-garde music? Now you listen to what this genre sounds like in jazz. But first this. We tend to appreciate music most that we recognise. This usually involves melody, meter (3/4 or 4/4), rhythm and structure (stanza/refrain). The creators of this music employ an ‘idiom’, just as every language has its own idiom. The better you know that idiom, the easier it is to speak that language or be able to bring home and appreciate that music. Sometimes you will sing along with a song even if you have only heard it once.
Avant-garde artists got rid of the idiom they had become accustomed to in previous years. They looked for other ways to organise ‘sounds’. This primarily involved the expression express of their own mood or an abstract idea.
Features
– The tempo can vary or be pulsed. Regularly slowing down and speeding up gives the impression that the music is moving like a wave.
– Rhythm can change constantly, sometimes along with changes in pace.
– Different time signatures are used simultaneously (polyrhythmic)
– Free jazz is often atonal rather than using a fixed key.
– Band members often improvise at the same time (collective improvisation).
– Identical lines are often played simultaneously, where tempo and timbre may differ (contrapuntal interaction)
– Using chromatic scales (all 12 tones of an octave are used) and microtonality (pitch differences of a quarter or less)
– Abandoning fixed chord progressions
– Chords can be placed under any note to accentuate it, regardless of the meter.
– Many practitioners have a fascination with earlier jazz styles, such as dixieland with its collective improvisation, with African music and more broadly with world music.
– Sometimes they would play African or Asian instruments or invent their own ones.
The idiom of free jazz is thus much less pre-given and thus offers the listener little to hold on to. This is precisely what makes free jazz attractive to fans.
Forerunners
One of the first musicians to use atonal improvisation in his compositions was Lennie Tristan. In “Intuition” (1950), only the order in which the musicians participate in ensemble playing and its timing are predetermined. Key, beat, tempo, melody or rhythm were left open. Contrapuntal interaction was used as a means of maintaining cohesion. Appreciation among fellow musicians varied. Charlie Parker who was always open to innovation was enthusiastic, others found it too avant-garde and doubted whether this kind of work could ever become popular.
In 1953, he released “Descent into the Maelstrom”. It was based on Edgar Allan Poe’s story of the same title and consisted of an improvised piano solo, using multitracking (superimposing several recordings), which had no preconceived harmonic structure. Instead, he built on a series of motifs. You can listen to this work here:
You can now watch and listen to “City of Glass”, written in 1948 by Bob Graettinger for the Stan Kenton band. It is a four-voice piece that in one long movement “narrates”) the contents of a poem (tone poem).
It is characterised by polyphonic and atonal intensity. The composition was fully in line with Stan Kenton’s aspiration to play ‘progressive’ jazz to be listened to in a concert hall, thus bridging the gap between (avant-garde) jazz and classical music.
The composition is performed here by David Kweksilber Bigband in Amsterdam (2013)
In the late 50s, Ornette Coleman, Albert Aylor, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Sun Ra, among others, applied their own accent. I highlight some of these artists.
Ornette Coleman
The term “free jazz” comes from Ornette Coleman‘s 1961 album “Free Jazz, a collective improvisation”. Earlier albums were “The Shape of Jazz to Come” and “Change of the Century” (1959).
“Free Jazz, a collective improvisation” lasts 37 minutes, which at the time was the longest recording of a jazz song ever. The piece was recorded with two quartets, each having its own stereo channel. Both quartets played simultaneously, with the two rhythm sections laying a dense rhythmic foundation for the horns soloing, interspersed with pre-composed passages. These passages consist of short and dissonant interplay between solos. You can listen to it now.
Coleman has continued to experiment into the 21ste century, increasingly using electronic instruments. His pallet of styles has broadened considerably. On this recording, he plays the song Song X with Pat Metheny, in pronounced free jazz style (1985). Herehe plays Virgin Beauty (1980), which seems more like a free form of cool jazz. He is the second jazz musician after Wynton Marsalis to receive the Pulitzer Prize.
Albert Ayler
Albert Ayler was one of the most important composers and performers during in the early days of free jazz. At the beginning of his career as a bebop tenor saxophonist in Scandinavia, he had already begun to push the boundaries of tonal jazz and blues to their harmonic limits. He began collaborating with free jazz musicians such as Cecil Taylor in 1962.
One of Ayler’s most important free jazz songs is “Spiritual Unity (1964). You can listen to that here. The song is played here by Marc Ribot at the Vision Festival XI on 19 June 2007.
Timbre is the backbone of his playing rather than harmony and melody. His ecstatic music as “Ghosts” (1964) and “Spirits Rejoice” (1965), included simple, themes interspersed with group improvisations.
Ayler stretched the jazz idiom to its limits and many of his compositions hardly resemble jazz of the past. He exploited the possibilities of microtonal improvisation. This involves reducing the distance between notes. By tinkering with his saxophone, he was able to achieve polyphonic effects.
Cecil Taylor
As a classically trained musician, Taylor was particularly influenced by European avant-garde composers such as Bela Bartók and Karlheinz Stockhausen. His piano playing was influenced by Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver, who play a key role in Taylor’s later unconventional use of the piano. This sounds like 88-tuned drums.
The composition “Unit Structures” (1966) marks his transition to free jazz. He made hardly any use of scores, time signatures and harmonic progressions. The work is complex and has a rich timbre. The two bassists make varied contributions to the whole. One provides the driving force; the other is volatile and mysterious. You can listen to the composition here.
John Coltrane
Coltrane’s most work belongs to the post-bop genre. His record “Ascention” (1965) shows his appreciation of free jazz. On this record, Coltrane expanded his quartet to include six hornsplayers, including Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders.[8]: The composition features free solo improvisation. One of the hallmarks of Pharoah Sanders’ and John Coltrane’s playing on this record is overblowing.
Sun Ra
Much of Sun Ra’s music can be classified as free jazz, especially his work from the 1960s. His earlier work was more melodic in nature, but even after that time, many works have a hybrid character, with elements of ragtime, swing, bebop and fusion. His work “The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra” (1966) was characterised as black mysticism. Many compositions were created while experimenting and improvising in the studio.
Sun Ra has recorded more than 100 albums. He also performed frequently. His success was limited to a small group of followers. You can watch a recent performance by the Sun Ra Arkestra (2022) here. Sun Ra died in 1993 at the age of 79.
Elements of free jazz have blended with other styles and genres over the years, whose diversity has also increased as a result.
Music: Listen, Look and Enjoy 