Who here actually plays free jazz?

[johhn smith]

about 12 years ago i got a loop sampler and started improvising melodic bass lines along with the spontaneously self generated rhythm lines. it got to the point where i had all kinds of input run through a mixer ( digital keyboards, rhythm composers, microphones for real percussion and acoustic guitar, etc ) and got to composing quite elaborate loops to improvise to. when i had friends over we would do the same thing regardless of what instrument they played and i would get my non musical friends to have a go - whether they were hitting a drum or playing a few notes on a guitar or keyboard or whatever. we always ended up with something interesting and it has gotten to the point where this free style of improvised music is all i am interested in playing. one time it might be a bluesy sounding piece, next time a walking jazz sounding piece, next time something way out there, who knows, sometimes the piece is short and lasts a couple of minutes, sometimes it takes an hour or longer to work through - the freedom is great and the creativity promotes a continual learning experience.

[Bruce Lindfield]

I was at Jazz Summerschool this July at Trinity College in London and we did quite a bit of Free Jazz and I really enjoyed playing all week and I think it did improve every aspect of my musicianship.

So on the first day I performed in the nighty Jazz club with a Slovakian Trumpet player, and 18 year-old drummer and a young Alto player - we had nothing pre-planned although we had played together during the day. We were first up and it went pretty well - stayed fairly tonal and consonant - discovering how we liked to play.

Later in the week in the larger ensemble that was taught by Martin Speake ( a great UK Jazz musician) we did an Ornette tune from his "Friends" album and it had a short repeating tag between solos and soloists played free in pairs, but in the spirit of the tune - it was great fun and again played at the evening Jazz club amongst mostly non-Free Jazz it went down well!!