Double Bass Free Jazz and Improvised Music

[Sean Riddle]

I think Mingus pointed the way as much as anyone for free music, whether his ideas were written or not. Especially the quartet with Dolphy and Curson. My old Quincy neighbor Ra Kalam Bob Moses used to sit in with that group as a teenager!
People like to use the criticisms Mingus wrote of Pharoah Sanders as a dismissal of free playing. Firstly, I don't think Mingus would think much of conservative straight ahead players now, secondly, his work is actually more important to the history of free music than Pharoah, as much as I love Pharoahs' Impulse LPs, thirdly, it doesn't get much more free and open than this:

Yeah the Dolohy and Curson quartet is really seminal. This record is a new one for me though, but I'm enjoying it so far. I definitely do agree Mingus is a very important contributor to free music. His music was my first introduction to free playing and other avant-garde compositional approaches. And much like Sun Ra, Mingus is still very much ahead of us all.

 

[Michael Karn]

I think it was Steve Lacy who took a band on the road, a band that was advertised as playing "free jazz". Either the audience and/or the promoter took that phrase literally and refused to pay

I don't want to belabor my "point" but I did find the Lacy interview where he talks about this and I figured it would be good to see it in his words. Here's the entire excerpt with Lacy in quotes -

After Ornette Coleman's record Free Jazz was out and successful, there were demands for him to produce live concerts by his double quartet. Eric Dolphy wasn't available, so Ornette called Lacy, who was working days at a record store. "We had rehearsals in NY - Don Cherry, Bobby Bradford, Art Davis, Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell. It was wonderful, the music was very exciting. We got on the plane, went to a cinema in Cincinnati. On the cinema was written: 'Free Jazz - Ornette Coleman Double Quartet'. Around the cinema was a long line of people waiting to buy tickets for it. And guess what? They didn't want to pay. It was a crisis, man. 'Hey, it's free jazz, we're not gonna pay'. So they wouldn't pay and we wouldn't play. The concert did not take place, we got back on the airplane...now it's a joke but it wasn't then. Everybody was hungry, broke. The chance to play some interesting music and get payed for it! To go all the way out there and find a lack of comprehension like that, it was hard".

 

[damonsmith]

I didn't know it was a band based on the Free Jazz LP! Art Davis and Steve Lacy would have brought a different perspective. Davis and LaFaro would have been more interesting, however!

I don't want to belabor my "point" but I did find the Lacy interview where he talks about this and I figured it would be good to see it in his words. Here's the entire excerpt with Lacy in quotes -

After Ornette Coleman's record Free Jazz was out and successful, there were demands for him to produce live concerts by his double quartet. Eric Dolphy wasn't available, so Ornette called Lacy, who was working days at a record store. "We had rehearsals in NY - Don Cherry, Bobby Bradford, Art Davis, Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell. It was wonderful, the music was very exciting. We got on the plane, went to a cinema in Cincinnati. On the cinema was written: 'Free Jazz - Ornette Coleman Double Quartet'. Around the cinema was a long line of people waiting to buy tickets for it. And guess what? They didn't want to pay. It was a crisis, man. 'Hey, it's free jazz, we're not gonna pay'. So they wouldn't pay and we wouldn't play. The concert did not take place, we got back on the airplane...now it's a joke but it wasn't then. Everybody was hungry, broke. The chance to play some interesting music and get payed for it! To go all the way out there and find a lack of comprehension like that, it was hard".

 

[Sean Riddle]

I didn't know it was a band based on the Free Jazz LP! Art Davis and Steve Lacy would have brought a different perspective. Davis and LaFaro would have been more interesting, however!

Bobby Bradford has mentioned there is a recording of some configuration of this double quartet from a rehearsal somewhere in Ornette's collection of recordings. We'll probably never hear it though.