Definitely!! I find the Arkestra catalog accessible in 2022 to pretty much any type of music fan. Anyone with the slightest interest in American music has to dig this:
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Double Bass Help me understand "free jazz"
- Thread starter krfoss
- Start date
Definitely!! I find the Arkestra catalog accessible in 2022 to pretty much any type of music fan. Anyone with the slightest interest in American music has to dig this:
Also, since no one has posted John Coltrane's Live in Japan yet I feel duty bound to. It is so great to hear Alice Coltrane, Rashied Ali, and Jimmy Garrison as the rhythm section. It gives me chills every time I listen to it.
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Of course. Not liking is not liking it, calling it jibberish is insulting.
Yes. A gig is a gig is a gig. More power to anyone still getting to play in this weird post-COVID world.
More curious, but similar, was this strain of East German Free Jazz. They mixed traditional German music with Free Jazz.
This group had no bass but the players are great:
This group might be the best:
This one has outstanding double bass playing by Klaus Koch:
This one is an overview:
This group had no bass but the players are great:
This group might be the best:
This one has outstanding double bass playing by Klaus Koch:
This one is an overview:
I came across this Dudu Pakwana LP with Lewis Moholo on it years ago. It was part of the Arista Freedom series.
Harry Miller even played on a King Crimson album
back when Robert Fripp and Keith Tippett were best buds.
Rick music has a lot of inherent rules - when the rules are followed, it sounds like people who rehearsed together.
Jazz has justifications - you have a wider variety of notes to play, because you have justifications for why they must sound good, even if....they don't sometimes.
Free Jazz is almost devoid of rules and justifications - it's more along the lines of if people "let you get away with it", then it's music. The audience and the players both get to pretend that they know what's going on, even if nobody really does. I have heard free jazz that I would classify as "music", though it was a bit of a stretch. I have also heard free jazz that sounded like someone strangling farm animals.
Jazz has justifications - you have a wider variety of notes to play, because you have justifications for why they must sound good, even if....they don't sometimes.
Free Jazz is almost devoid of rules and justifications - it's more along the lines of if people "let you get away with it", then it's music. The audience and the players both get to pretend that they know what's going on, even if nobody really does. I have heard free jazz that I would classify as "music", though it was a bit of a stretch. I have also heard free jazz that sounded like someone strangling farm animals.
This post is so insulting, racist (a negative generalization leveled at black revolutionary music is in fact racist) and off-base and untrue. If @Chris Fitzgerald would remove it, that would be great. Or I am about to get very insulting to someone I doubt plays the instrument as well my peers and I do. Deleting both posts would be great. Thanks.
I don't think the post is racist or insulting, just ignorant. There are definitely mutually understood rules, structures, and protocols that inform free jazz improvisation and often very rigorous composition. This is one of the reasons I feel a little awkward about using the term "free jazz." The composition and arrangements are generally far more inventive and imaginative than most mainstream jazz. After recommending Archie Shepp's Four for Trane, an album I loved but truthfully hadn't listened to for maybe 20 years, I dug it out and it's a perfect example. Great, great imaginative arrangements of standard jazz material, and, for you boppers, Reggie Workman and Charles Moffett really have the pots on!
From Brittanica:
"The main characteristic of free jazz is that there are no rules. Musicians do not adhere to a fixed harmonic structure (predetermined chord progressions) as they improvise; instead, they modulate (i.e., change keys) at will. Free jazz improvisers typically phrase in chromatic intervals and harmonies, and some achieve atonality while playing in microtones, overtones, multiphonics (simultaneous notes played on one horn), and tone clusters."
Man, whoever wrote that article has not played with some of the musicians I have and basically doesn't know his a** from a hole in the ground. I teach "music appreciation" - another term I'm uncomfortable with - at the college level, and one of the reasons I don't use a text is the general cluelessness about jazz of the academics who write them. Talking about "normal" jazz here.
Ornette would certainly take major issue with the Brittanica definition/description of free jazz.
Moderator deliberations are ongoing, but by the rules of the site there is nothing inherently racist about stating an opinion about a genre of music one doesn’t like. In these charged political times, we should be very careful about claims of racism that are not overt.
If a person doesn’t like or understand jazz or free jazz or blues and states that as an opinion, that’s not racism. I have spent much of my life playing two of these styles of music and it would never occur to me to think that anyone who doesn’t like or understand them is a racist as a result. I spent many years playing and teaching the classical tradition as well, and the thought that someone who dislikes or doesn’t get Mahler or Bach is racist toward Europeans strikes me as a preposterous leap. It means only that they don’t care for or understand that music. Which, by the site rules, is a totally valid opinion to express.
The most important rule of the site, rule 1, in fact, is respect for other members. As a reminder to all, it reads:
If someone posts “I don’t like style X and in my opinion it is bad”, that’s not a rule one violation. But posting the same thing about another member i.e. - “I don’t like member John Doe and his post is stupid” in a thread, especially when in response to John Doe’s post, is a rule violation. This distinction is important if we are to be able to have any meaningful discussion of any style of music on this forum.
Its a busy weekend, but for now let’s all please consider how we can do better moving forward by understanding this distinction, and by reporting posts that we think may break the site’s rules rather than escalating by responding in anger.
I'm going to reopen this thread now that some time has gone by. Please see the above post about how to post respectfully, and let's please keep the personal stuff out. This is a conversation we should be able to have here without it becoming toxic.
For my part, I'd say keep your negative assessments specific. It is OK to have a bad experience with something and not like it. If you saw a local band doing it and hated it there is nothing wrong with that. When you insult & dismiss an entire genre by a specific culture that is rooted solidly in the experience of that culture you are on slippery ground. Not liking a specific soul food joint is entirely different than making derogatory remarks about the cooking abilities of all of those who cook soul food.
Also, saying free jazz is not for you or don't like it is different than insulting it and saying it all sounds like barnyard animals or that it is better to play than to listen to.
I don't drop in on the Bluegrass threads or the BG forums and post how much I don't care about the music I don't care about (I don't mind Bluegrass, actually, I am just not engaged with it).
The better to play than listen to trope is particularly untrue. It is one the very few genres with a robust physical media market. Old LPs from the "golden era" can fetch over $1000 easily and the current LP, CD & tape market is very strong. So, there is a large global network of listeners, just because you are not one of them, doesn't mean anything but that.
Secondly, players who engage with it without having an overview of the recorded history are rarely able to sustain any creativity over any amount of time.
The recorded music is far more about starting points than influence.
Also, saying free jazz is not for you or don't like it is different than insulting it and saying it all sounds like barnyard animals or that it is better to play than to listen to.
I don't drop in on the Bluegrass threads or the BG forums and post how much I don't care about the music I don't care about (I don't mind Bluegrass, actually, I am just not engaged with it).
The better to play than listen to trope is particularly untrue. It is one the very few genres with a robust physical media market. Old LPs from the "golden era" can fetch over $1000 easily and the current LP, CD & tape market is very strong. So, there is a large global network of listeners, just because you are not one of them, doesn't mean anything but that.
Secondly, players who engage with it without having an overview of the recorded history are rarely able to sustain any creativity over any amount of time.
The recorded music is far more about starting points than influence.
