Double Bass Help me understand "free jazz"

[Tom Lane]

I'm no expert on free jazz but I can say how I have enjoyed the pieces that I have enjoyed. At its best, watching and listening to a free jazz performance, the performers evolve toward conveying a particular emotion at some point in time. Hearing them fall in together, getting on the same page as it were, unscripted and unplanned, and hearing that emotion become clearer, I find very involving and I think as an audience member, my response helps guide and determine that final result. Then, of course, things start to change towards some new goal. The level of intense listening by everyone involved is a big part of the fun for me.

That said, like any genre, there's a lot of practitioners that I don't enjoy because I don't think they either realize their goals, or I'm not interested in their goals, or both. One group in particular, I could hear what they seemed to be striving for, but I didn't feel that they realized it. It could have been me. It could also be that they have some development left to do. I don't know which.

Last, IMO, "good" art and "bad" art are on a different dimension from what I like and don't. I can like good art, or bad art, and have one response to it one year and possibly a different response another year. My response is my own. The art exists independent of my response.

 

[lurk]

I promised myself that I wouldn't post on this thread several weeks (months?) ago... but here we are... Why can't it just die? Anyway, there is an undertone to so many posts here that is ignorant and misleading. Like vegans and atheists, I am finding that free jazz fans are amongst the most hated group in musical circles. Maybe nobody says it, but comments like the one above and many others in this thread have this sentiment as a subtext. We are just passionate about the music we love, probably like most people on this forum. Are some people overenthusiastic to the point of annoyance? Yes, but this could be said of fans of any genre of music (Have you heard THAT Rush song? Actually no, I haven't).

We don't want to be special and exclude anyone from an already small audience. But when people enter in a discourse with preconceived notions about the intent of the performers/listeners, well... it's pretty hard to have a serious discussion (Evidence: this thread). Over the past 30 years, I have played countless free records for friends and colleagues in an attempt to widen the audience for this music. I have also listened to countless records played by friends and colleagues. A process I am extremely lucky to have taken part in (I NEVER thought I would be a fan of reggae but...). I have found that anyone with a pulse has a strong (generally positive) reaction to the Art Ensemble's "People in Sorrow", so that is my recommendation to the OP. As for me, I am also putting on some Ayler...

Hey man, don't get me wrong, I've played a lot of free jazz and consumed a lot of it attending performances and buying recordings I must admit, though, that part of the appeal is feeling like you're a member of sort of a small exclusive club that gets it. I just got home from the Metropolitan Opera, another type of music I love that is kept afloat partly by the same type of thing.

 

[yodedude2]

H ... I must admit, though, that part of the appeal is feeling like you're a member of sort of a small exclusive club that gets it. ...

not for this introvert. unless the number in this small,exclusive club is 'one'. then, i confess ... that i am at the point where i no longer apologize for my music preferences.

 

[JBarz]

I think we’re missing a key philosophical tenant of this music which is this: there is room for everyone’s perspective and opinion. There is no argument here, just the varied perspective that shows us the Rorschach ink blot nature of this music. It, like all things, is a mirror to reveal aspects of yourself that you might not see otherwise. Hate it? Love it? Thats YOU, baby!

Damon’s concert he just posted the other day with Ra Kalam blew my f’n mind, btw. If ya’ll don’t “get it”, perhaps you’re trying too hard.

Or maybe it’s just not your cup of tea, and that’s ok too.

Chris is right about perspectives changing/growing/evolving. Nothing wrong with that - I don’t know why so many people wanna get into semantic arguments about the nature of “art”, etc. Perhaps because this is still ‘the internet’ and NOT reality. The suggestion to listen to recordings or live could/should be the end of this conversation.

Life and Music are like an “open world” video game, from a certain perspective. Just because you can VISIT the ‘water temple’ doesn’t mean you’re ready to PLAY it until you get that dang ‘hookshot’, ya dig?

I can't play free (yet!), but I find it more 'refreshing' and 'stimulating' to listen to than other branches of 'jazz' that I feel I can play competently.

 

[salmon256]

With jazz in general it can be hard to get into. Listening to some standards help and when you play an instrument in Jazz is really changes your appreciation for it, same with classical. Free Jazz I will not lie is something hard to get into. Free Jazz most of the work I listen to tends to be very new and students comps while not at all bad just not easy to get into. It's lump together a lot at least in my experience with other forms of jazz. I would say if you have spotify or apple music tried to just listen to as much as you can or find one artist you like. That's what worked for me.

But in the end it's totally fine if you do not like it. There's no laws you have to love every kind of jazz, I love Avant-Garde, Arthur Russel, Peter Zummo etc but some Garde I find is really odd or just hard to grasp. Doesn't make you any less of a musician or music enjoyer. Sometimes like school subjects, a genre will just click. When I heard Take Five and that simple double bass part. I was hooked. Charles Mingus as well. Good luck in your listens. Free Jazz I guess was just listening to so much Bebop and such you want to unlock more in a way I guess. I hope you enjoy it!

 

[Bruce Calin]

I attended a high school jazz festival recently and had a conversation with a violinist friend who was attending because her son was thinking of joining one of the bands. She has literally no experience with jazz or improvised music of any kind, and asked some of the most basic questions a person could about this music, which to me is about the most accessible jazz there is - a fairly healthy dose of '40's-type swing along with some newer stuff, all very listener friendly, I assumed. At the end I asked if she liked the music and she said something to the effect of " I really don't understand it". I'm hoping that her son joins a band and she hears a little more, because talking about it won't do it. It's a listening art, after all.

 

[damonsmith]

The 2.0 version of this discussion is surprisingly much better. Here are a few thoughts:
1. The "elitist", "insider" digs are just silly. Nearly any worthwhile pursuit from rock climbing to cooking to literally ANY kind of music has a set of concerns, skills and information needed to get anything out of it.
The difference between free jazz and other music is that the concerns do shift.
2. Free Jazz and Free improvisation are different but related. Free Jazz is still related to Jazz. You are more likely to see Jazz instrumentation, it has to include swing - even in a very abstract form. There will be some pitch based material as opposed to pure sound.
3. @Tom Lane is correct. The listener is very much a part of the process.


Here is the video @zootsaxes mentioned:


More soon!

 

[ctrlzjones]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. My appreciation for Bartok began after I had been studying composition long enough to begin to understand his melodic/harmonic language and the way it hints at and simultaneously frustrates the ear's expectation of tonality. Appreciation for Mahler came out of that same basic harmonic understanding, where I came to love the dance he often does in his late works of stretching the boundaries of tonality and the way it fits hand in glove with his ultra romanticism.

My appreciation for Jessye Norman came when I learned just enough German years ago to appreciate the inflection she was giving to the texts of the Mahler songs I had come to love, and the way that the music and the words and the expressive performance were all part and parcel. Same with Palestrina, where the time spent trying to write counterpoint in that style gave me an appreciation for the subtlety of it, and out of that grew a genuine affinity for the music.

Or the dawning realization of the importance of subtext in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, which for me came only after I had experienced the same thing in Kundera novels. And on and on.

So it's OK to disagree, but I definitely believe that a deeper understanding can add depth and meaning to a person's experience of an art or art form that they previously didn't get.

I like to follow that. Just as Chris is describing, every artistic expression has its core elements that it excels with. And for jazz it seems to be that "noisy" and anti-formalistic element that has been there since its beginnings.
And as Damon said there are a lot of different shades of FreeJazz and/or FreeMusic. But something that's always present is a very subjective emotional expression, very ephemeral. As Cannonball Adderley has put it in one of his unparelleld announcements: "simultanioulsy a scream and a shout". It is less present in the european "free" sphere, that is more informed by intellectual proceedings.

 

[damonsmith]

Sorry, this is the duo clip. The above is the second set. Trio with Michael Adkins:

As far as whether art needs to be explained or not - all art needs context & explanation. Art that someone thinks they just "get" with no explanation generally just means they already have the context for it.

Of course the context and information a listen might need is very different than what a player needs.

 

[Ed S]

WAY upthread someone made a comparison to abstract visual art. That comparison does not seem to have been picked up. Do most of you "in the know" feel that is a valid comparison?

I don't really understand or care for much jazz. The less generally accessible jazz gets, the less I appreciate it. I admit I never really made a concerted study of it. Never really felt the need/desire, as there was an inexhaustible supply of other music I've been able to enjoy w/o making such an effort. So free and improvisational jazz are genres I am absolutely ignorant of. I don't mind that, and I certainly don't care if someone else enjoys listening/making such music. I feel similarly about a lot of modern orchestral music, tho I enjoy listening/making more traditional orchestral music.

Now I'm also pretty darned ignorant about art - especially modern/abstract. I don't know "what" I'm looking at, but I can still derive an emotional reaction from looking. And here's my distinction - I may not know what Pollack/Rothko/whomever is trying to do/say in a particular piece, but I DO like many of their pieces. I enjoy looking at them in a gallery, and would enjoy having a print or similar work in my home.

I've listened to a lot of the examples posted upthread, and I haven't found one that I "like." There are a couple that are "tolerable" as "ignorable" background music. But I find the vast majority of the linked music simply irritating and ugly. Basically "noise."

Again - that is just my opinion. I'm expressing absolutely no opinion of people who like/make such music. But I find it curious that my perception of "abstract/experimental" visual and aural art differs in this way. I guess I desire a perceivable melody/hook more than I desire a recognizable visual image.

Sorry I don't have anything more meaningful to contribute to this thread.

 

[damonsmith]

For sure. The roots are related to post war abstraction. Also, the working method is much more like art. We zone in on specific details and Ideas and work closely on them.
The other contexts would be general social climate of the 1960s, the civl rights and anti war movements as well as the experimentation in various forms of classical music.

WAY upthread someone made a comparison to abstract visual art. That comparison does not seem to have been picked up. Do most of you "in the know" feel that is a valid comparison?

I don't really understand or care for much jazz. The less generally accessible jazz gets, the less I appreciate it. I admit I never really made a concerted study of it. Never really felt the need/desire, as there was an inexhaustible supply of other music I've been able to enjoy w/o making such an effort. So free and improvisational jazz are genres I am absolutely ignorant of. I don't mind that, and I certainly don't care if someone else enjoys listening/making such music. I feel similarly about a lot of modern orchestral music, tho I enjoy listening/making more traditional orchestral music.

Now I'm also pretty darned ignorant about art - especially modern/abstract. I don't know "what" I'm looking at, but I can still derive an emotional reaction from looking. And here's my distinction - I may not know what Pollack/Rothko/whomever is trying to do/say in a particular piece, but I DO like many of their pieces. I enjoy looking at them in a gallery, and would enjoy having a print or similar work in my home.

I've listened to a lot of the examples posted upthread, and I haven't found one that I "like." There are a couple that are "tolerable" as "ignorable" background music. But I find the vast majority of the linked music simply irritating and ugly. Basically "noise."

Again - that is just my opinion. I'm expressing absolutely no opinion of people who like/make such music. But I find it curious that my perception of "abstract/experimental" visual and aural art differs in this way. I guess I desire a perceivable melody/hook more than I desire a recognizable visual image.

Sorry I don't have anything more meaningful to contribute to this thread.

 

[Keith Rawlings]

The 2.0 version of this discussion is surprisingly much better. Here are a few thoughts:
1. The "elitist", "insider" digs are just silly. Nearly any worthwhile pursuit from rock climbing to cooking to literally ANY kind of music has a set of concerns, skills and information needed to get anything out of it.
The difference between free jazz and other music is that the concerns do shift.
2. Free Jazz and Free improvisation are different but related. Free Jazz is still related to Jazz. You are more likely to see Jazz instrumentation, it has to include swing - even in a very abstract form. There will be some pitch based material as opposed to pure sound.
3. @Tom Lane is correct. The listener is very much a part of the process.


Here is the video @zootsaxes mentioned:


More soon!

I really enjoyed this. This ensemble has more of a swinging vibe to it as compared to some of the other performances you post.

 

[damonsmith]

I really enjoyed this. This ensemble has more of a swinging vibe to it as compared to some of the other performances you post.

Thanks for listening! This will clearly be more swinging due to Moses being one of the great jazz drummers. Still, free Jazz has to have a swing component or it is free improvisation. If you are interested, then working on locating and feeling abstracted swing is a good place to start. It is often referred to as "momentum" or "forward energy", later free jazz has been called "Energy Music".
It might be less clear here:

Quite clear here:

Somewhere in between:

 

[The Owl]

Features Eric Dolphy

 

[WG Plum]

Features Eric Dolphy

YES

 

[lurk]

Do you really need to "understand" music to enjoy it? If so, then we're only playing for other musicians. Now that I think of it, that's sadly often the case.

 

[JBarz]

Do you really need to "understand" music to enjoy it? If so, then we're only playing for other musicians. Now that I think of it, that's sadly often the case.

<drops microphone.>

 

[Lee Moses]

Do you really need to "understand" music to enjoy it?

I mean, generally speaking, yes. If you have no idea what a composer/songwriter/performer is trying to do, how are you going to enjoy the music? That goes for music as simple as Elvis's "Don't Be Cruel." You do not need to be a musicologist to perceive aspects of the music. You can pick up on the beat, the melody, the lyrics, or any combination of these and other elements of the song, but you have to appreciate something about it before you enjoy it. The same could be said about free jazz or Rite of Spring.

That said, as with all art, you can perceive aspects that the composer/songwriter/performer never even intended, and you can enjoy that. But you're still grasping something from the music. If you grasp nothing, what is there to enjoy?

 

[bassGtar]

I think quite a bit of what makes many people like music is the feeling of being an insider - hip if you will - who understands the codes. This applies to lovers of Hip-hop, opera, prog-rock, whatever. A lot of what many of us love about 1958 Miles Davis's recordings, for example, is that they just perfectly exemplify a certain concept of jazz and a certain group of listeners who get it. Free jazz has a small but very hard core following of people that understand the codes, are proud of it, and are willing to spend money to prove it. They don't want most folks to like it - they want to be special. When I am coaching students who are preparing to audition for college jazz programs I tell them the most important thing is to sound like you are a jazz musician; that you know the codes. They have been very successful even those who perhaps didn't play their instruments as fluently as others they were completing against.

I wish you were right. I'd be a much better musician if you were.

 

[JBarz]

If you grasp nothing, what is there to enjoy

“Freedom from the known,” as J. Krishnamurti might say.