NWR: Jazz and "jazz"

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Saina Nieminen

Saina Nieminen
From past threads I remember that some inhabitants here seem to like jazz. But how about the freakier end of that spectrum, the one where it seems to merge with atonal classical music and becomes free improvisation?

Today I listened to an early and a recent recording (The Topography of the Lungs & House Full of Floors) with Evan Parker, and I fell in love with both. And I now want to hear more such lovely Anton Webern-ish music.

Suggestions?
 
Cecil Taylor
Anthony Braxton

Also, try "Olatunji Concert - Last Live Recording" from John Coltrane. This concert is from Feb. '67. I've listened to this three times and I still can't wrap my head around it. I think the issue for me is that the music never breathes. It's absolutely relentless for 60+ minutes.

"Zero Tolerance for Silence", Pat Metheny

And, of course, there's "Free Jazz" from Ornette Coleman.
 
Fire Music by Archie Shepp
Out To Lunch By Eric Dolphy
The Shape Of Jazz To Come and This Is Our Music by Ornette Coleman
Contours by Sam Rivers (not super out, but veers that way)

These were all really big records to me when I was getting interested in free jazz. Not to mention all Impulse-era John Coltrane. Some others to check into would be Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra and Don Cherry.
 
I'm sitting here listening to that Chuck Wayne/Joe Puma album that was recommended here a few weeks back in another thread. No way can I get my brain into dischordant and atonal for another couple of hours and some cult cabernet (to really help with the cranial expansion).

-Eden (who once thought "Dark Magus" was pretty out-there and daring)
 
Free jazz is a big topic, and "Webern-ish" restricts it a lot. There have been a lot of good suggestions, mainly for US artists, so let me suggest a few European things. Since you like Evan Parker, try the Schlippenbach trio's "Elf Bagatellen". It's Alexander von Schlippenbach on piano, parker on saxophones, and Paul Lovens on percussion. It's probably the most Webern-ish "jazz" recording that I have. It's FMP (Free Music Productions) CD 27.

Parker also played in the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra. They have a number of recordings out. It's a much larger ensemble, and involves an interesting mix of composed material and free improvisation. Most of what I've heard has been interesting; I don't have a particular recording to recommend.

Anthony Braxton has a formalist side while still allowing for free improvisation. His compositions are weirdly notated. I like some of his live quartet recordings especially. The Dortmund (Quartet) 1976 with George Lewis (trombone), Dave Holland (bass), and Barry Altschul (drums & percussion) is one I have a copy of and would recommend (hat ART CD 6075). I also like (though don't have a copy of) a 4-disk set of the quartet with Marilyn Crispell (piano), Mark Dresser (bass), and Gerry Hemingway (drums) recorded in a German city I forget at the moment and also released on hat ART.

I've heard a couple of interesting concerts in the last couple of years and can recommend some performers, though I don't know recordings. Mark Feldman, a violinist and former Nashville studio musician, is married to Sylvie Courvoisier, a pianist, and they play free music together. It's more in the European vein. They've also recorded together. I also heard Sylvie play duets with Ellery Eskelin; I'm truly sorry that concert wasn't recorded.

Sticking with European artists, Gerhard Ullmann is a clarinetist who leads a clarinet trio. They gave the only out jazz performance I've ever been to where they kept all the "moldy figs" in the audience for the entire concert. Quite entertaining performers as well as virtuosos.

That's barely scratching the surface of a small sector of free jazz/creative improvised music.

-- SG (listening to the late, great Julius Hemphill's "The Hard Blues" from the album now titled "Reflections" as I type - one of my favorite treatments of the blues.)
 
originally posted by Emilio Castelli:
Suggestions?
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Some of the Art Ensemmble, late Coltrane, Air, Early Circle, Ornette Coleman, some Ayler, Symphony for Improvisers (Cherry)....
Lots out there.
E
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Sounds like a good starting place to me.
 
My reactions when I saw them live 40 +/- years ago was that Shepp and especially Sanders really weren't quite echt. At home, I have Coltrane, Taylor (just acquired his 1979 Columbia U. duet with Max Roach; Conquistador and Unit Structures are amazing), Ornette, and Cherry, and they suffice for me in this genre, although certainly there is much more. I always love the stuff when I listen to it, but find (a) that I have to listen to it alone because I don't know others who can take/understand it (same with Schoenberg, et al.), and (b) it can often be emotionally exhausting to listen to. I have no knowledge of/views on contemporaries in this style.

Dolphy's Out to Lunch is one of the greatest albums there is, but I don't know that it is as out there as you are looking for.

You might also want to explore the drum solo albums, mainly by Art Blakey, but I think Max did one or two.
 
Thanks! Though some of you ignored that Webern-ish bit! I already once asked for free jazz recommendations and got to know Ayler, Coleman, Coltrane, Dolphy and Shepp - and great recs they were. And I further explored Fred Anderson, Michael Brecker, Ellery Eskelin, Dave Liebman and David S. Ware. But this wasn't the style of free playing I was now after. Now I'm after free improvisation that isn't so obviously rooted in jazz. The Evan Parker disks seemed so far removed from their origins in jazz as to remind me more of Anton Webern's perfect crystals. So Schlippenbach sounds like something I should try.
 
I get what you're saying, Otto, and I think you should explore the "British" school of free improvisation in general(even if they're not all Brits): Derek Bailey, Keith Rowe, Alexander Schlippenbach, Peter Kowald, AMM, MEV, Eddie Prevost, and so on. Derek Bailey might actually be mandatory for you, given that his early duets with Evan Parker were very influential.

P.S. You should also look for Eddie Prevost's hard-to-find book, "No Sound Is Innocent," which collects his thoughts on free improvisation.
 
John's suggestions of AMM, Eddie Prevost, Keith Rowe, Derek Bailey and Evan Parker are probably exactly the sort of thing you're looking for. I would add Alexander von Schlippenbach and Peter Brotzmann to that group. Additionally, look out for the "Company" recordings done by Derek Bailey. Essentially, Bailey would invite a bunch of musicians to participate in a series of fully/freely improvised concerts which were recorded under the name "Company" and released.

All of these guys have been fairly prolific so it is hard to pick and choose particular recordings (other than Brotzmann's Machine Gun which is a stone classic). Just get a few and see what you think.
 
Derek Bailey for sure...and if you take the time to sift thru their work (lots available to check out on youtube), the next generation of musician/composers influenced by Bailey, such as Fred Frith, Tom Cora, John Zorn and Marc Ribot have worked in the purely free improvisation realm, though not exclusively. If you like the noisier side of improvisational "music", Eugene Chadbourne's solo work with prepared guitars, or his electric rake (with apparently a roller base upgrade) is something to behold, especially live.

In the orchestral range, I don't know Webern's music at all, but a quick youtube search yielded material of his which reminded me of Zappa's work with the London Symphony Orchestra. But this is not improvisational music...just often dense, dissonant and difficult music, and can be interesting.
 
Schlippenbach's Elf Bagatellen is, Allah willing, on its way. As is another that my favourite music shop suggested: Paul Bley's Time Will Tell. The shop also sold me an ECM set, Jimmy Giuffre 3, 1961 which isn't quite so Webern-like, but was still in that quiet but quirky style I wanted. Nice to have a forum full of wine and music lovers and such a great music shop next door to my bookshop!
 
There ya go...labels in wine or music serve pretty much the same function. Bley did some electric stuff too....with jaco and pat, believe it or not....not at all quiet tho.
 
Quick update. I didn't manage to get the Schlippenbach's mentioned here - this type of music seems not last long in the catalogue. Instead, there is, Allah willing, Pakistani Pomade soon arriving which was an earlier recording by the trio.

The neighboring music shop also made me listen to Roscoe Mitchell's Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3 (ECM) which, on first listen, was just what I was hoping to get. Any love for Roscoe Mitchell here?
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:

The neighboring music shop also made me listen to Roscoe Mitchell's Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3 (ECM) which, on first listen, was just what I was hoping to get. Any love for Roscoe Mitchell here?
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Roscoe Mitchell was a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, which, judging by some of the comments above, has a number of fans here (I count myself in that group). He has recorded extensively with the AEC, as well as with various other groups he organized. I don't know the ECM recording you mention, which appears to be a fairly recent recording. I'll have to check it out.
 
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