Unlike "Free Jazz", "Free Improvisation" is not a musical jazz style, in my opinion at least. There are various jazz experts who have been classifying it as a different style but I think that it is a very broad form to be classified as a distinctive style with specific characteristics, which I happen to believe that there are none.
Before entering to the topic, let's take a moment and try to make a definition of "right" or "wrong" music...If you are really a music lover, it is very difficult to find that definition. Yes, you have all the freedom to say that this music is bad or that one you didn't like. However these thoughts are purely subjective. One can say that, (no offense guys), the music of John Cage or Krzysztof Penderecki or Edgard Varese or Paul Lansky or John Zorn is terrible and non-listenable to, but what are his/her grounds for this argument? Only personal feelings and experiences. They might sound very different to what your ears are accustomed to hear and they might destroy all the musical notions that you have collected in your life. But is it enough to say that this music is wrong? Definitely not. We need to understand that there are no inherent rules of music, there are obviously certain structures or systems a musician has to follow but these can only prevent the music to be transformed into cacophony (for some even cacophony can be music, as it it represents a different possibility of the sounds in nature).
Can you define below music as wrong?
"Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima" by Penderecki
Or this?
"HPSCHD" by John Cage (if you liked try to listen😈 4:33 by Cage as well)
How about this one? Is it music or noise? Can noise be music?
"Night Traffic" by Paul Lansky
So different than each other...Would you like to listen to while having a romantic dinner? Probably not, but are they wrong? What do they represent? Can they be reflections of the past experiences of the composers? Back to the basic question: "Art for art's sake?" or "Art for the society?"...
I also recently noticed that people can feel themselves drawn into modern paintings than modern music. Is it something related with seeing and hearing? Have to admit, beats me.
Average listeners always have a tendency to hear pleasant and common harmonies. But what about dissonance? What about atonality? Can you stigmatize a dissonant or atonal piece of music as wrong music? Never, and don't forget that trying to play a piece of music without any harmony at all is extremely difficult; think about hitting the keys of the piano randomly, at some certain point there is a good chance that you will hit C-E-G together to create one of the the most common chords.
Remember only this; almost every collection of sound can be accepted as music. You may like it or hate it. You may even like something now that you have hated since today. It is all about the experiences and feelings. What do you feel when you listen to it? Maybe the composer wished that you hated it, who knows? And experiences; think about the tritones or augmented 4ths as musical intervals. These intervals were being called the "diabolus in musica" (Devil in Music) for a very long period of time and their usage probably guaranteed a hearing at the Inquisition court. However today, they are considered as one of the key intervals in modern music especially in jazz and blues.
So after this philosophical introduction 😉 let's see what we can tell about "Free Improvisation".
Free improvisation as the name suggests, is a music where the performers improvise freely (in a metalanguage approach, and not free from each other). In my opinion, it is more of a technique rather than a musical style. It is such a technique that musicians "play without memory", as described by one of the key figures of free improvisation, English guitarist Derek Bailey. He also adds that it can even be considered as the earliest musical style because mankind's first interaction with music should have been in the form of free improvisation.
We can define conventional music with three characteristics: Melody, harmony and rhythm. This music is composed of sounds, and these sounds can be defined with another three elements: Pitch (frequency of the sound wave), timbre (form of the wave) and loudness (amplitude of the wave).
In free improvisation, the musicians perform their music by playing with all these elements as the music progresses. It can be atonal, it can be nonrhythmic, the piano used can be tuned very differently or even be played without its keyboard (by plucking the strings inside), the guitarist may use a hand ventilator to touch the strings etc...
How did free improvisation evolve? Was it because the musicians were less skilled to play their instruments so that they started banging on the strings, or taping the sounds on the highways and playing them backwards? Obviously not. They were looking for something new, something that hadn't been done before, as it has always been the case. Especially in the second half of the 20th century where art had exponentially transformed, creative minds in music were not late to follow. The music scene's answer to Warhol, Dali, Picasso, Duchamp, Pollock, Godard, Cocteau, Cunningham and many many more that we call avant-garde today came with Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy first in the form of Free Jazz and right after with Free Improvisation that had been nourished from free jazz and modern classical music.
Just like free jazz, free improvisation placed the key elements of music except harmony in its core. It didn't sound familiar. And we can easily argue that it evolved mostly in Europe, by European artists that were inspired by free jazz. The classical art music composers of the 20th Century also played a very significant role in the development of free improvisation. Composers like Feldman, Stockhausen, Tudor, Crumb and Cage introduced the improvisation element to their music. They even wrote pieces not with conventional notation but with shapes and figures that required a total interpretation hence improvisation by the performer.
"Treatise" by Cornelius Cardew (try to play this score...)
If we come back to the jazz arena and question the association of "Free Improvisation" with jazz music, we can easily say that "improvisation" is the true commonality. It was already in the DNA of the musicians. However the improvisation that the jazz musicians had excelled at was a relatively structured kind reflecting the jazz idiom. The improvisation had reached its top level during the 1960s with the free jazz giants like Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor.
However the search for the new and even more creative never decelerated. At that moment European musicians coming from an art music tradition appeared on the stage with a more abstract technique. Guitarist Derek Bailey along with Keith Rowe's group AMM, both from England were the pioneers of free improvisation.
One of the best definitions of "Free Improvisation" has been made by Derek Bailey, in his book titled "Improvisation" (what a surprise 😊). You might recall this book from the earlier posts (Best books on Jazz). He mentions how his group, "Joseph Holbrooke" (named after an English composer) with Gavin Bryars on bass and Tony Oxley on drums,transformed from a band playing conventional jazz to free improvising band. You might refer to the book for further reading which I believe is a very good proof of what can be achieved in music by being courageous and continuous experimenting.
One of the best definitions of "Free Improvisation" has been made by Derek Bailey, in his book titled "Improvisation" (what a surprise 😊). You might recall this book from the earlier posts (Best books on Jazz). He mentions how his group, "Joseph Holbrooke" (named after an English composer) with Gavin Bryars on bass and Tony Oxley on drums,transformed from a band playing conventional jazz to free improvising band. You might refer to the book for further reading which I believe is a very good proof of what can be achieved in music by being courageous and continuous experimenting.
"Improvisation #1" by Derek Bailey
"Miles Mode" by Joseph Holbrooke Trio
AMM in a quite recent performance
Other major artists from Europe are saxophonists Evan Parker from England, Peter Brötzmann from Germany and guitarist Fred Frith again from England. Of course American sax players such as John Zorn and Anthony Braxton immediately jumped on the wagon as well to be the leading figures. One of the greatest bands of free improvisation was Art Ensemble of Chicago that can be considered as an extension of AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a non-profit organization) that was led by Muhal Richard Abrams in the late 60s (other members included Lester Bowie, Roscoe Mitchell, Don Moye, Henry Threadgill).
"Machine Gun" by Peter Brötzmann Octet (incl. Evan Parker)
"Theme de Yoyo" by the Art Ensemble of Chicago
Starting from the late 60s, free improvisation was at the heart of the art circles. Artistically, it was seen parallel to the Fluxus movement and other forms of performance art such as happenings (performances, events or situations meant to be considered as art or performance art; the free improvisers' performances were very similar without the distance between the performer and the audience).
In late 70s, it had also been a phenomenon in New York amongst specific art enthusiasts. Musicians such as John Zorn, Bill Laswell, George Lewis worked with each other and also with their European counterparts in both continents. Many of these musicians are still continuing to make improvised music even today.
"Zechriel" by Bar Kokhba Sextet (incl. John Zorn, Marc Ribot)
It would not be too fair to discuss about free improvisation and not mention the German recording label ECM. Founded by Manfred Eicher in 1969, ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) record company is most probably one of the key recording companies that helped flourish this type of music.
Here is a list of the other free improvisers that I try follow if you want to listen more examples;
"Improvisations for Cello & Guitar" by Derek Bailey and Dave Holland from ECM
Here is a list of the other free improvisers that I try follow if you want to listen more examples;
- Saxophone: Steve Lacy, Trevor Watts and Willem Breuker
- Trumpet: Kenny Wheeler
- Guitar: John Russell, Keiji Haino and Marc Ribot
- Piano: Cornelius Cardew, John Tilbury and Aki Takase
- Bass: Dave Holland, Barre Phillips
- Drums: John Stevens, Eddie Prevost and Cyro Baptista
- Voice: Theo Bleckmann, Diamanda Galas
Let's finish with a little bit of philosophy again. For the last couple of posts we are talking about free jazz and free improvisation. However I still feel that the real meaning of "free" in these styles or techniques or forms, whatever you call them, is still a bit vague. What do we really mean with this only four letter word that can have a meaning to fill the universe? Maybe we can try to understand with Sartre's perspective.
He argues that all people have choices and all these choices have consequences. You are free to make a choice and you need to take the responsibility based on your choice, thus raising the question of how free are you? Freedom is power and freedom is in the moment and how you respond to things happening around you is far more important than what is happening. Just like music, or improvised music at least, you are in a group of people with free wills and you are there to create something new collectively, not individually (same discussion can also be made for solo performances), therefore can you be 100% free? Interaction is the limit to the freedom in jazz music. Musicians can be free of melody, harmony and tempo but they can never be free of the overall texture they intend to create.This is the paradox embedded in free improvisation. If it wasn't there to guard the music, most probably we wouldn't be considering it as music.
Here is a good example of such an interaction (I have to admit that it is also a composition that I play very well 😆...).
"4:33" by John Cage played by David Tudor
John Cage once said that there is not a hierarchy between sounds, directing us a question asking who can decide whether a sound is good or bad, or with the wording we used, "right" or "wrong"? This is the freedom that we need to understand in free music. Taking Cage's hierarchy arguments to another level, we can say it's not only between sounds that a hierarchy lacks, but also between instruments, band members and even the audience. This is the freedom that we should refer to.
I strongly have a feeling that "Free Improvisation" will be the musical norm in the future as long as art and artists exist on this world.
No comments:
Post a Comment