Jazz Taxonomy (holy wars?)
Joe Germuska
OK, I'm going to swallow deeply and solicit a new thread here.
The "Styles of Jazz" map on the WNUR JazzWeb
<http://www.nwu.edu/WNUR/jazz/styles/> is in need of revision. I'd like
to incorporate some of Walt Davis' (and Kevin Whitehead's) ideas about
varieties of "avant garde", I'd like to get "neo-classicism" out of the
post-AACM lineage, I'd like to reconsider how the "parallel streams" of
european classical and other "world music" are indicated on the map...
all kinds of things!
I know a bunch of you are probably groaning here, if not banging your
heads on your monitors. "What kind of fool is he anyway? Hasn't he been
around here long enough to know better?" I'm just a bleeding optimist. I
enjoy the process of classification, when it's ultimate limitations are
clearly understood. I think the process of attempting to categorize music
can produce insights and stimulate more careful listening. Yes, it can
also stimulate antagonism and boneheadedness, too. I can't do anything
for people inclined to either.
So the first (rhetorical) question is "do you want to play?" If you
don't, you might as well just put this thread in the killfile. If you do,
the next question is "what's the best mechanism to carry on this
discussion?" I'm game for trying USENET, but I think we'll have a lot of
different discussions going on. I'm open to alternative suggestions. I
can probably create one or more simple mailing lists, and we might find
other forums as well.
I know, this is a huge complicated question. I think it could be fun to
address both the question of how we carry on this discussion as well as
the actual factors which distinguish the various sub-genres. Hopefully as
we work out the parts, we'll work out explanations which will help other
people find their way into the many kinds of music which are part of
"JAZZ". As always, I'll gladly provide space for any of the results of
the discussion in the JazzWeb, if needed. Some other USENET groups have
produced some pretty remarkable collections of information -- perhaps we
can do the same.
I don't quite believe I'm opening up this can of worms, but heck, that
racism thread is getting boring anyway...
Joe
--
Joe Germuska * Learning Technologies Group * Northwestern University
j-ger...@nwu.edu * http://www.nwu.edu/people/j-germuska
"I felt so good I told my leaders how to follow..." - Sly Stone
Bret Arenson
Tom Waters wrote:
> I like the word jazz and think that it is a term very much worth keeping
> alive because jazz as an aesthetic category works in a different way from
> typical art-historical terms like "abstract expressionism" or
> "rockabilly." Those terms refer to periods of time, momentary stopping
> places in the wandering attention of a particular art community. They are
> slices cut across the grain of time. Jazz's slice, on the other hand, is
> cut parallel to time, as with a ripsaw. The meaning of the word jazz
> isn't fixed -- it has to change over time because that is its
> relationship to time.
This is very astute way of taking the environment and time into
consideration. The context must be analysed along with the content.
What jazz is and isn't has to be worked out through
> a process which itself takes time. Critics and amateur debaters have a
> part to play in this, as the great "is swing jazz," "is bop jazz," "is
> free music jazz," and so on debates reveal, but really it is up to
> musicians to make the case for the jazz nature of what they do clear by
> how they play.
Sometimes I think jazz is just the music that is sold in the jazz bin.
Why not? That's is how the musicians classify themselves and they must
be responding to something in the jazz tradition. But there also seems
that there are certain stylistic concerns that might constain the
definition. For instance I personally might think of John Luc Ponty as
jazz because what he does stands outside of what I see are the stylistic
concerns of jazz. The problem being though I cannot figure what those
concerns are. But his music is found in the jazz bins and he probably
considers it jazz and he is responding to some jazz style I am sure,
even though being highly influenced by other genres as well.
> jazz is a much more free zone than the artistic spaces
> carved out by the terms used in so many other fields of expression. Being
> an abstract expressionist isn't very easy in the 1990s, I'll bet, since
> abstract expressionism was an art of the 50s or 60s.
The 40's, and it has it's tradition just like jazz. You are right about
the classification making it seem isolated in time.
> So as we revise that WNUR jazz map, let's try to use terms that flow with
> time, rather than cutting across it as a few jazz terms unfortunately do
> -- Dixieland and hard bop for example. The Whitehead-Davis terms like
> freebop and so on are pretty good in this regard, I think. Let's make up
> more.
I think it's good to have some definitions of periods and styles that
somehow seem distinct to the cataloger at least. I come from this as a
collector and enjoy discovering something new. If there is a genre or
sub genre that seems distinct for some reason and the definition of it
sound appealing I might try to research. Or if I like a recording and
there is a catagory that encombases it I might be inclinded to find out
about the others listed. You are right about the possibilities of the
categories being too rigid since not every artist comes from a school
but takes their influences from what they find. The development is more
fluid. But some generalities can be made about music that sounds
distinct and different.
> People will accuse us of pointless intellectualizing and being
> insane, but let's go for it anyway.
Yes you are. I would not want to attempt this as it would probably
frustrate me very soon. But as the original post points out it may give
some listeners certain concepts on influence, development and style that
may make the listening more enjoyable and understandable.
Bret Arenson
The JazzOwl Weekly Jazz Classic
Reviews, Bios, Recommendations
http://www.chameleonprod.com/jazzowl
Tom Waters
Joe Germuska (j-ger...@nwu.edu) wrote:
: The "Styles of Jazz" map on the WNUR JazzWeb
: <http://www.nwu.edu/WNUR/jazz/styles/> is ...
I've enjoyed looking at the map (though it's been a while since I've seen
it). Of course, it would take much more than two dimensions to incorprate
every point worth making about the music, but two is better than one,
especially since one of the dimensions is time, which has a special role
to play in jazz. Actually more than one special role come to think of it.
I like the word jazz and think that it is a term very much worth keeping
alive because jazz as an aesthetic category works in a different way from
typical art-historical terms like "abstract expressionism" or
"rockabilly." Those terms refer to periods of time, momentary stopping
places in the wandering attention of a particular art community. They are
slices cut across the grain of time. Jazz's slice, on the other hand, is
cut parallel to time, as with a ripsaw. The meaning of the word jazz
isn't fixed -- it has to change over time because that is its
relationship to time. What jazz is and isn't has to be worked out through
a process which itself takes time. Critics and amateur debaters have a
part to play in this, as the great "is swing jazz," "is bop jazz," "is
free music jazz," and so on debates reveal, but really it is up to
musicians to make the case for the jazz nature of what they do clear by
how they play.
Why do people want to play a part in the jazz tradition? One reason, I
suspect, is that jazz is a much more free zone than the artistic spaces
carved out by the terms used in so many other fields of expression. Being
an abstract expressionist isn't very easy in the 1990s, I'll bet, since
abstract expressionism was an art of the 50s or 60s. (Someone might ask
the very fine painter Helen Frankenthaler about this.) But if you're a
jazz artist you get a past, a present, and a future!
I think that that critics and audience members would be helping to give
artists more freedom and a more meaningful role by using more terms like
jazz instead of all those limiting, carved-in-stone, periodizing terms
beloved of art historians.
So as we revise that WNUR jazz map, let's try to use terms that flow with
time, rather than cutting across it as a few jazz terms unfortunately do
-- Dixieland and hard bop for example. The Whitehead-Davis terms like
freebop and so on are pretty good in this regard, I think. Let's make up
more. People will accuse us of pointless intellectualizing and being
insane, but let's go for it anyway.
Tom
--
Thomas Waters
twa...@use.usit.net
1021 East Oak Hill Avenue, Knoxville TN 37917
Dig And Be Dug In Return
Tom Waters
: I (Tom Waters) wrote:
: > jazz is a much more free zone than the artistic spaces
: > carved out by the terms used in so many other fields of expression. Being
: > an abstract expressionist isn't very easy in the 1990s, I'll bet, since
: > abstract expressionism was an art of the 50s or 60s.
And then Bret Arenson (manor...@chameleonprod.com) wrote:
: The 40's, and it has it's tradition just like jazz. You are right about
: the classification making it seem isolated in time.
Bret is right of course (although the most famous Ab Ex pictures were
made right around 1950). My problem is that when I think of Abstract
Expressionism my mind immediately leaps to Frank O'Hara instead of
staying where I meant it to go.
Joe Germuska
In article <5c99ap$10h$1...@news.usit.net>, twa...@use.usit.net (Tom Waters)
wrote:
>So as we revise that WNUR jazz map, let's try to use terms that flow with
>time, rather than cutting across it as a few jazz terms unfortunately do
>-- Dixieland and hard bop for example. The Whitehead-Davis terms like
>freebop and so on are pretty good in this regard, I think. Let's make up
>more. People will accuse us of pointless intellectualizing and being
>insane, but let's go for it anyway.
Tom:
inspired words on jazz and time! "like a ripsaw" -- excellent! :-)
why does freebop flow with time while hardbop flows against it? I like
the idea of threads of jazz through time, but I'm not sure how well we'll
be able to identify them. Perhaps if someone else gets me rolling, I'll
pick up on it.
It's worth making a point very few people seem to pick up on -- the
JazzWeb map currently up <http://www.nwu.edu/WNUR/jazz/styles/> is lifted
almost directly from Joachim Ernst-Berendt's "The Jazz Book". It will
make more sense in the context of his book, if anyone wants to better
understand the current graphic. It will be a shame to lose the ability to
point the finger at his work when people disagree with categories :-) but
it will keep me from copyright police, I think...
In article
<Pine.PTX.3.95c.97012...@carson.u.washington.edu>, Jeff
Volkman <ve...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>I like your chart. My first suggestion would be that perhaps you're
>trying to represent too much information with that one chart. It may be
Another case I'm willing to consider, but I need more help visualizing
such a chart. Perhaps if we talk some more about what categories we have
for jazz in our own heads, the non-time-based factors will become more
clear.
Maybe we can start by analyzing some more the basic premise that jazz
emerged from the interactions of african and european music, leading to
Ragtime, widely considered the first "African-American music." It seems
widely believed that ragtime generally fed directly into jazz. I'm not
sure how accurate that is. I think it's John Storm Roberts who observes
that Ragtime was art music, while jazz didn't become art music until maybe
the bebop era. (Do we need to clarify the concept of "art music"?
Probably, but I'm not sure I'm up to it right now -- anyone else?)
Thinking some more about it, though, "art" and "pop" and "dance" and
"folk" are some general descriptors of music which I think do flow with
time instead of across it. Perhaps we could chart factors of
entertainment motivation vs. "art" motivation over the development of the
music? I guess I'd loosely say that bebop was an movement into "art
motivation", and hard bop a movement back towards "entertainment", getting
back to "roots", etc. Is this path worth pursuing?
I am still not sure that we'll be able to maintain this discussion and our
sanity in a purely newsgroup format, although I don't have any great ideas
for alternative methods besides making the draft revisions available on
the web while we talk -- that may be almost enough, though...
well, gotta go now. Not like we'd get this done this weekend :-)
Walter Davis
In article <j-germuska-23...@slugworth.acns.nwu.edu>,
j-ger...@nwu.edu (Joe Germuska) wrote:
>OK, I'm going to swallow deeply and solicit a new thread here.
>
like
>to incorporate some of Walt Davis' (and Kevin Whitehead's) ideas about
>varieties of "avant garde",
I appreciate the compliments, but would everyone please stop crediting
me with these ideas. I first encountered the idea of different
avant-garde styles here on rmb in a thread started when Kevin
Whitehead's article first appeared. Marc Sabatella and someone else who
I can't recall were the main discussants - I don't think I even
participated, I just absorbed because it made a lot of sense to me.
Then it came around again I believe. Then I decided it might be useful
to folks looking for an intro to the ag to put down my understanding of
what it was and to assign albums to categories. But I was copping
heavily from Whitehead and Marc, so they deserve composer credits and
all royalties.
-walt
Walter Davis walter...@unc.edu or
Department of Sociology and wda...@irss.unc.edu
Health Data Analyst at the ph: (919) 962-1019
Institute for Research in Social Science fax: (919) 962-4777
UNC - Chapel Hill
Tom Waters
Joe Germuska (j-ger...@nwu.edu) wrote:
: why does freebop flow with time while hardbop flows against it?
That's a hard one to answer in a way that would convince anyone, but when
I think of hard bop, I think of a fairly defined sound coming out of a
particular scene, and when I think of freebop, I imagine connecting the
dots to make a wandering line from Ornette Coleman to Andrew Hill to Malachi
Thompson to the Gregg Bendian Project, with dotted line leading in
various other directions. Sometimes the connections are unexpected,
covert, or ambiguous. It reminds me of that Borges quote about inventing
one's influences.
: (Do we need to clarify the concept of "art music"?
: Probably, but I'm not sure I'm up to it right now -- anyone else?)
I'd prefer to obscure it even further
: Thinking some more about it, though, "art" and "pop" and "dance" and
: "folk" are some general descriptors of music which I think do flow with
: time instead of across it.
And that is an excellent start towards doing so! Seriously, jazz doesn't
just occupy a contradictory position with respect to high vs. low, it
exposes contradictions embedded in the disticntion itself. Bebop was (in
part) an avant-garde movement (in the art-historical sense of ag, rather
than the jazz-stylistic sense) because it took a defiant attitude toward
the expectations of part of its audience, with political implications...
kind of like surrealism or futurism. And this is sort of a high-art
thing. But these avant-garde moves by the bebop creators were also tied
up -- and I know plenty of people won't agree with this -- with the
re-articulation of jazz's black counter-cultural messages, which involve
pop moves like quoting and hammy irony. Well, even if you don't agree
with th black counter-modernity bit, you've still got the pop flavored
moves in bop. Jazz's wrestling with avant-garde postures, popularity, the
theory of cultural progess, and high-art status has been a long and
intersting story.
Marc Sabatella
For some reason the responses seem to be showing up much at my
site faster that Joe's actual postings, but I gather that we are going
to attempt to conduct some of this discussion here on RMB, which I think
makes sense.
First, I should observe that in addition to the general problems that
naming styles can lead to, an additional problem with structures like
your map is that they tend to be so black-and-white. X comes directly
from Y and has no influence from Z. I tend to think of each and every
musician as being the product of some amount of every musician he has
ever heard, some to a greater degree than others. But as soon as you
cut someone off from an influence that wasn't strong enough to make your
chart, you've doomed their "followers" to be cut off as well. There are
similar problems that can crop up.
However, I do think that a semi-standard taxonomy of styles would be a
useful thing to have, and being able to show their approximate lineages
would help explain to a novice what we were talking about. Having
descriptions for each of the styles would, I think, be the first step.
On the other hand, thinking in terms of the map might well help us in
drawing boundaries between categories - to make it clearer if we need,
for example, separate categories for "Postmodernism I" and
"Postmodernism II".
So within the next few days, I will post some of the text I have been
working on to describe the various modern styles.
--
Marc Sabatella
--
ma...@outsideshore.com
http://www.fortnet.org/~marc
Joe Germuska
In article <5chc2n$729$1...@cactus.verinet.com>, ma...@outsideshore.com (Marc
Sabatella) wrote:
>an additional problem with structures like
>your map is that they tend to be so black-and-white. X comes directly
>from Y and has no influence from Z.
My real goal is to clarify a taxonomy. A map is just one convenient way
to present it. I certainly don't believe that influences are
black-and-white, and so I hope we can carry on the discussion while
respecting all artists rights to confound attempts at cubbyholing. As
I've said before, I'm all for exceptions, but I don't think exceptions
need to completely obstruct this project.
This weekend I picked up a CD of sides featuring klezmer clarinetist Dave
Tarras. Several of the groups he played in had names alluding to "swing"
and "jazz", but it's questionable how much the music belongs in "jazz".
Perhaps Klezmer will come up as an aside or a footnote in the descriptions
of "swing" or discussions of the relationships between "world music" and
"jazz"...
now's not the time for me, though...
joe
JFR
Can someone clue me into the origin and development of the word:
"jazz"? I suspect that the word "jass" was a precursor, but I know
nothing about what that meant and where it went from there and why.....
Jeff Volkman
On Fri, 24 Jan 1997, Joe Germuska wrote:
> <Pine.PTX.3.95c.97012...@carson.u.washington.edu>, Jeff
> Volkman <ve...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> > perhaps you're
> > trying to represent too much information with that one chart.
>
> Another case I'm willing to consider, but I need more help visualizing
> such a chart. Perhaps if we talk some more about what categories we have
> for jazz in our own heads, the non-time-based factors will become more
> clear.
A time-based chart could show the timeline of all the musical styles you
decide are relevant. Then, a chart representing how the styles *may* have
interacted and influenced one another (if that's what you want to show)
needn't be time-based, if you have the timeline chart to refer to. But,
if you've got a clear concept involving the one chart, disregard my
suggestion. :)
> Maybe we can start by analyzing some more the basic premise that jazz
> emerged from the interactions of african and european music, leading to
> Ragtime, widely considered the first "African-American music."
Besides music education of the day, which I know nothing about, I think
the main influences on early 20th c. American musicians, regardless of
ethnicity or culture, would have been the "functional" music they had to
play to make money and/or fulfill the societal role of musician. By this,
I mean the equivalent of the wedding gig, or bar-mitsvah that musicians
generally have to play to pay the bills. These are basically folk musics.
Most folk musics have functional origins, and a musician from an Italian
(or Black, Irish, Jewish, etc.) neighborhood would have known the standard
repertoire needed to gig and function within their community (and it's
worth mentioning that at that time there was a lot of immigration,
feeding various ethnic communities and keeping them culturally vibrant).
All of these musicians would have tended to bring the influences of the
musics they were most familiar with, to whatever else they played. In a
big community like a New Orleans or New York, musicians from various
neighborhoods (and ethnicities) would have certainly crossed boundaries
and played gigs in areas other than their own, leading to variations and
mutations of old styles, as well as new styles. This is, IMHO, one major
theme common to the origins of most, if not all, of the musics of the
Americas (and probably most non-American musics as well), including jazz;
just a literal blending of cultures and musical styles on the bandstand.
> It seems
> widely believed that ragtime generally fed directly into jazz. I'm not
> sure how accurate that is. I think it's John Storm Roberts who observes
> that Ragtime was art music, while jazz didn't become art music until maybe
> the bebop era. (Do we need to clarify the concept of "art music"?
> Probably, but I'm not sure I'm up to it right now -- anyone else?)
I suppose it's music that has no function other than being "art."
Most folk musics, (European and especially African) serve(d) specific
functions and are (were) not "art for art's sake."
BTW, I was trying to think of any examples of "functional" music in
contemporary America that don't serve a media function, or as part of a
sales-pitch. I couldn't think of many. Maybe "Ald Lang Syne" (sp?).
-Jeff
sabutin
jre...@ix.netcom.com(JFR) wrote:
======================================
Well, I wasn't there, y'understand, and my Daddy taught me to never
totally believe anything I didn't see and hear myself, and THEN be
careful anyways, but I've read (and been told by people
who were around at the time) that "jass" was a term for fucking...or
for various activities surrounding that act, and as this music was
often played in places where that was often the end result of a long
night's partying, and further was often considered a valuable adjunct
to said scene...that's the name it developed.
I have an aversion to that word, but not because of its roots; in
fact, that part of it doesn't bother me too much...ALL music worth its
due should have a direct sensual action on its listeners, and why not
the most direct of all?...I just don't like it because it's too damned
broad. Kid Ory, Sidney Bechet, Bix Beiderbecke, Benny Goodman, Arsenio
Rodriguez, Bird, late 'Trane, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Cachao and
John Lurie all in the same bag? Let alone Mel Torme, Bessie Smith, and
Celia Cruz?
Sabutin
Brian Passingham
Stop me if you've heard this before ...
I have this strange feeling that the most useful classifications
are going to prove to be the names of musicians who create the music. I
mean, when you're describing a musician/composer to someone who hasn't
heard them, don't you tend to say something like "somewhere between
Mingus and Haden, but with rhythms coming more from Moholo" (I don't
know who that is, but I wouldn't mind hearing them).
OK, so you want theory.
Consider musicians as nodes in a tagged directional attributed
graph, and then atempt to tag the kinds of "influence" relations between
the "nodes" ("taught by", "inspired by", "hired by", "had an argument
with", "in reaction against", "synthesised" - oh, that one has to
attribute a set of the inputs to a musician ...). Hmmm ... and then some
of the nodes may just be pieces of music themselves - when you hear a
bit of the heart of a piece in someone's playing ("she played this
ballad that reminded me of that Barry Guy thing with the Bach quotes,
but with something of the Plugged Nickel sessions to it"), or when a
musician says, "I think I am still coming to terms with 'Confirmation'",
and refuses to say anything else.
OK, so there are two planes, at least, to the graph. We haven't
mentioned the significant differences between 1958 Miles and 1974 Miles
yet ... Or the slightly important question of groups.
If we want to do some analysis of the form of this hypothetical
graph, it might be useful; but I suspect it will just seem like this
huge set of spider's webs, with a few strange clusters (Ellington,
Parker, Morton, ... [no attempt at full list, and purged of my own
preferences]). If we're lucky, we'll find some clusters of clusters,
which might be areas we can name (hmmm ... why don't we call this bit
"re-bop"? .... and this part "Brit retro-trad"? - no, let's not bother
with that one ...).
We could be in for a long haul, here. Don't get me wrong, I like
quite a few of the terms in your classifications (except for
Postmodernism II - the infamous sequel, which, of course, always already
precedes its predecessor [sorry]) - I just think that we're entering a
zone which is very difficult to classify, and we may already have an
adequate descriptive vocabulary without recourse to additional theory.
It is difficult enough to justify some of the distinctions that used to
be made in biology (species? sub-species? race?), and there are much
more precise processes of inheritance between individuals going on
there.
BTW, I have no idea how serious I am about any of this, but I
think that it may be a useful Wicker Man for us to sacrifice to
understanding.
-- Brian Passingham
GJuke
>>>>Stop me if you've heard this before ...<<<<
Who's the guy in England who does all the Rock family trees?
Kind of reminds me of that... has he (or anyone) ever done a "Jazz family
tree"?
GJ
Benjamin Smith
On Sun, Jan 26, 1997 11:56 PM, Marc Sabatella
<mailto:ma...@outsideshore.com> wrote:
>--
>Marc Sabatella
>--
>ma...@outsideshore.com
>http://www.fortnet.org/~marc
Marc,
Wow, I just visited your page (I'm visiter 24). You're beginning to look
like Bill Evans!
A mighty pat on the back for all of the contributions you make to the music
that we love, and spreading the word.
Ben
Joe Germuska
In article <19970130051...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, gj...@aol.com
(GJuke) wrote:
>Who's the guy in England who does all the Rock family trees?
>Kind of reminds me of that... has he (or anyone) ever done a "Jazz family
>tree"?
There's a guy named Pete Frame who does family trees. It'd be interesting
to see some of his for jazz, but jazz groups generally don't have the
stability of rock groups.
He's not the guy who uses names to create the image of a tree. I am
pretty sure I've seen that kind of jazz family tree, although I can't
remember the details...
tomb...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
In article <j-germuska-24...@slugworth.acns.nwu.edu> j-ger...@nwu.edu (Joe Germuska) writes:
>
>Maybe we can start by analyzing some more the basic premise that jazz
>emerged from the interactions of african and european music, leading to
>Ragtime, widely considered the first "African-American music."
No, spirituals preceded ragtime.
>It seems
>widely believed that ragtime generally fed directly into jazz.
Sure, but so did a lot of other traditions. Marching band music
and popular song were equally important in the early New Orleans
tradition, maybe even more important.
Jason Chervokas
Marc Sabatella wrote:
> the specific page as http://www.outsideshore.com/primer/cdrom.htm
>
> Feel free to check out the sections I've posted there, and quote any of
> it you like for the purposes of this discussion.
> Marc-
Fabulous stuff. Reads a lot like the discussion we had in this forum
about a year and half ago. I thought you disagreed with me about the
Expressionims/impressionism dichotomy, however. In fact I remember
rethinking my position on that because of good questions you raised.
Take care.
Jason
Jason Chervokas
Marc Sabatella wrote:
> the specific page as http://www.outsideshore.com/primer/cdrom.htm
>
> Feel free to check out the sections I've posted there, and quote any of
> it you like for the purposes of this discussion.
>
Oh, yeah, here was the upshot of that discussion and my rethinking originally
posted way back when min like 1995 or something:
"Based on the discussions we've been having, and in an attempt to settle the
expressionism/impressionism rift while still articulating a distinction between
styles, I've reworked my original nomenclature--including a brief description of
what the myriad "free" styles share.
As ever, I'd love to hear what everyone thinks.
Grouping together the various post-bop styles of the 1960s as "free jazz" has
lead to confusion-- in retrospect we can see that there were actually several
styles that developed their own traditions. Delination of these styles has
always been artificial since most of the 1960s players freely crossed one style
with another (see Marc Sabatella's posts on using a matrix to locate performers
withing the stylistic spectrum).
Still, since it's been more than a generation since Ornette Coleman first played
the 5 Spot, I think its fair to assume that there are millions of new jazz
listeners who would love to be able to find their way into the music of the
1960s but have discovered precious few portals they find accessibile. Too often
a cat can say, well I heard Unit Structures and I hated it so I don't like free
jazz--thereby dismissing very different music--such as The Shape of Jazz to
Come--without ever giving that music a listen.
There are three characteristics that the so-called "free jazz" movement shares,
I believe.
1. An attempt to break free from the 32-bar song form-- harmonically, by not
relying on a repeted cycle of changes as the exclusive basis for improvisation,
and rhythmically by not ending phrases every 2, 4 or 8 beats or turning over the
improv. every 32-bars. (There's the story, I believe in John Littweiller's book,
about Ornette Coleman chastizing Ed Blackwell for playing a press roll at the
end of what would have been the chord progression during an Ornette solo-- "Why
did you end my phrase?" Ornette asked).
2. Timbral improvisation--not just freak effects, honking and squealing, but
giving timbral manipulation the same musical weight as is traditionally given to
melodic and rhythmic manipulations...along with this goes a willingness to
explore notes outside the even-tempered scale.
3. Rhythmic elasticity--to greater or lesser degree (lesser in free bop, greater
in expressionism) rhythm players no longer support soloists or melody players
but are free to enter the improvisatorial fray as equals, not merely soldiering
on in a supporting role.
Still, within the context of those three innovations, disparate approches
evolved.
I. Free bop
to me, free bop comes in three flavors:
a. tonal free bop: taking off from Ornette Coleman's early work with the
original quartet (the West Coast sessions for Contemporary and Atlantic, plus
some of the New York sides and the later trio stuff). The structure is
traditional--head-solos-head over rushing, swinging, bebop rhythms--but the
solos range far afield blowing through bar lines and the nominal chord changes
forcing the band to follow the soloist instead of the soloist following a band
playing changes. Still, the music retains, and returns to, a single tonal
center. Classic records: Coleman's Something Else, Tommorrow is the Question
b. atonal free bop: Like tonal free bop, the music generally swings in
head-solos-head fashion, with rhythm players largely still in support, but both
themes and solos detach from their tonal starting points and are liable to go
anywhere. Cecil Taylor's early work is the prime original example I think--the
stuff on Jazz Advance, "Number One" from the Mosaic complete Candid session
might well be an early masterpiece of the genre. I think the style lives today
in some of
Joe Lovano's Universal Language band work or some of the work in that style from
his latest disk with Gunther Schuller. Also, something like "Illuso" from the
most recent Muhal Richard Abrams album probably fits the same bill.
c. free funk: I'm including this here because I think it is a later
distillation of basic free bop. Head-solo-head is retained as form. Rhythm
sections hang with a single kind of rhythm (funky usually, instead of basically
swinging), but soloists range far afield and drummers and bass players often
follow only to return to a starting point. The essence of the subgenre, as
distinct from free bop, is generally the use of a funky ostinato in place of
chord changes or the basic swing rhythm---something like Arthur Blythe's Lennox
Avenue Breakdown, and even Blythe's Metamorphosis, or The Grip, I think fits
here. As does James Blood Ulmer's Harmolodic Jazz Funk--Electric Jazz, Music
Revelation Ensemble. Prime Time, the Decoding Society, and others do something
a little different, which I have described elsewhere as musical cubism--
attacking the kernal of a song from all angles simultaneously--but given the
singular, linear rhythm, the head-solos-head, and the free soloing, I'd say the
style remains a cousin of classic free bop, as does Miles' funk circa Agharta
(not the post-comeback fusiony stuff).
II. Modal Abstractionism
This is my attempt to refine the notion of impressionism without having
to rely on second guessing the artist's intention.
MA dispenses with chords changes and replaces them with modes and scalar
improvisiation--sometime over chords but more often using the lines and scales
as floating, self- defining improvisatory universes (a la raga).
Listen to "Walkin'" from the first set of Miles Live at the Plugged
Nickel to hear how the style is distinct from earlier styles and other modal
styles. The song started as a blues (a form that is inherently modal) but in
this abstracted version the rhythmic pulse of the blues and the underlying
I-IV-V chord progression is dispensed with and the melodic line itself becomes
the unifying element of the performance.
I think the MA tag applies to all the work by the classic Miles quintet
of the 1960s as well as much of the work Coltrane did from 1959 through 1965, as
well as the work of cats like Andrew Hill, but maybe I'm wrong, somebody help me
out with this one.
I hear this style today all over the play (like in the Terrance
Blanchard Malcolm X Suite I'm listening to right now).
If impressionism in my original definition exists it exists as a subset of modal
abstractionism where there is a conscious attempt at programmatic music--i.e.,
"Flamenco Sketches," A Love Supreme, the All-Seeing Eye, or less specifically
programmatic, but still consciously evokative music like In a Silent Way.
III. Expressionism
I'll stand by my original definition: the theological, medatative jazz
people often think of when they think of the 1960s--where cats attempted to
reach some kind of spiritual trascendence through a headlong gush of
improvisational fury. Again, this stuff is often modal. Obviously middle and
late Coltrane fits in here as does early Ayler, and lots of Sun Ra. Incidently,
I'd also place a cat like Keith Jarrett in here, though clearly his sound and
formal approach is very different from Ayler's
IV. Density Accrual
I'm still not sure whether this is a style or a technique but I think it
characterizes Cecil Taylor's work from 1965 on as well as Sun Ra's Other Planes
of There, the Heliocentric Worlds albums, and tunes like "Somewhere There." In
my original post I said: there seems to be an underlying organizational
principle--take shards of melody and slowly begin piling them on top of one
another until a piece gathers momentum and begins to derive its tension and
release from the ebb and flow of the drecreasing and increasing density.
V. Restructuralism (to use Braxton/Whitehead's awful phrase that we seem to be
stuck with)
a. postmodern restructuralism: an attempt to unite the tradition with
free elements, probably beginning with Ayler's 1966 music in which he takes
recognizable morphemes of melody that sound like march themes, spirituals, or
other recognizable traditional songs and, using a sonic variation on the
traditional wind band format that helped give rise to jazz 100 years
ago, blends the free and traditional into a hybrid form that draws much of its
meaning and tension from the juxtaposition of the disparate styles. The style
has been done without irony too--in much of the recent work of Muhal Richard
Abrams for example (I'm thinking of "Family Talk," "Bloodlines," etc.,)..
b. neoclassicism: the usual suspects returning to the old verities.
VI. Sonic abstractionism
This is really a lame attempt to create a category for Roscoe Mitchell's
more expansive work--the stuff based on organization of sound itself, like
L-R-G, or something, as well as stuff like his duo album from a couple of years
ago with Muhal, or Braxton's For Alto....It really may just be an early AACM
thing...any ideas?
I'm glad to see so many people have joined this thread, I hope newcomers to
"free jazz" will ultimately find these distinctions helpful in coming to grips
with music that on first blush many find intimidating and impenitrable."
Take care.
Jason
Marc Sabatella
>Marc,
>
>Wow, I just visited your page (I'm visiter 24). You're beginning to look
>like Bill Evans!
Beginning? I've looked that way for about ten years :-)
I will be making a separate post about my new web site (hence Ben being
only visitor 24), because most of it is of more general interest, but
specifically to this thread, I have posted the relevant sections of my
still-under-development CD-ROM to my Web site. That is, the sections
dealing with characterizing various modern jazz styles. This is all
first draft quality, and you'll see lots of places where it simply says
"[EXAMPLE]" - eventually I'll have actual sound clips there. But I
figure the text I have there is food for thought for now. You can reach
the specific page as http://www.outsideshore.com/primer/cdrom.htm
Feel free to check out the sections I've posted there, and quote any of
it you like for the purposes of this discussion.
--
Marc Sabatella
--
ma...@outsideshore.com
http://www.outsideshore.com/
Matthew C Weiner
Jason Chervokas (jm...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: V. Restructuralism (to use Braxton/Whitehead's awful phrase that we seem to be
: stuck with)
In Braxton's defense, that's not how he seems to use the
word. He seems to use restructuralism to mean something that
creates a revolution; changes everything that comes after
it. Charlie Parker is an example of a restructuralist.
: VI. Sonic abstractionism
: This is really a lame attempt to create a category for Roscoe Mitchell's
: more expansive work--the stuff based on organization of sound itself, like
: L-R-G, or something, as well as stuff like his duo album from a couple of years
: ago with Muhal, or Braxton's For Alto....It really may just be an early AACM
: thing...any ideas?
I'd guess that a lot of the British free improv guys do this.
Evan Parker's "Saxophone Solos" involves a lot of exploration
of the sonorities of held tones and such, akin to some things
that you find in For Alto (though different in other ways).
And if AMM isn't based on sound itself, I don't know what is
(some might dispute "organization," or jazz; as I've said AMM
is the free improv tradition that I think is most plausibly
not jazz).
Some U.S. free improv is almost certainly postmodern
restructuralism--check Locus Solus (Zorn), which has genre
references all over the place, not harmed by Marclay's
use of phonograph records. Then Zorn's Classic Guide to
strategy may be postmodern restructuralist sonic abstraction...
since it's a lot like For Alto and Saxophone Solos fed
through Carl Stalling. (Trust me. Or not.)
I'd guess that some British free improv is probably density
accrual--Parker/Guy/Lytton's work for instance. Also the
Crispell/Guy/Hemingway trio, sometimes. But I'm not too
sure of the meaning....
Matt
Marc Sabatella
Jason Chervokas (jm...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
> Reads a lot like the discussion we had in this forum
> about a year and half ago. I thought you disagreed with me about the
> Expressionims/impressionism dichotomy, however. In fact I remember
> rethinking my position on that because of good questions you raised.
Ditto :-) I added "impressionism" to my taxonomy mostly because I thought
a separate category was warranted for the "Blue Note Avant-Garde" style
(which I think Whitehead would have lumped in with Braxton?), and when I
started thinking about what I saw as the defining characteristics of this
style, and thought about its historical derivation, "impressionism" seemed
about the best term out there, aside from it being "obvious" that it was
needed to balance "expressionism". I'm not sure my eventual characterization
of the style is quite the same as yours. I wrote this text just about a
year ago, shortly after our discussion, and I sent a copy to Kevin Whitehead
and talked to him on the phone a little. He basically liked the way I
derived this category, but didn't like the name. To him, "impressionism"
was the name for the music played by the mid-60's Miles quintet (I think
he said that usage of the term came from Francis Davis). As far as I am
concerned, though, "E.S.P." is impressionistic by either definition.
Regarding some of your other categories, like density accrual and sonic
abstraction, I have no real problems with them except that they might be
too narrow to really fit in with the scope of the other categories. So I
folded them in restructuralism. I agree this makes the latter hopelessly
vague, but I found this the most reasonable compromise. I suppose one could
argue that some of what you call "sonic abstraction" fits in better with my
"impressionism".
Oh, and in the introduction to the chapter, I credit Whitehead and RMB in
general with shaping my categorizations.
Joe - I didn't mean to criticize what you were doing. I know you don't see
the world as black-and-white. But it all honestly, I find it hard to say
that any modern music didn't inherit something from everything that came
before. I think instead we should be seeing something more like an upright
tree, with lots of tributaries feeding into each current style, rather than
what seems to be looking more like an inverted tree. But I'm not sure I
can help with specifics yet.
--
Marc Sabatella
ma...@outsideshore.com
http://www.outsideshore.com/
Jason Chervokas
Marc Sabatella wrote:
> Ditto :-) I added "impressionism" to my taxonomy mostly because I thought
> a separate category was warranted for the "Blue Note Avant-Garde" style
> (which I think Whitehead would have lumped in with Braxton?),...
You know, Marc, thinking about it, I think there may well be a continuum between
the "Blue Note Avant-Garde" style and E.S.P.--that's why I concocted "modal
expressionism" as a category (albeit a poorly named one). There's something here
that I don't think any of us have quite nailed down yet. . . but certainly,
given the musicians involved, there's something linking ESP to Maiden Voyage to
All Seeing Eye that somehow involves the various characteristics of
impressionism by all of our standards, although there's obvious differences
between, say All Seeing Eye and the other two records too. I'd lump in the rest
of the Blue Note Avant-Garde in the style--Andrew Hill and Joe Henderson's 60s
records. And while the "modal" tag might be two narrow, most of the music in the
style is organized around modal solos, or at least linear solos where melodic
material or a mode, scale, or motif is the organizing thread, not a cycle of
changes or similar harmonic skeleton. The style certainly shares that with "A
Love Supreme" or "Somalia" but those also share a spiritual programmatic
sensibility that I think might make them different from the absolute music of
ESP. Then again there's All Seeing Eye which is sort of programmatic. You were
right all along, theres a fine line between impressionism and expressionism.
> Regarding some of your other categories, like density accrual and sonic
> abstraction, I have no real problems with them except that they might be
> too narrow to really fit in with the scope of the other categories.
Yeah, I'm grasping at something here, naming organizing and improvising
techniques and approaches that probably aren't styles or genres. But there's
something distinct about the music that grew out of Cecil Taylor's mid 1960s
stuff, something that's crystalized into a tradition of its own with the 1990s
music of David Ware and William Parker springing to mind, and it's something
which blends the "density accrual" technique with the whole 1960s notion of
working over a tiny musical morpheme, the kernal of a song.
And your right sonic abstractionism can fold into impressionism. But there's
something about the music of Roscoe Mitchell, the AEC, and say, Evan Parker that
I think form the basis of a style--a conception where sound itself as an
abstract element is the raw material of improvisation not sound as it describes
specific pitches, rhythms and relationships out of a tradition framework.
Taxonomy for sure.
Take care.
Jason