Improvising freely

[AllenLowe]

I am not posting this topic as a hit-and-run… I am currently out of the country, returning Thursday and face a series of surgeries for which the prognosis is now clouded. I mentioned this not for pity, but to explain why my responses here may be a little delayed from time to time.

Here’s what I’m trying to say: I get discouraged by the Jazz world, and it’s frequent overpraising of musicians who improvise in open settings. Case in point: I got the best reviews of my life  for my playing last year in a free Quartet with Matt Shipp, Kevin Ray and Gerald Cleaver. It’s always nice to have good reviews, but I have recorded better music at least 10 times in my life without much critical response. The truth is, and few musicians will admit this, that improvising without boundaries or restrictions It’s easy. I repeat, it’s easy. I’ve been doing it well since I was 15 years old and first really understood what Ornette was up to. I certainly didn’t do it as well as him, I still don’t, but neither do thousands of other wannabes. I have a very specific philosophy of free improvisation, I think I can do it more interestingly than most horn players, but it does not compare philosophically or conceptually to the thousands of hours I’ve spent in the last 40 years composing and designing maps for improvisation, many of which combine free playing with chordal playing. One was off the cuff, fun to do but basically here and gone; the other was planned and artistically determined, a matter of artistic conscience and design. 

I know there are many really really good musicians who improvise freely and make a career at it. And that historically, from Albert Ayler to Eric Dolphy to Sonny Simmons to Prince Lasha, there has been monumental work done in this grey area of form and content. But the truth is that the concept has run its course, lost its original energy and intellectual vitality. It has become like a cult of musical personality. It is destructive to jazz and destructive to critical standards. That’s just the way I feel, and I repeat again, I’m damn good at free improvisation, and probably better than most. But at this stage of my life it just doesn’t mean that much to me anymore.

I say this as one who had shared stages and recording studios with Julius Hemphill, David Murray, Hamiet Bluiett, Kalaparusha and Roswell Rudd, Matt Shipp and Don Byron. With the exception of Murray and Byron, I love all those guys and feel pride in the work I’ve done with them. And two of them, Julius and Roswell, were monumental musical personalities and god-like in their spirituality and invention.  But they are gone, and I feel like I’m living in some kind of a musical shadow world, artistically disembodied, looking at myself from some clouded distance.

I post this here and not on Facebook because it feels like there’s a little more privacy in the shade of these forums. A lot of things are weighing heavily on me right now, and I’m not really sure how long I can continue the pace I have set for myself. I am tired and discouraged, my chops are weak, my jaw is shredded from radiation, and there are days I feel like I’m getting nowhere fast. I’ve just practically killed myself recording what I hope is not some kind of last testament, 6 discs of personal revelations released from a private hell. Still the music means so much to me, and may be the very last thing between my selves and personal surrender.

Edited July 19, 2022 by AllenLowe

[John L]

I am sorry about your continuing health issues, Allen.  I wish you all the best. 

Your post raises a lot of very interesting issues.  I think that free jazz has always posed a challenge to the critical establishment due to a scarcity of clear objective metrics to judge its quality.  After all, who are they to tell you, Matt Shipp, and Gerald Cleaver that the music is "too free?"   

[JSngry]

I find that "free" is a better adjective than it is noun.

Take care Allen, stay strong, stay sane. Easier said than done, I know.

[Rooster_Ties]

Goodness, Allen, my heart goes out to you — and I wish you all the strength in the world.

As to your point about free improv, I get what you’re saying — but as just a listener myself, I’ve found that it’s still relatively rare to find jazz and new-music musicians who can improvise freely in a collective context… who can effectively (both) generate a stream of imaginative ideas AND effectively listen and react to what their fellow musicians are doing as they attempt to do the same.

Maybe half(?) of brilliant playing is deep listening (in the moment) by the player — and responding to what is heard.

That’s not only true in free-contexts, but really all of jazz — but (I’d argue) doubly true in free contexts.

I’m reminded of a Wallace Roney gig I went to in Kansas City ~15 years ago — that was filled with spirited playing by most everyone on the bandstand (and I can’t remember who most of the players were)… but it was clear to me that as effortlessly(?) as the ideas flowed from everyone on that stage, really only ONE musician up there was actually listening to what everyone else was doing, and trying to respond to what he was hearing — and have what he heard inform everything he played (probably mostly rhythmically, as much as anything)…

…and that was the piano-player (who might have been doubling on Rhodes) — Gary Versace — who I later found only on the break between a couple of their sets, was a ‘sub’ in Roney’s band for that gig. So, naturally, he was listening like crazy just to keep his head above water.

I complimented his playing, and told him how much I really appreciated how much he was listening, and I tried to diplomatically say how (clearly) that was elevating his playing that night, in a way that I wasn’t hearing from anyone else on that stage. Roney and most of the others were ripping off lines like crazy, but it just didn’t seem like they were working as a ‘group’ — except for Gary.

Gary thanked me, and that’s when he revealed he was a sub. And I told him, again, how wonderfully his playing was specifically being more integrated into the rest of the context (to the extent he could, at least).

Allen, don’t sell yourself short because playing free comes easily to you. You’re probably employing skills you’re not as conscious of — along with similar skills (listening, and responding) by your co-conspirators on stage. It’s not just what you play, but when and how you play it, and what you DON’T play that matters (and I’m not just talking about leaving space).

Anyway, I’m not sure my observations here are perfectly relevant to your original post, but I hope they mean something, and are at least somewhat related.

And, as always, hang in there Allen.

Edited July 20, 2022 by Rooster_Ties

[mjzee]

Allen, I hope all goes well with you health-wise (and music-wise).  The music is obviously keeping you going.

[JSngry]

I like playing free with an underlying cell. A rhythmic idea, a melodic cell/motif, a schematic of who plays where, stuff like that. "Song" playing is not the only way to have some underlying organization, Far from it, actually.

Of course, most players (imo) know what they know and only play by looking for a place where it fits. The better (imo, again) way is to use an compositional idea to see how you can make what you know more/different than what you already know. If you get the same results either way, that's on you, not the concept.

[HutchFan]

Best wishes and positive vibes flowing your way, Allen.

 

[Rabshakeh]

It feels like more ‘forward thinking’ jazz and improvisation has entered a strange space, where critical praise is linked more to the critics’ trying to keep up with the in crowd than with views on the music. Not that critics ever didn’t do this, but I don’t recall criticism and reviews all seeming quite so rote as it does at present. 

The truth is that I really enjoyed your playing on that East Axis record. I thought that the freshness of your ideas on the album stood out in a scene that has become increasingly samey.

Really awful to read this. And sending you best wishes.

[JSngry]

Agendas abound. Everywhere.

That's what happens when organic communities disappear and synthetic ones tale their place.

[danasgoodstuff]

I've played in 'free' situations, and it's certainly no guarantee that something interesting is going to happen.  It's not cutting edge anymore.  And maybe nothing is and that's ok.  There are lots of other options to explore, many of which are more novel at this point.  But to me it remains an option that's there if you want it.  As both a player and a listener I'm mostly interested in other things at the moment, FWIW.

[Dub Modal]

Joining the chorus of well wishes. I hope the procedures go well and you're able to recover fully. 

[AllenLowe]

17 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

It feels like more ‘forward thinking’ jazz and improvisation has entered a strange space, where critical praise is linked more to the critics’ trying to keep up with the in crowd than with views on the music. Not that critics ever didn’t do this, but I don’t recall criticism and reviews all seeming quite so rote as it does at present. 

The truth is that I really enjoyed your playing on that East Axis record. I thought that the freshness of your ideas on the album stood out in a scene that has become increasingly samey.

Really awful to read this. And sending you best wishes.

Thank you, and I do have a tendency to distrust my work when it comes a little too easily. And by the way thanks everyone for the good wishes. Things are not quite so desperate as they seemed on the day I posted that, though  there is still a great deal of ambiguity to my health. I see my surgeon on Friday. He’s a genius, and the only guy who could figure out what the hell to do with me (I essentially suffered from radiation burn, which left me vulnerable to brain infection. I’m safe for the time being, but there are still some nasty possibilities; so the cancer didn’t get me but the side effects of treatment might).

Edited July 20, 2022 by AllenLowe

[Big Beat Steve]

Keeping my fingers crossed that things will improve for you and you will be on the up very soon and over this ordeal of treatment (half-witnessed this kind of treatment three times in my family through the decades - not nice ...).
All the best and hang in there - beyond from your playing, your writing ON music is still being needed a lot as well! (I am writing this as I am continuing - part-time - with vol. 2 of your Turn Me Loose White Man)!

[Rabshakeh]

2 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

beyond from your playing, your writing ON music is still being needed a lot as well! (I am writing this as I am continuing - part-time - with vol. 2 of your Turn Me Loose White Man)!

Ditto. Just finished God Didn't Like It, the second of your books that I have read this year. Hard to think of anyone else who writes like this.

[Steve Reynolds]

All my best wishes and fervent hope that you continue to summon the strength to move forward. I believe in the against all odds way of thinking & living.

I find that within today’s “out” jazz that besides some interesting combinations of composition & improv, the most striking recordings and live shows are mostly without sheet music. One of the rare examples of the combination in a live setting was Taylor Ho Bynum 9-Tette before the pandemic 2 sets at Jazz Gallery. Astounding. They played the same compositions in each set only in varied order with different segues. The strength of the music was in the margins improvised and invented.
 

In my listening experience over the past 15 years I’ve found the music without charts for the vast majority of the time to be the most explosive and most original. I find that the FIRE is still there and actually if more places were open and more improvising groups/ensembles were playing I’d say I’ve never been more excited about the actual music I love.