Free jazz Charlatans?

[shawn·m]

It’s not uncommon to run across some reference to no-playing mofos putting one over on the public during the free jazz movement of the ’60s. Apparently musicians could spot a poser, but the public had difficulty figuring out who had the stuff, from those who hadn’t mastered their instrument, let alone music’s history. Then there’s the story of Mingus beginning a show from behind a curtain, playing something resembling free jazz. The curtain lifted and revealed children hammering the instruments. Now, that’s a statement.

Coltrane was relatively successful in his later period. Some didn’t care much for what he did and wondered why he was doing it, but nobody questioned his credentials. Was Trane not regarded by many as the father of free jazz? Well, at the very least, as its patron saint. I’ve often wondered if it was because of Trane’s background, known to the public, that his freer excursions were seriously listened to. Was Trane was the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval?

Who were the charlatans? It’s not unusual to run across a generic charge, but rarely are names named. Off hand, I can think of only Charles Lloyd as being labeled a Coltrane imitator at best, and poser at worst —at one time. If that was the case, it seems he has more than redeemed himself since.

Well, it’s time to get another root canal…

[tomjr]

Does Stanley Crouch fit the bill?

Tom

[shawn·m]

Ha! Considering how he feels about the avant garde –and that he stopped playing, I think he washis own worst critic.

[JSngry]

Tricky question, this one. The music of the "October Revolution" school of the avant-garde wasn't necessarily "about" making music by and with an all-encompassing use of conventional techniques. It was more about energy and spirit, and those ends needn't require conventional technique. As a long-term philosophy, it's doomed, but again, that music wasn't about long-term, it was about NOW. If you can get into listening to it with that in mind, it's (mostly) all good, even now. Anybody who was around for the first wave of Punk should know what I mean.

Now, cats like Cecil, Ornette, Ayler, those guys OBVIOUSLY had/have command of their instruments. People who think that Cecil "just bangs" should listen closer at how PRECISE those "bangings" are, and how much EXACT repetition is involved, FLAWLESS repetition, not even a minute flub. You've got to know your instrument DAMN well to pull that off.

The Second Wave, however, had it's fair share of players who had enough chops to do what they wanted to do but were not total virtuosos. As far as I'm concerned, that's good enough. Especially if the player is willing to suffer the consequence of hitting a wall in terms of his/her expression being limited by their technique. Arthur Doyle comes to mind. He SEEMS to be EXTREMELY limited as a saxophonist, and I myself have a low tolerance for his work, but dammit, he MEANS it, so he gets respect from me for THAT part of it.

Again, it's a tricky, almost deceptive (unintentionally, I'm sure) question. An instrument is only a tool. ONLY a tool. It exists to serve the purpose of the player, and that purpose may or may not involve playing "traditional" music by "traditional" means, and that's a honorable tradition in Jazz and other musics as well. I know classical violinists who really have to work, work HARD, at double stops, but Country Fiddlers do it almost without thinking. And take Pee Wee Russell - was he a "traditional" virtuoso? No, he took an instrument and basically found a new way to play it. Many of the 60s A.G. were functioning in that same spirit, even if they were not functioning in the same reealm of harmony and structure.

As long as you can make the instrument say what YOU want it to say, and as long as you're willing to accept responsibility for confused or hostile public response to it, there IS no such thing as "bad technique". THAT exists only when intent and execution are at odds with each other.

[John L]

Yes.

I think that a lot of the "impostor" sentiment among established jazz artists had more to do with technique than substance. After all, they had paid their dues, spending years woodshedding to master the difficult language of Bird and Diz. Now these "new thing" people think that they can just pick up an instrument and get up on the same stage.

The reaction was natural, and in some cases it was undoubtedly justified. But it could also be argued that, by the late 1950s, too much emphasis was being placed on mastery of accumulated jazz technique relative to substance. Somebody who isn't a virtuoso may still be able to pick up an instrument and express some interesting musical ideas. Conversely, a virtuoso who plays Bird solos note-for-note may have a lot of entertainment value, but is making a questionable contribution as an artist.

If we go by the opinions of established musicians of the time, everyone from Ornette Coleman to Albert Ayler to Cecil Taylor to Sun Ra was repeatedly called a "Charlatan." But that label has little to do with the value of their art.

Speaking of Sun Ra, by all reports, he ran an extremely interesting ship. On the one hand, he placed a lot of emphasis on hard work and discipline, continual rehearsals, little life outside of the band. On the other hand, he could pick up somebody off the street who is not yet a musican and feature him in the band in a few days. A lack of virtuosity was not the overriding concern.

[Chuck Nessa]

Free 'em?! Hell, I didn't even know they'd been arrested.

[shawn·m]

I can understand why posting a response could be like dancing the Charleston amid a bouncing-Betty minefield. And, to be honest, I’m glad I haven’t lost a leg just for asking. But I ask earnestly, since I was just a mere babe when the controversy surrounding Ornette and Trane’s Vanguard recordings first hit. As is true for anyone who didn’t live through (or in this case, comprehend) a historic era, incomplete secondhand info is all that I have to work with.

No, no deception is involved. I’m convinced that the reason Coltrane had support, though not universal, was due to his already having established himself as someone working within the tradition, but without being a slave to it. And without knowing the names of those charged with incompetence at the time, I’m also convinced the lack of credentials similar to Trane’s would cause an ugly uphill battle for anyone pursuing the free movement of the ’60s.

I agree with you both, Sngry and John. Whether or not somebody is judged a poser will depend on the criteria applied. I must admit, critical opinion does color my own. Sometimes this goes to the long-term good. I’m not a fan of Cecil’s work, for example, but if it weren’t for Cecil’s ardent defenders, I doubt that I’d recognize this as exposing my own limitations, rather than Cecil’s. On the other hand, sometimes musician statements, like Sam Rivers’ remarking that free jazz is more fun to play than to listen to, also confuse the issue.

Complicating the issue further, at least on the surface, are players who earned recognition before the ’60s, embraced free movement and then broke away again. Sonny Rollins, Jackie Mclean and Joe Henderson immediately come to mind. I used to think these guys tested the waters, didn’t care for the temperature, and abandoned the movement. But I now think it’s far more likely they explored new areas and incorporated what they discovered into already established personal styles.

Still, I suppose anyone who didn’t overcome the brand of “charlatan” may be lost to a nameless footnote in jazz history.

[JSngry]

I don't know that I've ever seen any specific names mentioned in the "charlatan" charges, other than the occasional dis at Cecil, Ornette, AEC, etc. It's always been a more generalized thing. BUT - the loudest cries came, from what I can gather, in the fallout from the whole "October Revolution" movement. And, like John said, from the perspective of those who criticized, it WAS legitimate criticism often enough. I mean, Giuseppi Logan was NOT a badass motherfucker of a saxophonist from a traditional standpoint - his technical fluency seems to have been very limited, at least on the recorded evidence I've heard. But he had a voice, and he expressed that voice VERY distinctively. And for the time he did it, that was enough. In my opinion, if it was enough then, odds are it should be enough for today. "Not aging well" is really more about the judger defining his/her personal evolution than it is any intrinsic worth on the part of what's being judged, I think. Something we all need to do, sure, but hardly an absolute standard.

In terms of established artists checking out and commenting on the free scene, it's also worth noting that "free jazz" is by no means whatsoever a monolithic or monochromatic music. The range of the music is just as vast, maybe even moreso, than any genre. I'd not expect any established musician who was soloistic in their concept to have much, if any, intrest in collective "energy" blowouts or pastoral explorations of the implications of space and silence. But I can see them checking out some of the devices used, as well as checking out the types of free jazz that focus more on looser forms and more open-ended harmonic concepts. You stop growing, and you die. Sometimes that growth is stimulated from within, sometimes from without.

Besides - I HATE playing Free Jazz. Show me some money dammit! :rsmile:

[John Tapscott]

I am not a big fan of free jazz and seldom listen to anything that would fall into that camp, but I just want to say that this is a very interesting, insightful and informative discussion.

[minew]

I believe that, in many ways, it's harder musically to create great music without formal or traditional structures which can be both limiting and a crutch. I see in players like Evan Parker, Peter Brotzmann, and Hamid Drake (and Coltrane, of course) not only great technical accomplishment, but also a much fuller exploration of the possibilities of the instrument than in more traditional forms. The idea that free jazz players get up there and just blow overlooks the dedication to developing the music that one can see so clearly in a figure like Braxton, or all of the AACM for that matter. While this music may have some posers, so does the straight-ahead genre. Some people, like myself, just aren't cut out to play instruments.

There is a notion in avant-garde music sometimes that amateur approaches to music and instuments can open up new sonic possibilities that might have been stunted by musical training or whatever I'm sure this fuels the idea of free jazzers as "kids banging on instruments." While there may be something to be said for this approach, I can generally do without Ornette's trumpet playing for example.

[shawn·m]

Sngry, I wasn’t familiar with Dixon’s October Revolution concerts, so I did a little surfing. The results were interesting. Scott Yanow and the Encyclopedia of Modern Music agree on Logan’s credentials, which look good on paper, but they are 180° apart in assessing his abilities. Free (pun intended) association time: Logan is listed as having played in bands with Bostic and Pullen. Never made the connection before, but Pullen’s style strikes me as an avant-garde extension of Art Tatum. Pullen style doesn’t rely as heavily on… well that’s another topic. Random association does that.

I’m actually surprised there isn’t a long list of musicians that were specifically tagged as free jazz quacksters. Yes, Ornette, Cecil and others were attacked, but directly. The vague accusations I’m referring to were typically aimed at nameless others in defense of Ornette and Cecil. A quote from a book or even one of today’s magazines might read, “Ornette’s new music made it easy for the charlatans to follow,” or “The public had trouble discerning between Cecil’s internal logic, and the charlatans who never mastered their instruments.” Can I point to a specific in-print example? No. But the line, or something quite like it, seems nearly ubiquitous. Apparently, when this remark appears, it’s in reference to Giuseppi Logan! More likely, it’s an easy line to write.

“‘Not aging well’ is really more about the judger defining his/her personal evolution than it is any intrinsic worth on the part of what's being judged, I think.”

Mosaic’s Woody Shaw still gives me the willies!

One of the problems I have in trying to discuss “free” jazz is its definition. I took to Miles Plugged Nickel stuff and Andrew Hill’s Blue Note work very quickly. Late Coltrane is something I just started getting a handle on a couple years ago (Ornette isn’t nearly so opaque after listening to Trane), and what little I’ve heard of Cecil is still far beyond my reach. All, I think, fall under the heading of free jazz, but each is very different from the other. Words fail, especially in a non-musician’s case. But that shouldn’t keep me from trying.

minew, the same conflicting ideas float about in the fine arts world, too. Go to school and have your natural ability and individuality squashed/Go to school and learn how to make the most of your ability and individuality. This seems as good a time as any to paraphrase Forrest Gump; “I don’t know, but I, I think maybe it's both.” Funny thing is, I do have conflicting feelings about Ornette’s trumpet playing. On the one hand, he may simply need the trumpet to achieve an effect or sound he simply can’t get at on his alto. On the other, why on earth would anybody want to dilute their work with gimmickry?

Also, I think David S. Ware’s name may belong on that list of technically proficient rule-breakers.

[couw]

I'd like to pick up on this from a more general point of view. The free jazz movement may seemingly have done what Picasso did to painting and what Hemmingway did to writing: art was democratised. Suddenly everybody seemed to be able to express one-self in form of painting, writing, or musically. Of course Hemmingway took this much further himself than Picasso did, typing (not writing) away in a semi-drunken state and not looking back much to improve his texts. Listening to free-jazz one may certainly gain the impression that it's "just kids hammering away at their instruments" and that therefore everybody can do it.

The philosopher Karl Popper made some very interesting remarks on written art, extending them to art in general. According to Popper a book is not just a collection of subjective thoughts of the author. A good writer re-works his texts by re-reading, adding and deleting phrases, thus improving the result. The author not only writes his text, he learns from it as well. This feedback between the author's subjective thoughts and the text he has written means that there must be something more in the written text than merely the author's subjective thoughts. There must be some objective truth hidden there. (I really love this thought, it's very positive...)

Then he goes on and writes (rough translation by yours truly) "that the superficial and misleading theory that a spoken or written sentence is merely the expression of a subjective thought and nothing more has had a disastrous influence. This misleading theory has lead to expressionism. To this day almost everybody takes it for granted that a work of art is the expression of the artist's personality. Almost every artist believes that and this has destroyed art.

"In truth the great artist is someone who learns, someone who keeps his mind open, not only to learn from works of others but also from his own work; particularly to learn from mistakes he made, like all others make them, and also to learn from the piece he is currently working on. This is also very much true for book authors as it is for musicians. This way he grows above himself. Too few people know that Haydn when he heard the premier performance of one of his works at the University of Vienna started crying and said: 'I did not write this.'"

Following this train of thought it is not sufficient to "really mean it" or to be convinced of/by yourself. You have to be open to development, open to criticism. Now I am a scientist and in (my) science Popper's ideas and standards certainly apply. As someone enjoying the arts 'passively' and not actively participating in them, I tend to agree with him on the art front as well.

[JSngry]

Following this train of thought it is not sufficient to "really mean it" or to be convinced of/by yourself. You have to be open to development, open to criticism.

I pretty much agree. The raw expression of emotion does have it's place, and it can be very satisfying for musician and listener alike as a "vent", a "ain't no other way to get this out now except to do this". But after you've successfully vented and everybody feels better, where do you go from there? What do you do for an encore? And who's going to want to hear it?

The rawness of some of the 60s A.G. was necessary, I think, given the times, and given the failure of a lot of "straight ahead" jazz to accomodate both the tension of the time and the growing awareness that linear time and forms were not the be-all and end-all of reality as humans could experience it. The urgency of the times in both these regards led to the hunger for the "now", not the "take our time, get it fully together and THEN do it". It's 1965, Trane, Cecil, and Ayler are splitting the atom, the whole world's on fire, and you're going to shed really heavily for 5 years just so you can have "chops"? Not an option then - it had to be NOW.

But now passes, like it inevitably does, and what then? Those who relied entirely on energy and passion to carry the day found themselves with extremely limited options, both musically and careerwise. No doubt a lot of bitterness ensued, but such is life. The new vocabulary survied, often brilliantly so, but those who utilized it the most successfully, in my opinion, were those who took it at more than face value and created a context for it other than merely a ventfest. In this regard, the innovations of the AACM were enormously valuable. They realized that there was a place for the vent, but that the vent was not the be-all and end-all of music in general, and this music in particular. So they recontextualized it, set about creating, as you say, more "objective" contexts for the vocabulary, and in the process incorporated pretty much the entire spectrum of the music. Even created a few of their own.

Same thing about Cecil. Cecil has NEVER been about random venting. His music has always had structure. Not always the traditional linear forms, but form nevertheless, usually in the form of "cells" that are dwelt upon, examined, before moving on to the next one, the end result being a "journey" of sorts. If venting goes on within the developement of each cell, then good. But the vent is NOT all that is going on - it's part of a larger design, a consciously designed form.

I also think that it ws the unrestrained, often collective vent that Sam Rivers was referring to. Anybody who spent the better part of a decade, like Sam did in the 70s, playing TOTALLY improvised sets that nevertheless had form and contour when it was all said and done, is aware that "freedom" means MORE responsibility, not less, and that a big part of that responsibility is to create a coherent larger design. Ayler's best work had this design, as did/does pretty much ALL of the "free" music that bears repeated listening and examination.

Don't get me wrong - I love the vent, love to do it, and occsionally enjoy participating in it as a listener. It's got value, but that value is nearly always entirely of the moment, not for all time. If the expression is ENTIRELY of the moment, so will be the appreciation. To expect more is to expect the unnatural. Of course, there's always a market for the unnatural...

[shawn·m]

Forgive the silence, I’ve just entered “sponge mode.”

[minew]

JSngry, I like the characterization of the process as a journey from "cell" to "cell" with venting within and in-between. Venting or expressionism is certainly a big part of this music but perhaps it's the collaborative nature of the expressionism that moves a piece from cell to cell. In other words, musicians responding to expressions of colleagues creates "forward progress" in a piece. As a non-musician, trying to piece this together is something I enjoy about this music, especially when I "see" it. How is piece being formed? How much is composition, how much is venting, where and how do they meet? It's interesting that it always varies. Have recently seen the Vandermark 5, Mephista, and Anderson/Jordan/Drake/Parker Quartet. V5 used lots of composition with venting within (freebopish or restructuralist?), the Quartet improvised 2 60-minute pieces (expressionists), and I'm still trying to figure out what happened at Mephista (experimentalism?). Musicianship was never a question in any case.