"

The 60s: MODAL JAZZ & FREE JAZZ

INTRODUCTION

At the end of the fifties and in the sixties we find two developments in jazz: modal
jazz and free jazz. Both styles are the result of the search of a freer concept of playing
and the result of attempts to break with the chord progression. Although both
directions are related and some jazz musicians evolve from modal into free jazz, as
we shall see with John Coltrane, both directions came from a different background.
Modal jazz began in New York City with Miles Davis as a pioneer. His album
Kind Of Blue is generally considered the first modal album. The genre actually
occurred first in the hard bop and can be seen as a logical consequence of the hard
bop movement. The development in hard bop to more simpler chord progressions and
the use of plagal cadenses indeed led to improvising on one or a just few chords. The
logical evolution was to replace the chords by a multimodal center. The first
generation of modal jazz musicians came out of the hard bop and can be heard ont the
album Kind of Blue: Miles Davis, Canonball Adderly, John Coltrane and Paul
Chambers.
Free jazz developed at the West Coast. The first free-musicians came from
California: Ornette Coleman, Donald Cherry, Charles Lloyd, Eric Dolphy, Bobby
Hutcherson, or were working in California: Paul Bley, Jimmy Giuffre and Shelly
Manne for example. The harmonic experiments of the cool jazz and the third stream
and the associated interest in contemporary music and avant-garde music proved a
fertile ground for the radical new ideas of free jazz. Within the third-stream
movement free jazz was first accepted. In cool jazz it is Lennie Tristano who is trying
to brake trough the boundaries with harmonically free music in his recordings
Intuition and Digression from 1949. In terms of style and interpretation free jazz
evolved away from the cool style into a more hot concept of playing.
An important figure in the evolution of both modal jazz and free jazz was the
drummer, composer and #$%&' ()*+,&(&'$% George Russell (b. 1923) with his
publication The Lydian Chromatic Concept Of Tonal Organization in 1953. In this
book he develops his theory about the Lydian Concept during a period of illness in
1946 and 1947. It is a system for improvisation and composition in which the Lydian
mode and its variants are the central mode. The tonal system is hereby replaced by a
central note and a parent scale. He published his discoveries in several books between
1953 and 1959. Together with Gil Evans he became one of the important postwar jazz
composers en he wrote compositions for Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Konitz and Buddy
DeFranco. Russell became a piano player and released albums under his own name
with his compositions and arrangements. He influences with his theories many
musicians such as Miles Davis, Bill Evans and Ornette Coleman and is therefore een
important elemen in the style innovations of the '60s.






-
MODAL JAZZ

1. Introduction
At the end of the 50s and the 60s a new style of jazz occurs where the melody and
the harmony is determined by modes rather then by tonality, functional harmony and
chord progressions. These modes can be ordinary diatonic modes, such as the dorian
mode like we can find for example in the compositions So What and Impressions or
ionic, phrygian and aeolian modes as in Flamenco Sketches, but also non-diatonic
modes such as Spanish or Indian scales. After jazz, with bebop, hard bop and cubop
already evolved into an African direction with the Afro-American influences of blues,
gospel, soul and Cuban rhythms we can find in the modal jazz harmony an evolutian
into a direction away from the European-Western tonality . There are modal ostinato
figures that sound African and in this sense the modal jazz is a continuation of the
black consciousness we found in hard bop, but the extension is wider because we
often find relationships also with Asian cultare and others. There is also a more
spiritual aspect in the music: many musicians stop their drug abuse and create a more
spiritual and meditative character in their lives and in their music, for example John
Coltrane's album A Love Supreme or the album Karma by Charles Lloyd and the
Pharoah Sanders album Karma. Modal jazz is in the evolution of the jazz history seen
as the beginning of post-bop.

2. Precursors and early examples of modal jazz
Already in the 50s we find musicians who are working with techniques that we
can consider as modal. In the work of Charles Mingus we find in the tune
Pithecantropus Erectus of the album Pithecantropus Erectus from 1956 a technique
that is called 'extended form'. These are ad libitum passages on one chord that are
part of a chord progression as a kind of modal vamp. On the 4th and 5th of December
of the year 1957 Miles Davis records the soundtrack for the film Ascenseur pour
l'Echafaud with French musicians and the drummer Kenny Clarke who at that time
lived in Paris. The atmosphere of the music is very modal, the songs are not
composed in detail but there are only a few sketches with a few chords over which is
improvised. Another early example modal in the work of Miles Davis is the tune
Milestones, a tune on the album with the same title recorded in 1958 with the Miles
Davis Sextet. It is the first known modal jazz song composed. The form is AABBA
wherein the A-part is a vamp in G dorian and in the B-part, we hear in a vamp in A-
aeolian. Red Garland plays the entire piece more or less the modal pattern on the
piano. Miles remains in his solo very faithful to the modes whereas Coltranes and
Cannonballs approach is somewhat freer. In the same year we can find on other
albums modal experiments as in the song I Loves You, Porgy from the Porgy And
Bess album recorded by Miles Davis on August 18, 1958. For this song arranger Gil
Evans wrote for Miles just a scale, no changes. In the same year we find a
composition, Peace Piece, on an album by Bill Evans: Everybody Digs Bill Evans.
This is actually a piano improvisation over a modal vamp. The piece was ment to be
an intro for Some Other Time by Leonard Bernstein. Evans wanted to recorded this
standard on this album but got carried away on the intro, so he decided to turn i tinto a
separate composition. Later in the session he recorded Some Other Time also with a
.
more or less the same, although shorter intro. On the original album this tune was not
included but it became an extra take on the CD.

3. The Different Types of Modal Compositions
Linear modal: This type of composition makes use of only one mode for the entire
composition. There are two types of linear modal compositions: those without and
those with a certain harmonic motion. The bass usually plays a vamp or pedal notes.
Examples of compositions of this type are: In a Silent Way by Joe Zawinul and
Masquelero by Wayne Shorter.
Plateau modal: Compositions of this type make use of different modes. The
harmonic rhythm is slow and ,*/$01,. Each mode is udes for a number of bar: two,
four, eight, etc. The tonal relationship between the modes is non-diatonic and
therefore iremains vague. As examples of this type we can mention: Maiden Voyage
by Herbie Hancock or So What by Miles Davis.
Vertical modal: These compositional technique uses different modes, but the
harmonic rhythm is very fast: one ore more chords in each bar or even at each beat.
The chords are heard as different colors rather than different modes. An example of
this technique is found in Nefertiti by Wayne Shorter.

4. The Album Kind of Blue, the Start of the Modal Period of Miles Davis (1926-
1991)

For the album Milestones, talto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley was added tot the
regular quintet. Although Miles wanted to continue with this sextet it became the last
collaboration of the success team that created albums like Steamin' and Relaxin' and
others. After recording the album Milestones in February and March 1958 the band
falls apart. The characters of the group are to different: John Coltrane is very serious
and become totally focused on the music almost in a religious way. Miles and
Cannonball, however, are real bon vivants. The rest of the band, Red Garland, Paul
Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, are constantly on the hunt for drugs. There have been
several changes on the piano and the drums. Red Garland is replaced by Bill Evans
and Philly Joe Jones is replaced by Jimmy Cobb. From this sextet exists only one
studio recording. There are also some live recordings from 1958. The latter are on the
albums: Jazz Track, Miles And Monk At Newport, Jazz At The Plaza and Basic Miles.
Miles and Monk at Newport is released in1964 and Jazz at The Plaza and Basic Miles
not until 1973. These days some of these recordings are brought together under the
title: '58 Miles. Bill Evans left the band after only seven months, he wanted his own
trio and so Red Garland came back for a while but was replaced by Wynton Kelly
because of his unreliability as a result of his heroin addiction. Also John Coltrane and
Cannonball Adderley actually wanted to have their own band.
In this period Miles Miles wanted to move away from the direction that started with
Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, a direction with the use of more notes and higher
notes. Miles is moving rather in the opposite way, inspired by the work of pianist
Ahmad Jamal. The new motto is: Less is more. Miles likes to play in the middle and
lower registers and also wants the music to be modal with more and more African or
Oriental influences. George Russell and Bill Evans pointed out the existence of modal
2
composers in classical music such as Maurice Ravel and Aram Katchatoerian to
Miles. Miles discovers an African instrument: the thumb piano or likemb repetitive
patterns in which one plays within a certain tonality. All this will inspire him in the
modal direction.
In 1959 two recording sessions took place for the album Kind of Blue: on 2nd of
March and on the 22nd of April at the Columbia Records 30th Street Studio in New
York City. The band consists of: Miles Davis on trumpet, Cannonball Adderley on
alto saxophone, John Coltrane on tenor sax, Paul Chambers on bass, Bill Evans on
piano, Jimmy Cobb on drums and on the first song of the first session, Freddie
Freeloader, Wynton Kelly on piano. Miles thought the piano playing of Bill Evans
merged better with the modal style he was developing, although Wynton Kelly was
the regular piano player of the band. Bill Evans was engaged in modal music as we
can hear in the song Peace Piece. For that reason Wynton Kelly played only on one
tune, the first tune of the session: Freddie Freeloader, the rest of the session Bill
Evans took over. The music for these sessions was not written down in detail, only a
few sketches and ideas were put on paper. The claim that Kind of Blue only consists
of first takes, must be somewhat nuanced. The recording method of Miles was the
following: when Miles hears something he doesnt like or when something happens
that is unacceptable, he stops the musicians. In that sense they did more than one take
for every tune. However, when it was good, he let the musicians play the song to the
end and that became the final take. So it are the first complete takes we hear on Kind
of Blue with one exception: Flamenco Sketches, they recorded two complete takes and
the second one was used on the album. During the first session they recorded
successively Freddie Freeloader, So What and Blue in Green and during the second
and session Flamenco Sketches and All Blues. Besides the modal influence Miles is
looking for other special sounds and therefore he found inspiration in gospel, as in the
song Freddie Freeloader and in the African thumb piano, as we can we hear in the
repetitive ostinato figures of All Blues and So What. He also looked for inspiration in
the music of Ravel. The album is one of the most beloved and best-selling records of
modern jazz. Miles himself thoght that his intentions had failed.
There has been much speculation about the authorship of the different
compositions. Officially, all the songs are composed by Miles Davis, but we will have
to make some nuances. On albums by Bill Evans for instance the song Blue in Green
Evans puts himself always as co-author. Evans claims therefore at least to be the co-
author. However, there is an indication that Evans could be the actual composer of the
song. Evans uses the first six bars of Blue in Green as an intro of Alone Together on
the album Chet by Chet Baker. This album is recorded before Kind of Blue and proves
that Evans was already fooling around with this melody. The song Flamenco Sketches
is a clear restatement of the composition Peace Piece by Bill Evans altough Evans
himself stays in the ionic mode the whole song, whereas Flamenco Sketches usues
different modes but starts at the exact same way Peace Piece. The morning before the
start of the second session Bill Evans to the home of Miles because Miles wanted to
discuss the song Peace Piece. He wanted to record the tune on Kind of Blue. Bill
Evans suggested during this meeting that instead of the ostinato figure to go through
different modes. In his own words:

I thought that maybe, instead of doing one ostinato, we would move through
two or three or four or five levels that would relate to one another and make
3
a cycle, and he agreed and we worked at it at the piano until we arrived at
the five levels we used. I wrote those levels out for the guys you know. That
was all little sketches I made.

5. The Second Great Miles Davis Quintet, 1964-1968
After Kind of Blue Miles was working several years, from 1959 to 1963, with
Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb as permanent rhythm section. Miles
did not change his repertoire in a modal direction but returned to the hard-bop
repertoire, with the addition of some pieces from Kind of Blue, especially So What
and All Blues. Saxophonists in this period are successively Sonny Stitt and Hank
Mobley. In 1963 a new rhythm section arrived: Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter
on bass and the very young Tony Williams on drums. We can hear this band for the
first time on the album Seven Steps To Heaven. On this album Miles was trying out
new musicians from Miles and therefore played a few songs with this new rhythm
section and also some songs with a West Coast rhythm section that was finallyh not
chosen. On this album the saxophonist is George Coleman. He remains in the band
for about a year. The albums Miles in Antibes, My Funny Valentine and Four & More
are albums with Coleman and the new rhythm section. My Funny Valentine and Four
& More were later combined in the double album The Complete Concert. After
George Coleman, Sam Rivers came on tenor sax briefly and after him came Wayne
Shorter for the following years. The first album Shorter plays on is the album Miles in
Berlin. The band with Shorter is called "The Second Great Quintet".
With this new rhythm section Miles enters a new phase in his music. The band
creates a new idiom in which the band plays as a unit with very intensive interaction
and combines elements of hard bop and free jazz, despite Miles' distaste for free.
Because of the wide-ranging freedom and further evolution away from the classic bop
idiom however many people didnt like the band and the band was not very popular.
From 1964, when Wayne Shorter came in the group the repertoire became almost
totally modal. Miles moved away more and more from the standards-repertoire and
played many compositions by the members of the band and especially by Wayne
Shorter. These compositions are not compsed int the way of the traditional jazz
compositions but are modal compositions with less chords or less traditional chord
sequences, different forms than the classical forms and melodies that do not
necessarily consist of quavers. The compsitions have many silences, a lot of
dynamism and openness. This obviously affects the way of improvising which is
therefore more open. The band evolved further away from the busy bop formulas with
melodies over a steady rhythmic pulse and we hear quite the opposite: clear melodies
over a very busy and active rhythm section. This is evident in compositions such as
Nefertiti or Masqualero where the melody and the top layers became simpler and the
bottom more complex. Because of this way of playing the band became a precursor of
jazz-rock and fusion.
On the live albums, Miles in Berlin (1964) and Live At The Plugged Nickle (1965),
from the early period of the second quintet there were still standards in the repertoire,
but the studio albums are all in the modal idiom: ESP (1965), Smiles Miles (1966),
Sorcerer (1967) and Nefertiti (1967). On the last albums by this quintet, Miles In The
Sky and Filles De Kilimanjaro, both from 1968, new musicians were added and these
albums are the forerunnes of the next stage in the music of Miles: the fusion period.
4
We hear on these recordings the addition of electric instruments: guitar and keyboards
and Ron Carter even played electric bass on some songs.

6. The Members of the Miles Davis Quintet 1964-1968
Wayne Shorter (b. 1933) tenor and soprano sax
At the time Wayne Shorter joins the second Miles Davis quintet, he had had
already an entire career. He started out as hard bop musician with inspired by John
Coltrane. He played for a short while with Horace Silver in 1956 and with Maynard
Ferguson in 1958. In this band he met Joe Zawinul. At the end of the year 1959 he
makes his first album: Introducing Wayne Shorter. On this album he plays with the
rhythm section of Miles Davis in this period: Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers
on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums. Trumpeter Lee Morgan completes the team. In
1959, Shorter starts playing with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He stayed until
1963 and in the meanwhile releases different albums as a leader. In 1964 Shorter is
concentrating more on his own projects at Blue Note with quick succession he
released Night Dreamer and Juju.
In September 1964 he begins to play in the second Miles Davis quintet on the
recommendation of Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams. Shorter puts his mark on this
legendary band and thanks to him the repertoire was renewed with modal
compositions such as ESP, Footprints, Dolores, Pinocchio, Nefertiti and many others.
In his compositions he starts from a continuous group concept where theme and
improvisation are intertwined. Shorter also composed for Blakey when he was
playing in the Jazz Messengers and he can be seen as one of the most important jazz
composers of the 60s and 70s. During his time with Miles he continued releasing
albums as a leader with the Blue Note label: Speak No Evil in 1964. When Miles
band moved more into the direction of fusion, he developed more and more his
sopranosax playing.
In 1969 het plays on the Miles Davis albums In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew but
in 1970 Shorter stops playing in the band of Miles Davis. Together with Joe Zawinul
he founded the fusion band Weather Report in 1971, one of the most creative and
successful groups from the jazz-rock movement. This band continues to exist for
fifteen. In the meanwhile, Shorter also plays in VSOP, the jazz ensemble of Herbie
Hancock in 1974 and releases a very successful Latin American album: Native
Dancer.
In the 80s and 90s is fairly quiet around Wayne Shorter. Only very rarely he
releases a fusion album in a Weather Report related style, such as Atlantis in 1985 and
High Life in 1995. In 2001 Wayne Shorter forms a new quartet with Danilo Perez on
piano, John Patitucci on acoustic bass and Brian Blade on drums. The almost eighty
years old saxophonist starts a new highlight in his career with the albums Footprints
Live! in 2001 and in 2004 Beyond the Sound Barrier. Two live albums that are a
reflection of the bands live interpretations of Shorter's compositions in a very open
way. Meanwhile, in 2003 Sorter releases also a studio album, Alegria, which extends
the Wayne Shorter Quartet with guest musicians and chamber orchestra.


5
Herbie Hancock (b. 1940), piano and keyboards
This musical chameleon is active in many areas: hard bop, film music, jazz rock,
funk and even disco. He was born in Chicago and played when he was eleven a
Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Already in high school
he began playing jazz. His first inspiration comes from Oscar Peterson and Bill
Evans. Because of his interest in both music and electronics, he decided to study both
simultaneously to the Grinnell College. In 1960 he played with Coleman Hawkins and
is discovered by Donald Byrd who takes him in his band. With the latter, he went to
New York and Byrd introduced him to Alfred Lion from Blue Note Records. After
two years of session work for the label in which he played on records of Phil Woods,
Freddie Hubbard and Oliver Nelson he recorded his first album as a leader for Blue
Note records in May 1962: Takin 'Off with his famous tune Watermelon Man. The
song became a hit on both jazz and R & B radio stations. From 1963 to 1968 he was
part of the Miles Davis quintet and also composed for this band. His way of playing in
the group is very progressive with rhythmic and harmonic shifts. Together with Ron
Carter and Tony Williams, he develops a new concept in the rhythm section with
great freedom and intensive interaction with other musicians. Many of his
compositions have become jazz standards such as Maiden Voyage, Dolphin Dance,
The Sorcerer, Cantaloupe Island and Speak Like A Child. After leaving Miles in
1969, he continues in the style of the second Miles Davis Quintet with Ron Carter and
Tony Williams. Albums from this period are VSOP: The Quintet from 1977 and
Quartet from 1982. This last album is with the young Wynton Marsalis on trumpet. In
the '70s and '80s he goes in the direction of jazz rock and even commercial disco.


Ron Carter (b. 1937), double bass, cello and piccolo bass.
He has a nice round tone and great timing. He plays more in front of the beat than
Paul Chambers. His lines are not limited to walking, but he also uses other patterns.
Carter began his musical career as a cellist but switched to bass becuase in the 50s it
was practically impossible for a black musician to make a career as a classical
musician. After his transition to bass his interest in jazz grew. He played in the Chico
Hamilton Quintet in New York but decides to stay in NYC when Hamilton returns to
the West Coast. He then records his first important albums as a sideman with Eric
Dolphy. In the early '60s he worked freelance in New York and among other plays in
the bands of Bobby Timmons, Thelonious Monk, Canon Adderley and Art Farmer. In
1963 he leaves, after a week, Art Farmer to play with Miles Davis. He remains in the
band until 1968. During this period he became the most asked studio bassist. After his
collaboration with Miles he plays in the VSOP quintet of Herbie Hancock and he can
be heard on several other jazz albums of Hancock like for example Maiden Voyage.
Although he made a few albums as a leader, often with a second bass player so he
gets plenty of space to solo, he is especially important as a sideman. He plays on more
than a thousand albums.

Tony Williams [Anthony] (1945-1997), drums
According to Miles, Tony Williams was the fire and creative spark of the group's
music because he always looked for new and unexpected directions. He played with
great technical skills, looser and with more risks than his predecessors. Like Jimmy
6
Cobb he plays the front of the beat. His father was a saxophonist and at early age he
was introduced to jazz. At age fifteen he was already active as a freelancer in the
Boston area. In 1959 and 1960 he played with Sam Rivers and with Jackie McLean in
1962. Here he was noticed by Miles Davis and in May 1963 he began playing in his
quintet. He continued with Miles until 1969 but also recorded in these years with
others. After being a member of the Miles Davis quintet he played jazz and jazz-rock
with among others Herbie Hancock, Weather Report and his own bands such as
Lifetime, with John McLauglin on guitar and Larry Young on organ. He dies at the
age of 52 due to a relatively harmless surgery.

7. The Album A Love Supreme and the Modal Period of John Coltrane (1926-
1967)

After espacially being part of the Miles Davis quintet, with some interruptions, in
the second half of the '50s, and after being part of the modal experiments in this band,
Coltrane forms his own group in 1960 in which he could develop his personal modal
concept. The group consisted of McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, Steve
Davis and later Jimmy Garrison on bass. The 'classic' quartet of John Coltrane is one
of the most important groups in jazz history and has much influence. The modal
idiom was an ideal context for Coltranes improvisation concept: the infinite
variations in increasingly longer solos. It is in this context therefore no coincidence
that Coltrane showed an growing interest for Indian and Arabic music and the related
timbre of the soprano saxophone. Coltrane's modal style of playing was not strictly
modal, he follows the general atmosphere of the harmonic mode but adds many non-
modal and chromatic notes.
The album My Favorite Things from 1960 is the first in which the classic Coltrane
quartet, still with Steve Davis on bass, can be heard. On the title track they ignore the
changes in the improvisations and there is a modal approach instead. It is also the first
album on which Coltrane plays soprano sax. This album was one of the best selling
records of Coltrane and also popular with a non-jazz oriented audience. The album
means also a return of the soprano saxophone in jazz after Sidney Bechet. My
Favorite Things does not yet have the polyrhythmic dialogue between Coltrane and
Elvin Jones of the later period. When Coltrane switches to the label Impulse! he has
the change to record with the Quartet a series of studio and live recordings such as
The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions from 1961, an experiment with orchestral
arrangements of Coltrane and Tyner, Eric Dolphy conducts the orchestra, Crescent
from 1964 and live recordings in The Village Vanguard and in Birdland. The quartet
with Coltrane, Garrison, Tyner and Jones is hereby supplemented sometimes with
Eric Dolphy and Reggie Workman.

The apotheosis of Coltrane's modal period of the suite A Love Supreme, recorded
on December 9, 1964 in the studio of Rudy Van Gelder in Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey. The musicians are John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on
bass and Elvin Jones on drums, the regular quartet at that time. The suite consists of
four parts: Part 1 Acknowledgement, Part 2 Resolution, Part 3 Persuance, Part 4
Psalm. The first two parts merge into each other and the last two parts also. Between
part two and part three there was a break becuase in the vinyl era the record had to be
turned over. The structure is symmetrical: the first and the fourth part are more open
7
mood pieces and have a more unorthodox structure and the two inner parts are more
straight jazz compositions with a more traditional swing feel. During the recording
session of A Love Supreme Coltrane worked in a different way process then his usual
process. It was until then his habit to record in one session only one tune and do
different takes till they had the right one. Such a session lasted two hours and repeated
sessions resulted into a new album. This time however, he recorded the whole suite in
a single session. As in the Kind of Blue sessions of Miles, Coltrane gave the musicians
for this session only a few vague instructions and musical sketches and certainly not
totally worked out scores. But the quartet is a close group, playing together for
several years and they had developed their own sound. According to Tyner, they even
had played some fragments of the suite already in clubs. On A Love Supreme Coltrane
plays only the tenor whereas in this period it was his habit tot do at least one tune on
soprano every album.

A Love Supreme
Acknowledgement, the first tune opens with a gong, like they want to wipe out
immediately the traditional jazz sound. The gong is followed by a rubato phrase of
Coltrane, a kind of wake-up call in E major, an unusual key for Coltrane. After this
Jimmy Garrison starts playing the four-note ostinato which is the musical
representation of the title of the suite, essentially a blues lick. The tonality is F minor
and Coltrane plays the first part of the theme. During the solo of Coltrane, an open
rhythmic atmosphere is created by the mixing of the 4/4 of the bass line and the
suggestion of 6/8 in the drums. At the end of the improvisation Coltrane creates a
climax and then takes over the bass line and transposes this to different tonal centers.
When the mantra returnes to the original key the theme is sung by Coltrane. We hear
different voices and it is likely that Coltrane overdubs himself. The author Ashley
Kahn comes to the conclusion of the overdubs from the existence of a tape of the next
day with the words: "900243-Part I-voice overdub". The end of the first part is a bass
solo that forms the transition to the second part which opens with the bass. The suite
is constructed so that Part 1 and Part 2 merge into each other, although the parts were
recorded separately during the session and later pasted together by Van Gelder. A
short silence heard is in the final result though.
The second part is Resolution. Of this tune exists an amateur recording made during a
concert Coltrane played on 18 september 1964 in a small club in Philadelphia. In the
studio seven takes were made, many false starts and two complete takes. The tonality
is E flat minor. The theme consists of an eight bar phrase that is repeated three times.
The theme is exposed twice with a short improvisation of John Coltrane as a bridge
between those expositions. McCoy Tyner takes the first solo in his typical modal style
with in the left hand parallel chords voiced in fourths. After Tyner, Coltrane breaks
loose. In his solo we hear a lot of interaction between the soloist and the rhythm
section. Coltrane comes back to the theme and concludes the first part of the suite. On
the original vinyl version this was the A side and the next two songs were obviously
on the side B.
The third and fourth part, Pursuance and Psalm, were recorded in one take though
these are two different compositions and listed as two separate numbers on the cover.
Pursuance opens with a drum solo of one and a half minute and then we hear a reprise
of the theme from part one, but this time the improvisations are in a minor blues form.
The tonality is B flat minor. Also in this part Tyner takes the first solo. In Coltranes
"8
solo there is a climax with strong interactions with Elvin Jones after which Coltrane
plays the final theme. This is followed by a brief drum solo that turns into an extended
bass solo. This solo is the end of the song and immediately the beginning of the next.
We get thus the same transition between the third and the fourth part as we found
between the first and the second. It is again Jimmy Garrison who connects Pursuance
to the next song from the suite: Psalm. This last part of the suite is a more subdued
piece compared with the previous two. It is a long rubato melody. The tonality is C
minor. Elvin Jones plays the timpani on this piece so we get a theatrical finale. On the
cover of A Love Supreme Coltrane has written a poem in which he honors God. The
title of the poem is obviously A Love Supreme. The diction of this poem corresponds
exactly to the rhythms in the melody of Psalm. The musical phrases correspond to the
phrases and lines of the text as if Coltrane speaks through his instrument to the
listener. In the last bars of Psalm Coltrane makes use of overdubs. After a first
listening he decided to add something to the original. That is why in the last bars we
can hear the original sax in the left channel and the added sax in the right channel, and
both cymbals and timpani as well as both bowed and plucked bass.

Despite the fact that the first session yielded enough material for the album the next
day a second session was organized with two additional musicians: Archie Shepp on
tenor saxophone and Art Davis on bass. From this second day there are just two
different takes of Acknowledgement preserved. These takes formed the mysterious
second version of A Love Supreme and were issued in 2002 as additional takes on the
album A Love Supreme Deluxe Edition. On this album, alongside the original version
is also included the only live version of the suite on July 26, 1965 at the Antibes Jazz
Festival in France. In the same year, however, Coltrane evolved away from the modal
music and into the direction of free jazz. In 2005 more live recordings from the
quartet in 1965 were discovered and issued on the album One Down, One Up, Live At
The Half Note.
Characteristics of the modal music of Coltrane:
1. pedal notes in the bass and in the left hand of the piano
2. drum patterns whos basic unit occupied several measures instead of just a few
beats
3. sustaining chords in piano
4. the using a single mode or a two-chord pattern for a long time
5. long soxophone glissandi carefully timed and spanned a large portion of the
instruments pitch range
6. the use of sustained notes in the saxophone
7. long term continuity of mood



8. The Members of the John Coltrane Quartet
McCoy Tyner (b. 1938), piano
He pretty much invented the concept of modal piano playing and hereby makes
extensive use of pedal notes and fifths in the left hand. Without the use of functional
harmony he can create a tonal or modal center around which the solos can be
organized. His piano solos are a counterweight to the solos of Coltrane with a more
""
straight forward and a more lyrical approach. In his right hand he often uses chords
voiced in fourths and open chords. For the melodic structure of his solos, he makes
frequent use of pentatonics. He combines in his playing the linear style of Bud
Powell, block chords of Red garland and the voicings of Bill Evans. Along with Bill
Evans and Herbie Hancock he is one of the most influential pianists of the '60s and
'70s. For Tyner played in Coltranes quartet he had played in the Benny Golson-Art
Farmer Jazztet in 1959. From 1960 to 1965 he was part of the John Coltrane quartet.
In his time with Coltrane, he also albums records for Impulse! as a leader. From the
70s, he records mainly for the label Milestone.

Elvin Jones (1927-2004), drums

Before he joined the quartet he had already worked with jazz greats as J.J. Johnson,
Bud Powell and Charles Mingus. Through his polyrhythmic style he frees the
percussion of his strict rhythmic and supportive role. He plays around the beat rather
than on top of the beat. The time keeping function in the Coltrane quartet is partially
taken over by McCoy Tyner. Elvin Jones duels almost with the soloist. He represents
the transition between the traditional and the more liberal view of playing the drums
and thereby influences drummers like Ed Blackwell and Rashied Ali.
Elvin Jones is the youngest from a musical family. His brothers are the jazz pianist
Hank Jones (1918-2010) and the band leader Thad Jones (1923-1986). Elvin Jones
began his career in the band of his brother Thad. In 1956 he settled in New York
where he quickly built up a reputation as a drummer in the Art Blakey-style. From
1960 to 1961 he was part of the John Coltrane quartet. However when Coltrane
decides in 1966 to take Rashied Ali as a second drummen Elvin Jones finds this
incompatible with his own style and he left some time later the band. After he had left
the Coltrane quartet he led his own bands in the modal concept, usually with two
saxophonists in the spirit of Coltrane. Known sideman of his bands include Joe
Farrell, Frank Foster, George Coleman, Joe Lovano and Ravi Coltrane.

The Bassists

The Coltrane quartet had several bassists but the one who remained the longest is
Jimmy Garrison (1934-1976). He came in 1961 in the band. Jimmy Garrison
understood perfectly the unorthodox paths Coltrane and Jones walked. He stretcheth
out walking with rhythmic figures, double stops, triple stops, ostinatos and counter
melodies in rubato. He remains in the bands until Coltrane's death. Then he plays in
the bands of Alice Coltrane, Hampton Hawes, Archie Shepp and Elvin Jones. Before
joining the quartet of Coltrane, he had already played with Philly Joe Jones, Curtis
Fuller and Lennie Tristano. Before Jimmy Garrison the Coltrane quartet had worked
with Richard Davis, Art Davis and Reggie Workman.



"-
FREE JAZZ
1. Introduction
The name 'Free Jazz' comes from the 1960 album by Ornette Coleman. Because of
the impact of Ornette Coleman's work in the jazz world the title of his album Free
Jazz quickly became the name for this new music. The movement was given in the
course of history also other names such as The Avant-Garde, The New Thing, Energy
Music, Action Jazz and Loft Jazz. The latter refers to the fact that in New York City
the genre was played in lofts. In Europe terms like improvised music were often used.
With some musicians we find very personal descriptions of this music: Music,
Contemporary Music, Survival Music, Space Music, Cosa Nova, Free Form or More
Free Form.

2. Political and Social Backgrounds of Free Jazz
Jazz from its genesis has been an expression of black consciousness. But where this
was previously in a subdued manner as in blues or relativistic in a certain way like
Armstrong, with the free movement the black consciousness became more
pronounced and aggressive. In essence the free jazz is a continuation of the existing
political climate and social ideas, however, the rebellion and nihilism are now
deliberately and openly used as weapons. The musicians emphasize the uniqueness of
their music and also disassociate from the jazz phenomenon because of the disliking
of the business mentality in the United States where every spiritual value tries to
convert to dollars and they protest against the fact that the black music is in the hands
of the white record companies. This was very concisely expressed by Archie Shepp:

You own the music and we make it. "
The free-musicians reject the entrapment of the term 'jazz' because they search for
increased expressiveness and the term jazz has a pejorative social significance for
them, in the sense that the jazz industry is part of the establishment. Albert Ayler put
it as like this:
"Jazz is Jim Crow. It Belongs to another era, another time, another place.
We're playing free music. "
Here the word free' takes on a literal and a political connotation and not just a
musical one. The musical freedom and liberty for which they strive finds a breeding
ground in the political consciousness and is as it were the artistic result. The political
situation in the United States in the '60s and especially the struggle for equal civil
rights for black people that lead to the abolition of apartheid in 1964 with the Civil
Rights Act, awakened the political consciousness of jazz musicians. Besides music
Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp also produced writings and texts about the
relationship between freedom, music and politics. The political consciousness of the
free jazz is determined by the ideas of political and ideological leaders like Malcolm
X, assassinated in 1965, and Martin Luther King, assassinated in 1968. Also race
riots, the creation of the Black Power movement and the anti-Vietnam protests help to
determine the political climate. We quote in this context again Archie Shepp:

".
"The Negro musician is a reflection of the Negro people as a social phenomenon.
His purpose to liberate America Ought to be aesthetically and socially from
its inhumanity. "
For free-musicians it is clear that the choice is either being part of the existing
structures of society and the entertainment industry or rebel against it. They choose
the latter. Authors Amiri Baraka, LeRoi Jones is his pseudonym, and Frank Kofsky
express in their books these ideas of the free jazz movement.

3. Precursors
In the course of jazz history we find some early examples which can be considered
as precursors of free jazz. In 1949 Lennie Tristano recorded Intuition and Digression,
with Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Arnold Fishkin and Billy Bauer. These harmonically
free songs are based on collective improvisation. Also the composition Descent into
the Maelstrom from 1953 is an atonal experiment. The recordings made little
impression on the audience and were quickly forgotten. Also in the work of Charles
Mingus we find early examples of very great freedom in the way of playing. In the
case of Mingus, this freedom will be placed in a tonal context as in the composition
Pithecantropus Erectus where, although the composition is tonal, yet in some
passages will get harmonically freer. Similar passages can be found on the albums
The Clown and Tijuana Moods. Other musicians are from the mid-50s working on
stretching out the boundaries of bebop. Thus we find with Jackie McLean a concept
he calls "The Big Room" where in certain passages the harmonic rules can be ignored.
In Fact atonal experiments can be found already in the progressive jazz of the 40s
and the third stream movement in the 50s: with Stan Kentons City of Glass (1948),
Woody Herman with Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto (1946), Gunther Schuller with
Atonal Studies for Jazz (1948) Benny Goodman with Contrasts (1940) by Bela Bartok
and Jimmy Guiffre with Fugue (1953).

4. Characteristics
Free jazz is an general term for a wide variety of individual styles. So we find in
the genre the "World Music" by Don Cherry, the West African "talking drums" of Ed
Blackwell, the gospel and folk tradition of Albert Ayler, ignoring the bop tradition
and connect directly to the New Orleans style with Steve Lacy, the political
commitment of Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra with the revolutionary
songs translated into the jazz idiom and so on. Despite new names such as "The New
Thing" and rebelling against the traditional jazz, free jazz is in a certain sense a
continuation of the jazz tradition. So we find both traditional features and innovations.


Traditional characteristics of free jazz
1. the non-academical treatment of the sound or instrument.
A personal way of playing an instrument has always been a typical
characteristic of jazz was, this is not new in free. In free jazz although is was
reinforced: they try to go beyondthe limits of the instruments are: top-tones,
harmonics, overblowing, multi-phonics of Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders,
shouting and shrieking.
"2
2. the dominance of improvisation.
In the improvisation, the free jazz improvisation ignores the theme-chorus
form, but it restores the collective improvisation in the spirit of New Orleans.
Because of the importance of collective improvisation and intuition the choice
of the right partners is very important and even a compositional factor because
there is an organic way of interaction inquiered.
3. the specific jazz rhythm based on the tension and relaxation that we call swing
4. in the line up of the freejazz bands we recognize the existing formulas like
jazz trio, quartet, etc..


Innovations of free jazz: The genius of the free jazz can be most adequately defined
by its negative features:
1. absence of tonality and chord progression.
The improvisations are therefore not based on tonality and chords but on melodic and
rhythmic developments and moods.
2. the absence of the chorus form.
In the solos, the chorus form was abandoned and replaced by a loose form of
collective improvisation. The architectural structure of the improvisation is
constructed on the spot. A theme is used but the structure of the theme no longer
determines the course of the improvisation. The theme rather creates an emotional
mood which can be used, or not.
3. rejection of the continuous tempo and instead an extremely discontinuous rhythm
or a free rubato. But also the traditional swing feel is used in free jazz.
4. traditional notions of academic virtuosity and instrumental techniques are radically
rejected.
5. cool timbres are avoided and instead we find a commitment to more emotional
and more human voice-like sound
6. free-musicians try to avoid clichs and automatisms completely.

Evolutions in the instruments
1. bass: the bass players are the big beneficiaries of the free movement.
While the non academic sonority of the trumpet or the saxophone was established
since Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins, the bass was much longer tied to the simple
pizzicato technique necessary for the playing and keeping the time. The instrument
can now be handled more soloistic as a result of the elinimation of the chords and the
continuous time. Bass players like Scott LaFaro, Gary Peacock expand the techniques
to the use of the bow, glissandi, double stops, guitar techniques, and so on.
2. Piano: the keyboard loses its function as a keeper of the harmonic progression and
is treated as a percussion sonically rich instrument as we can find in the rhythmic
approach of for example Cecil Taylor.
Also pianists are looking to expand the sound possibilities and the strings are
sometimes played directly with the hands or the strings are manipulated so that other
sounds or objects rattle along.
3. Wind Instruments: striving for unusual sounds and techniques such as toptones,
harmonics, multiphonics, and so on.
4. percussion: the emancipation of the drummers already took place in the hard bop
"3
and modal music. Drummers such as Ed Blackwell, Sunny Murray and Rashied Ali
put this evolution even further. The metronomic accompaniment makes way for the
greatest possible freedom without a clearly marked beat.

All these features show that free jazz performances include also bounderies: the
freedom is not arbitrary, there is an aspiration for freedom. The free music is in this
sense only 'more free music', a term used by bassist Eddie Gomez.

5. Aesthetics of The Free Movement
The fact that free jazz was a manifestation of a political awareness that more and
more moved towards radical and violent methods of fighting makes us wondering for
the ideal of beauty of the movement. The cacophony was certainly meant to get rid of
musical structures that originated in a white colonial society. Most freedmusicians
make beauty as only one of their purposes, and put other purposes as interaction,
structure, artistry, creativity and communication at the same level. It is clear that they
are afraid of a pure aestheticism or l'art pour l'art concept. In the words of Steve Lacy:

Beauty is not my concern. The music is the result of a meeting of
musicians with the mind in space and time.
These views on music, which at first sight almost anything goes, made itn for
musicians, critics and audiences not easy to understand the music and to distinguish
the dillettants from the authentic talents. Throughout history had all style innovators
like Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis were told that they had
betrayed the true jazz but in the free jazz was the contrast between pro and cons
became very outspoken and very emotional.

6. Organization of the Free Jazz and Major Centers
In 1965 The Jazz Composers' Guild was founded in New York by the black
trumpeter and composer Bill Dixon, a professional community for and from white and
black musicians. The goal was to create opportunities for performances without the
intervention of managers and booking agents. Later the name of this group, under the
leadershop of Carla Bley and Michael Mantler, became The Jazz Composers
Orchestra Association. In this organization musicians get the opportunity to perform
with large ensembles and in 1968 they also founded the New Music Distribution
Service, an independent record and distribution company.
Also in 1965, in Chicago, The Association for the Advancement of Creative
Musicians, abbreviated to AACM, was founded by the pianist Muhal Richard Abrams
and Lester Bowie. This organization has similar goals as the New York counterpart,
including the provision of music schools with a focus on original compositions, jazz
history studies and organizing festivals, workshops, jams and recording sessions. At
the base of AACM lies the Experimental Band, a large ensemble led by Abrams. The
most famous band in this organization is the Art Ensemble of Chicago, founded in
Paris in 1969. Other AACM members are Anthony Braxton, Chico Freeman and
Henry Threadgill. A smaller and lesser known organization is Black Artist Group,
BAG, from St Louis. Founded in 1968 and again shut down because of
"4
discontinuation of subsidies in 1972. Central to the activities of BAG were multi-
media events.

In Europe, the Helsinki jazz festival and Cafe Montmartre in Copenhagen were
important meeting points. In Germany, free-albums are released by FMP which stands
for Free Music Production. In Belgium there is the organization WIM, the Werk
Groep Imroviserende Muziek, in England there is the Music Improvisation Company
in the Netherlands the ICP Orchestra. ICP stands for Instant Composers Pool.


7. Main Musicians
Ornette Coleman (b. 1930) alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, violin, trumpet.

The Texan Ornette Coleman played in his youth especially blues and church music.
In the late '50s, he evolves from rhythm and blues saxophonist into the newcomer of
the jazz world. His avant-garde style of playing is created instinctively and is the
result of self-study and not a theoretical training like in the case of Cecil Taylor is. In
the early '50s Ornette Coleman moves to California and studied theory and harmony
by himself when he worked as elevator operator in Los Angeles. He gets often the
criticism that he doesnt know what he is doing and was often chased away from the
podia where he tried to play with be bop musicians. One evening he even got beaten
up by some who could not appreciate his style of playing, he played the enor at that
time but after the incident refused for a long timeto play the tenor and switched to the
alto sax. His career goes in ups and downs. In LA he plays with the musicians of the
Hillcrest Club: Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins and Paul Bley and with the
exception of Bley these became the musicians of his quartet.
In 1958 he released his first album Something Else!!!! The Music Of Ornette
Coleman and this album makes a big impression on Gunther Schuller and John Lewis.
Partly thanks to their support Ornette Coleman can release more albums. His first
album is with piano but after that he works thirty years without. The album Something
Else!!!!The Music Of Ornette Coleman proves to be a less radical break with the jazz
tradition than both proponents and opponents at the time claimed. We still find
traditional 12 and 32-degree forms with familiar chord progressions. In the solos we
hear rather a modal atmosphere with just a hint of the atonality that later will become
so typical but anyhow the improvisations of Coleman and Cherry sound very fresh.
Ornette Coleman is well aware of his special place in jazz history, this was already
clear from the very beginning by the self-conscious titles of his albums. His second
album from 1959 is entitled: Tomorrow Is The Question, the third, recorded in 1959
and 1960: The Shape Of Jazz To Come and the next one from 1960 is titled: Change
Of The Century. The quartet that plays on his third and fourth album became the
controversial sensation in the New York jazz world. The quartet of Ornette Coleman
consisted of: Charlie Haden on bass, Billy Higgins on drums and Don Cherry on
trumpet. He will however not live on his success and tries throughout his career all
sorts of lineups and formulas, from trios to combinations with a string quartet, for
example Abstraction composed by Gunther Schuller, or a double rhythm section or
even a double quartet such as on the album Free Jazz from 1960 and even a
symphonic orchestra on Skies of America in 1972. On Free Jazz a second quartet is
added to the Ornette Coleman quartet: Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, Scott LaFaro
"5
and Ed Blackwell. The double quartet improvises collectively a composition of 37
minutes, initially spread over both sides of the LP. There is room for solos of the
group members and these are interspersed with more arranged fragments. The texture
of the music is fuller than we were accustomed to until now in the music of Coleman
and the music sounds radical even for the standards of Coleman. In subsequent years
we hear similar experiments in the music of others like Coltrane, Sanders, Taylor and
Ayler. With Free Jazz Coleman gives the movement not only a name but also a
sound.
After this impressive stage of his career it becomes a little quieter around Coleman
in the following years but in 1965 we see his name pop up again at the Village
Vanguard in New York. In 1966 Ornette was chosen by Downbeat to "jazzman of the
year, in particular based on the album The Ornette Coleman Trio at the Golden
Circle Stockholm in two parts: volume 1 and volume 2. This trio consisted of David
Izenzon on bass and Charles Moffett on drums. Izenzon also played classical music
and he used a lot of bowing. His bowed melodies form a contrapuntal counterweight
to the lines of Coleman. On these albums we hear Ornette also on violin and trumpet.
At the end of the '60s Ornette Coleman is back with a quartet with tenor saxophonist
Dewey Redman replacing trumpeter Don Cherry. Albums from this period are New
York Is Now from 1968 and Friends And Neighbours from 1970. From 1975 he
moves in the direction of funk with his group Prime Time. This style is called "Free
Funk", yet he will frequently return to acoustic projects including a duo with Charlie
Haden on the album Soapsuds Soapsuds from 1977 and with Pat Metheny on the
album The Song X from 1985. This latter is a Pat Metheny album, although all the
songs are written by Ornette Coleman.

The jazz aesthetics of Ornette Coleman originated as an anti-movement, a rejection
of the bopcliches that around 1955 were stagnating modern jazz. What was with the
bop musicians their own living idiom became over the years an automatic language
wherein creativity had completely disappeared. Coleman suggests an expansion from
the jazz clichs and a confidence in the logic of intuition during the improvisation.
Spontanity and naivity are hereby major sources of inspiration. To avoid that
musicians fall back on cliches of blues or bop and to keep the spontaneous effect
Ornette gave the musicians no more changes. The improvisations of Ornette Coleman
are not based on chords but on the melody and the merging of parallel diatonic lines.
He himself used this term: harmolodics or harmolodic theory. The term first
appeared in the liner notes of the album Skies of America from 1972. The paradox is
that Coleman rejection of modern jazz picture is very sdeeply rooted in the jazz
tradition. First of all his style is very linear, horizontal and melodic. It is the tradition
of Lester Young and Miles Davis and his phrasing is also inspired by Charlie Parker.
Secondly, his playing is often diatonic and rooted in blues and swing, but he will
constantly modulate or transpose parallel so that a bitonal or polytonal sound is
created. Thirdly, his not tempered way of playing is related to the traditional blue
notes. Blues and blue notes also remain very important in the music of Ornette as
evidenced by numerous blues inspired themes such as Blues Connotation and
Turnaround. Finally, he brings back the collective improvisation in the jazz claiming
at the same time the greatest possible freedom for the individual musician is claimed.


Features the music of Ornette Coleman
"6
1. importance of intuition and spontanity
2. no chord changes to improvise
3. horizontal melodic style
4. diatonic melodies
5. polytonal
6. influence of blues


John Coltrane (1926-1967) Tenor Sax

In the last years of his life, from 1965 on, Coltrane quit modal music and found
inspiration in the free jazz. This was not entirely unexpected. Just before his modal
period he has already released the album The Avant-Garde in 1960 with a quartet
formed by all musicians from Ornette Coleman's entourage: Don Cherry, Charlie
Haden and Ed Blackwell. It proved his interest in this style but this album was not
released till after his dead. In 1965 Coltrane makes the album Ascension, a collective
improvisation in the free jazz style. Besides the members of the classic quartet, there
is a second bassist: Art Davis, a second drummer: Frank Butler, and further lot of
horn players including Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, John Tchicai and Freddie
Hubbard. The album can be compared with Free Jazz by Ornette Coleman. From then
on Coltrane forms groups with drummer Rashied Ali as a second drummer next to
Elvin Jones and saxophonist Pharoah Sanders as second saxplayer. We can hear this
bandon the album Meditiations from 1965. In 1966 Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner left
the band and Alice Coltrane became the new pianist. In 1967 Coltrane recorded a duo
album with drummer Rashied Ali: Interstellar Space. That same year John Coltrane
dies of liver ailment.

Donald 'Don', Cherry (1936-1995) Trumpet, pocket trumpet
Don Cherry began his career in the formations of Ornette Coleman, on whose first
seven albums he is playing, from '57 to '62. In the subsequent years he extended his
musical experiences through collaborations with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins,
Archie Shepp, Steve Lacy, Pharoah Sanders, Gato Barbieri and Carla Bley. In 1969
he left the U.S. as a protest against the Indo-China Politics of Richard Nixon,
although the commitment of Cherry was not so much politic, but rather religious. His
music is driven by a humanist message and he is interested in all musical cultures in a
universal brotherhood. His wandering around the world influences his music, he
learns to know all kinds of music: Indian, Turkish, Chinese, South African, but also
contemporary classical music and he worked in this context with the composer
Kryzystof Penderecki at the festival of Doneauschingen in 1971. The orchestra the
New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra, containing many important musicians from the
European free scene, Peter Brtzmann, Willem Breuker, Paul Rutherford, Han
Bennink, Terje Rypdal, Kenny Wheeler and Tomasz Stanko made a live recording of
a composition by Penderecki: Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra. Cherry's trumpet
playing has a raw sound but has also delicate accents that remind us of Bix
Beiderbecke.


"7
Archie Shepp (b. 1937) Tenor Sax
"The new jazz is the old jazz. Actually there is nothing new unless a message that until
now could never be formulated. It is in that sense that one may say that there is
anything new. And this message is the truth. It tells the suffering of a crowd. It tells us
about emancipation, about the destruction of the ghettos and about fascism. I am a
black jazz musician, a black family father, a black American, a black anti-fascist, I
am outraged about the war, about Vietnam, about the exploitation of my brothers and
all that is told in my music. "
Apart from being jazz musician Shepp is also a play-writer. He studied drama at
Goddard College in Vermont. He is the type of intellectual that rejects any separation
between artistic creativity and political engagement. In the 60s he was a free
musician and also a spokesman for Black Power. In the seventies, his music is less
extremist and an integration of all the achievements of modern jazz. Since then his
music is strongly inspired by blues, spirituals and the aesthetics of Duke Ellington as
we also found in the music Mingus.

Albert Ayler (1936-1970) tenor sax, soprano sax

With Albert Ayler, we find a strange discrepancy between his expressionist solos
and often simple tonal themes with a preference for forms like polka, circus music,
folkloric dances and marches. He formed several groups but not with much success.
His best-known and also his best attempt was his New York quartet with Gary
Peacock, Sunny Murray and Don Cherry. With this group he toured through Europe
in 1964. In 1970 they found body in the East River after he was a few weeks missing.

Pharoah Sanders (b. 1940) Tenor saxophone

He started on the piano, percussion and clarinet before he took up the tenor sax. He
began his career in the avant-garde jazz in San Francisco and moved to New York in
1962, where he worked with Billy Higgins, Don Cherry and the last formations of
John Coltrane. He remained after the death of Coltrane in the band of Alice Coltrane
who continued Coltranes band. Typical for his playing is the use of multiphonics and
figures with an indefinite pitch. His style focuses on timbre. In the '70s he flirts with
disco and in the '80s and he returns to a more modal style with rhythm and blues and
bop influences.

Eric Dolphy (1928-1964) alto saxophone, bass clarinet, flute
The LA born Eric Allen Dolphy was one of the most intelligent and most original
musical minds of the early '60s. In the last years of his short life, Eric Dolphy, made a
breakthrough in his search for new improvisation techniques. Because both his
compositions and his solos were based on a harmonic framework, he can be seen as
the link between the established tradition of bop, hard bop and cool and on the other
hand free jazz. Dolphy was well informed of developments in contemporary
European music, he studied for example Density from avant-garde composer Edgar
-8
Varese. He became known in the experimental Chico Hamilton Quintet in 1960 and
worked in New York with Charles Mingus, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. His
activities as a group leader are situated in the 60s and his album Out to Lunch with
Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Richard Davis and Tony Williams from 1964 is
a classic. That same year he died of diabetes during a tour. The style of Dolphy is
incredible virtuoso and original with big register jumps and the splitting up of the
melodic structures.

Cecil Taylor (b. 1933) Piano

Cecil Taylor studied at an early age piano and percussion, what explains his
percussive approach to the instrument. Cecil Taylor recorded in 1956 his first album
Jazz Advance with Buell Neidlinger on bass, Steve Lacy on saxophone and Dennis
Charles on drums. On this record the band plays standards but in a very original way
in which we find already the genesis of Taylors later renewals. It is in fact a Monk-
like piano style in an extreme form. In response of these recordings Cecil Taylor
played in 1957 at the Newport Jazz Festival. After that he made dozens of albums, all
equally uncompromising and he remains after forty years still a controversial
musician. In his music, Taylor breaks completely with the classical conception of
swing. He will spend hours relentlessly hammering on the piano. He creates a kind of
sounding universe. His music refers to both the experimental forms of classical music,
because he studied Stravinsky and Bartok at the Conservatory in Boston, as to the
black cultural heritage. Political commitment, like we find in the music of Shepp, is
however absent in the music of Taylor. His view is: 'political engagement in music is
a luxury.

Andrew Hill (1937-2007) Piano
He started playing the piano in the 50s and even studied with the composer Paul
Hindemith from 1950 to 1952. As a teenager he already played with Charlie Parker,
Miles Davis and Johnny Griffin in the clubs in Chicago. In 1961 he moved to New
York where he played in the band of Dinah Washington. In New York he records for
Blue Note with many bop and free jazz musicians such as Joe Henderson, Eric
Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw and many others. He is also known as a
composer. Typical in his compositions are silences and changing time signatures.
Albums of his are Point of Departure from 1964 with Eric Dolphy and Tony
Williams and Dance With The Dead from 1968with Joe Joe Farrell and Billy Higgins.


Sun Ra [Herman Blount] (1915-1993) piano, organ, synthesizers

Keyboard player and bandleader Sun Ra stand somewhat apart. He began his career
as a stride pianist and played in the 40s in the orchestra of Fletcher Henderson. In the
50 he began to play on a homemade electric piano. He also at a very early stage
familiar with the Wurlitzer electric piano, Wurlitzer organ and Moog synthesizer. His
band, the Myth-Science Arkestra, is at the end of the 50s important in the avant-
garde in Chicago. In 1960 he settled in New York and became a cult figure. He and
-"
his musicians a very close bond, they even live together in a commune. As in the
Ellington orchestra, many musicians such as saxophonists John Gimore and Marshall
Allen, stayed for a very long period in the orchestra. Sun Ra composed in very
different styles: African inspired, modal, collective improvisation in free jazz style
and contemporary classical music. He makes extensive use of percussion instruments
and the musicians of the big band play often alongside their main instrument also
percussion. His music is supported by a cosmic and mystical philosophy and the band
puts on a theatrical spectacle with many, costumes, dancers and lighting effects. He
usually leads a kind of big band with SF-like names such as: Solar Arkestra, Science
Arkestra, Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra, Outer Space Arkestra and Omni Fresh Ultra
21st Century Arkestra.

Paul Bley (b. 1932) Piano

A prominent figure in free jazz is the pianist Paul Bley. He is a white Canadian,
with German-Jewish parents and a Zenboeddhist. His music is rather intuitive and
based on melodic associations rathert hen on chord progressions. His way of playing
is meditative and introverted. He studied composition and conducting in New York at
the Juilliard School of Music. In California he led a band with Ornette Coleman and
Don Cherry as a sideman and a trio with Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins. From 1959
to 1962 he returned to New York and worked with Charles Mingus, George Russell,
the trio of Jimmy Giuffre, Sonny Rollins and the Jazz Composer's Guild. From 1957
to 1966 he was married to Carla Bley from whom he still performs many
compositions, after that he was married and worked with pianist Annette Peacock
from whom he also always continued to interpret the compositions. Nowadays he
often plays in a trio with Steve Swallow and Paul Motian.

Jimmy Giuffre (b. 1921) saxophone, clarinet, flute

Jimmy Giuffre is best known for his composition for Four Brothers for Woody
Herman's orchestra in 1947. He was part of the orchestras of Jimmy Dorsey and
Woody Herman and later played a role in the development of cool jazz and west coast
jazz. At the end of the 50s he wanted to break free of the traditional and rhythmic
framework. Already in 1954 he went into the direction of free with trumpeter Shorty
Rogers and drummer Shelly Manne. In that sense he is regarded as a pioneer in the
development towards free jazz in the second half of the 50s. In the early '60s, he
records some free jazz albums with his trio with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow. These
sound very modern and the atonal concept works perfectly within the aesthetic of
ECM. Through his work as a lecturer at the New England Conservatory he didnt
showed himself in recent years so often on stage.

Steve Lacy (1934-2004) soprano

In the early 50 he played Dixieland, swing and mainstream in New York, hereby
strongly influenced by another great soprano sax player: Sidney Bechet. From 1955 to
1957 he played in Cecil Taylor's quartet when it started with radical innovations. He
--
worked regularly with Gil Evans since 1957 and played from 1960 to 1963 in Monk's
quartet. The rest of his life he continued playing Monks work regularly.

8. The second generation

At the end of the '60s, a second generation of free musicians who emphasize less
the original anarchism and political consciousness is and pay more attention to the
form. It is called free-classiscime. These are mainly the musician around AACM.


Art Ensemble of Chicago

This group emerged from the AACM in 1968 and was originally called Roscoe
Mitchell Arts Ensemble with Roscoe Mitchell on saxophones, Lester Bowie on
trumpet, Malachi Favors on bass and Philip Wilson, who was later replaced by Don
Moye on drums. From 1969 they call themselves Art Ensemble of Chicago and
Joseph Jarman who plays a variety of instruments including saxophone, clarinet, flute,
oboe and bassoon joins the band. They settled in Paris in 1969 because of lack of
interest in the United States, in the words of bassist Malachi Favors:

"In Europe, the public is better informed than in America, where the music
comes from. The children do not even know who Charlie Parker is. The audience is
not to blame. It is because of the media who keep the the music away from the people
and guide them so they have no taste of their own."

Anthony Braxton (b. 1945), alto saxophone and bass clarinet.

Braxton is a classical trained musician him and his concept of playing and
composing is often criticized as too academic. His compositions are often notated as
geometric figures or abstract diagrams. He was initially influenced by Lee Konitz and
Warne Marsh and later by Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. We also find the
influence of composers like Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Karlheinz Stockhausen
and Edgar Varse.

World Saxophone Quartet

The World Saxophone Quartet was founded in 1976 by tenor saxophonist David
Murray and three members of the "Black Artist Group of St. Louis": alto saxophonists
Oliver Lake and Julius Hemphill and baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett. Their style
is very original with influences of the melodies and rhythms of the blues-oriented
African-American popular music and influences of Ornette Coleman and Albert
Ayler. They mix free jazz and composed music .
-.



9. Free jazz in Europe

Also in Europe there were musicians who worked in the free jazz idom. In
Scandinavia there is the saxophonist John Tchicai from Copenhagen who lived for a
while in New York in the '60s and recorded with John Coltrane and Albert Ayler. In
Belgium this is especially the pianist Fred Van Hove. In Germany there is pianist
Joachim Kuhn, saxophonist Peter Brtzmann, the bassist Peter Kowald and
trombonist Albert Mangelsdorf. In England we have the guitarist Derek Bailey who
wrote the book Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music, in which explains his
theories, the drummer Tony Oxley and saxophonist Evan Parker. The Netherlands
also had a strong free scene since the '70s free with the pianist Misha Mengelberg
who often plays with the drummer Han Bennink, both also played with Eric Dolphy,
saxophonist Willem Breuker and bassist Maarten Altena. Typical of the European
free jazz approach is the emphasis on the improvisational character of the music and
less on the jazz tradition.



10. Closing remark

During the 60s, there were besides the 'pure' free musicians also people who were
in their way of playing influenced by the free like Sonny Rollins, or musicians who in
their evolution had a free period such as Keith Jarrett and Tony Williams, or came as
a sideman into contact with free like Scott LaFaro and Freddie Hubbard or who
develop an idiom that is strongly leaning against free or was influenced by free such
as Charles Mingus and Miles Davis.

Despite the fact that free jazz has never excited a large audience up to this date
some jazz musicians continue to work within this idiom and rom the 60s on more and
more jazz musicians use in their work and influences from free and from the 70s
playing 'outside' playing a normal practice.




-2
SOUL JAZZ
In the '60s arises a soul-jazz craze. It develops from the funky hard bop style of the
'50s. It emphasizes on strong and repetitive grooves and catchy melodies. The
improvisations are less complex than in other jazz styles. Typical of the genre are
small groups with a keyboard player, preferably a Hammond organ, as the central
figure. Major players in the Hammond soul jazz tradition are Jack McDuff, Jimmy
McGriff, Donald Patterson, Jimmy Smith, Les McCann and Johnny Hammond Smith.
Important tenor saxophonists are Gene Ammons, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Eddie
Harris and Stanley Turrentine. We also mention on alto Lou Donaldson and
Cannonball Adderley.









-3
BOSSA NOVA


Bossa nova, that we can translate as new wave, was created at the end of the 50 as
a synthesis of the basic rhythm of Brazilian samba and cool jazz. This music started in
the richer neighborhoods Copacabana and Ipanema, the beaches in Rio de Janeiro.
Musicians came from this environment and the marketing aimed at that population. A
frequently heard criticism of this music is that the happy life, free of worries,
described in the lyrics had little to do with the daily reality of most Brazilians.
Typical instruments are the acoustic guitar and piano. The complex harmony, Latin
American inspired rhythm, lyrical melodies with syncopation sung in English or
Portuguese. Trendsetters were the lyricist Vinicius de Moraes, the pianists Carlos
Jobim and Sergio Mendes and guitarists Luiz Bonfa, composer of the film Orfeo
Negro, Baden Powell, Bola Sete and Joao Gilberto, former husband of singer Astrud
Gilberto. More and more, the bossa nova integrated into the North American music
scene, especially after Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz in 1962 had a great commercial
success with their LP Jazz Samba in 1962. The Brazillaanse pianist Sergio Mendes
received prolonged popularity with its various groups. Young Brazilian artists had
meanwhile become aware of the fact that the musical form created in their country
was entirely in the hands of the American music industry and after the military coup
in 1964, the bossa nova became more a protest song of an oppressed people and got
the bossa nova thus a more nationalist character.