Playing the saxophone Avante-guard or Free Jazz

[Nick Wyver]

This was probably the first free jazz record I bought. Early 70s - from Dobells.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7aTTQPMn_c

It's got hummable stuff.
But mostly, at the time, I was listening and seeing the British lot, particularly anyone associated with Elton Dean. His first solo album (nowadays credited to his band Just Us) is still a favourite.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DFbSABaeYw

Here's the front line of Just Us in Bromley.

Then there was the really free players, such as Evan Parker and Paul Lytton. I don't play this one quite so often.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuHMDWNGemI

 

[wakyct]

This was a favorite of mine as a teenager. As far as I'm concerned this definitely ticks all the boxes of "music" as previously described. And I can definitely sing the melodies and tap some rhythms. Incredible sax sound as well, you have to give him that!

This record is kind of blowing my mind right now, thanks so much for posting it. Eskelin has had an interesting career as well from the little I've read about it today.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Does it get much better than this?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYDiYTRjdV0

 

[wakyct]

I'm loving all these tracks being posted (to be clear -- that they're posted, I don't like every one of them! 😉 ). By the way, these are the words of one of the players @john_dikeman suggested:

But I'm more and more compelled by the idea of free improvisation not being a style at all, but simply a means to incorporate any and all kinds of musical information into a spontaneous presentation. Not free "from" anything but free "to" do anything. Not a form of avoidance (of form, melody, lyricism or groove as is often the case) but an opportunity to unite everything.

 

[john_dikeman]

I'm loving all these tracks being posted (to be clear -- that they're posted, I don't like every one of them! 😉 ). By the way, these are the words of one of the players @john_dikeman suggested:

That's a great point and something I was discussing with people in another thread somewhere else... People were trying to make the argument that free jazz couldn't include composition. Aside from the fact all the historic, early free jazz did, even the album "free jazz" had a basic composition, "free jazz" just means freedom to choice your own parameters. Yeah ... Ellery said it perfectly.

 

[PiccoloPirate]

G Man gone wild? 😵

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0ZAKqgUjyg

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03_tIhryHrY

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjdb243RuWA

Improvisations for the End of Time, by Gruntfest and Gilman-Opalsky

24 track album

gruntfestandgilman-opalsky.bandcamp.com

THE RAVEN FREE ORCHESTRA || John Gruntfest || Alameda, California

Information about John Gruntfest's Raven Free Orchestra performance, San Francisco, CA.

www.ravenfreeorchestra.com

avant-garde - Google Search

 

[Pete Thomas]

People were trying to make the argument that free jazz couldn't include composition.

"free jazz" just means freedom to choice your own parameters. Yeah ... Ellery said it perfectly.

I well remember on one gig playing free music, one player just happened to play an ascending chromatic four note phrase and the entire band just spontaneously went into a chorus of Chattanooga Choo Choo. There you go - free to choose your parameters.

Another time I remember a free music gig in London. Afterwards the drummer chastised the saxophone player for playing couple of Charlie Parker licks at one stage. Obviously not free to do that. This was in the 70s when free jazz was quite popular, the trumpet player Henry Lowther joked "I'm only doing this stuff for the money."

 

[Nick Wyver]

This was in the 70s when free jazz was quite popular, the trumpet player Henry Lowther joked "I'm only doing this stuff for the money."

Ha! When I was helping run a jazz club in the early 70s the only jazzers that would play for the peanuts we were offering were the free ones. The more 'traditional' ones (not trad) wanted too much money. Ian Carr springs to mind, for some reason. 🙂