How are you?
Following the last week, I am going to
start my 54th lecture.
I had conducted music lectures at Art
Collage JANG in Seoul, South Korea every Saturday from March 2015 to December
2017.
I am going to introduce the lecture by
the lecture’s order every Saturday.
The 10th theme of “The history of Jazz”
I will introduce this week is “Free Jazz”. It is a summary of the contents of
“54th ACJ Music Academy, The history of Jazz: 10. Free Jazz”, which was
introduced on July 9, 2016.
“Free Jazz” is an approach of jazz music that occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and attempted to change, expand, or destroy existing jazz frames by excluding fixed chord changes or tempos of existing music. Free jazz, also called avant-garde jazz, began with complaints from the limitations of the existing jazz genres of the bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz.
Free jazz is strongly associated with the innovative works of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor and the work of the saxophonist John Coltrane.
The ‘abnormal leap and silence of sound’, ‘disorder of progress’, ‘mixing of scales’ and ‘cacophony’ that we can encounter in Free Jazz became the features of the music in the mid-1960s.
Realistically, Free Jazz started with the album of Ornette Coleman, who pioneered many techniques of Free Jazz while refusing pre-written chord changes and preferring freely improvised melody lines. Coleman's notable albums include <Something Else> in 1958 and <Tomorrow Is the Question!>in 1959.
Ornette Coleman
Along with Coleman, pianist Cecil Taylor is also an important figure in Free Jazz. Taylor, who majored in classical music, was most influenced by Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver. The most important concept in his performance, which started with Bebop in early 1956, is that the piano was used as a kind of “percussion instrument” rather than a melody instrument. Taylor jumped over the common sense of ‘left-hand chords, right-hand melodies’ and it is almost impossible to find any rules or formal forms in his performance. Taylor's notable form of free jazz can be heard in the album <Unit Structures>, released in 1966.
Along with Coleman, pianist Cecil Taylor is also an important figure in Free Jazz. Taylor, who majored in classical music, was most influenced by Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver. The most important concept in his performance, which started with Bebop in early 1956, is that the piano was used as a kind of “percussion instrument” rather than a melody instrument. Taylor jumped over the common sense of ‘left-hand chords, right-hand melodies’ and it is almost impossible to find any rules or formal forms in his performance. Taylor's notable form of free jazz can be heard in the album <Unit Structures>, released in 1966.
Cecil Taylor
Along with Taylor and Coleman, Albert Ayler is also an essential composer and performer in the early days of Free Jazz. He began his musical career as a Bebop tenor saxophonist, but he collaborated with notable free jazz musicians, including Cecil Taylor, in 1962, and is a figure who showed an example that Free Jazz can be interpreted in various ways. Ayler's most important Free Jazz album is <Spiritual Unity>, released in 1965, which includes his most famous song, “Ghosts.”
Albert Ayler
Coleman, Taylor and Ayler's works have solidly built the Free Jazz sector, but most Americans have responded little to this style of jazz approach. However, it attracted jazz artists who were ahead of the same age such as John Coltrane, who was a supporter of Coleman's improvisation and innovative harmony approach. Coltrane's 1966 album <Ascension> is an album that expresses his gratitude for the new wave of Free Jazz.
John Coltrane
It's been over half a century since Free Jazz started, and many musicians have shed light and disappeared in this field. In the midst of this, the wave of fusion has narrowed the field of Free Jazz as a result, but musical experiments and researches by Free Jazz musicians are still ongoing.
You can also review this lecture from following media.
Next week, I will introduce you “Fusion
Jazz” as the 11th and last theme of “The history of Jazz” lectures.
Thank you.
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