Free Jazz I need an explanation

[Muad’Dib]

I have a hard time understanding Free Jazz or fusion Jazz. Smooth Jazz and early Jazz from the 1900"s- through the early 1930"s I get. But I have a hard time with Jazz from John Coltrane or Chick Corea, or even Miles Davis and Theloneous Monk.

[SteinwayB]

It's an acquired taste. I hated it in high school but in college I gradually learn to love it and the more avant-garde the better. It's basically a gradual relaxing of rules of Harmony, Melody and even rhythm. To me listening to Archie shepp or John Coltrane scream on their horns is pure raw emotion and for me the highest form of music. Having said that, it's not something you have playing in the background when friends and family are visiting!

[Muad’Dib]

That"s what I thought?

[Baldwin Funster]

Defintion: FreeJazz

Whenever I hit 3 bad clams in a row.

[Sospiri]

Real avant garde (free) can be really enjoyable and a challenge from the players' point of view, especially when you're working with at least one outstanding player. But for a listening audience not so much because they are not really so much part of the process. From the listener's point of view it requires a lot of concentration to get much out it.

[KuruPrionz]

My brother introduced me to Jazz when I was in my teens. He was exploring everything and anything but favorites were Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Mingus Pharaoh Sanders, etc. I didn't understand it technically but I loved some of and still do - Bitches Brew is easily the most influential and important album made in the 1970s.

 

I was in 2 bands in Fresno that were not Jazz by any definition but we adhered to concepts that made it possible to explore new musical worlds. In Las Vegas On Mars, we never discussed anything regarding what we were about to play. We would just start in and go. Our two unspoken rules were:

1. If something starts to gel and feel predictable, somebody needs to "break" the music and force it to go somewhere else. That in turn would be broken. Our singer just made stuff up on the spot, you might look over and realize that he was lying on the floor with the tuba pulled over his head, singing away.

2. After each "piece", we would all switch to different instruments. This often prevented us from being comfortable with what we were trying to do and led to different music.

 

In the Vortexans (the original Vortexans, not the band that came years later), we also never discussed key, tempo, style, time or any such nonsense. We had dedicated members, electronic drums, vocals, guitar and bass. I played bass. Both the guitar and the bass had been modified by yours truly by installing a nut that was an acoustic guitar pickup. We would run both pickups on guitar and bass, using quite a bit of tapping techniques - the nut pickup would play the note from the nut to the fret below the fret being played by the standard pickup. The guitarist called it the Logarithm Inverse of the intended note but it wasn't, that would be if you could somehow tap in between the same fret. I called them "The Notes That Are Wrong" because that is what they were. Add in stackable polyphonic pitch shifters, delay loops with variable time/pitch and other effects and we created quite a sound.

We played gigs at Cal Arts in Valencia, an Art Warehouse in SF and a couple of shows in Fresno. Nobody knew what to do with us, which was fun.

 

None of this blatherspew will help you understand free jazz in the slightest. If the intention of free jazz was to be universally understood, they would have played differently. But, they didn't.

Try a few things, if one appeals listen to it often and then branch out. There doesn't need to be a reason to like it, if you like it you do.

 

There will always be musicians who seek new forms of expression and there will always be listeners who wish they wouldn't.

[harmonizer]

Some of the artists you listed played some very different styles of jazz during their careers. I consider the Miles Davis album "Kind of Blue" to be the "Huckleberry Finn" of jazz music: you can listen to "Kind of Blue" and not know anything about jazz and enjoy it as pleasant sounding music. The more you know about jazz, the more you can appreciate it as great jazz music. So you can enjoy it whether you only know a little or a lot about jazz. As an aside, Coltrane's solo on the song "Blue in Green" of this album is a perfect ballad solo.

 

My suggestion for highly listenable jazz fusion, which I also consider to be great art, is Weather Report's "Heavy Weather". There is an incredible economy in many of the melodic lines. Wayne Shorter - OMG!

 

Some jazz albums are not as easy to reach for those less familiar with jazz styles. There can be a spectrum of how far away from conventional melodies certain jazz music might go, and still be enjoyed by different people. Getting back to Coltrane, I consider Coltrane's album "My Favorite Things" (recorded in 1960) as a point of departure. I absolutely love it - it is probably my favorite Coltrane album. He starts to get far out, particular on songs 3 and 4. For me I can still tell where his "far out" on this album comes from, and I love it. It builds on his "Sheets of sound" technique he used in his more conventional predecessor album Giant Steps (recorded 1959). I don't enjoy Coltrane's later work from a few years later. I don't know enough to judge them - I just don't get them. Others might find "My Favorite Things" to be too far out. Different tastes for different folks.

[Docbop]

Your ear have to grow into it like they do from nursery rhymes to Pop, to Rock and so on. I think it was Ruslan Sirota or maybe Greg Spero talking about free progressive forms of Jazz and not getting it. But all the best musicians he knew or was a fan of were into it. So he just kept listening to it everyday weeks. months later he was listening and suddenly he understood it and got into it. Rick Beato in talks about his son Dylan who has the amazing perfect pitch. Rick says from time Dylan was conceived they played all sorts of advantage music to Dylan everyday and continued after he was born. So complex music was just normal everyday music to Dylan. So it's about growing your ears.

 

Our ears are hipper than we are in music school they talked about this, how our ears can hear stuff and instantly understand advanced harmony, sequences, patterns, intervals and so on. Movie soundtracks are perfect example of hearing really advanced harmonic concepts and orchestrions our ear instantly recognize what happen and we accept it. If you listened to the same music on it's own your ears are saying we get it even though your brain would start saying it doesn't get it. It's all about just being open and giving the brain time to understand what the ears are tell it.

[MAJUSCULE]

Our ears are hipper than we are

 

Yes.

[Tusker]

Yes, it"s a personal journey. There is still a lot of stuff I don"t catch. Each layer of jazz language was built up on the previous vocabulary. It developed rapidly so we think of it as one language, but I think some of the earliest practitioners might have difficulty enjoying the later ones.

[David Emm]

Free jazz occurs when some white boy screws his face up and says "Whut's THAT?" I know because it took me 3 years to get a WTF? handle on Sun Ra.

[David R]

Maybe this will sound pedantic â I don't intend it to. What does the OP feel like you need to "understand"? Or rather, what do you think is the difference between swing/early jazz/smooth jazz and the wide variety of jazz you don't understand? What other music do you like? And why do you feel like you *should* *understand* jazz?

 

Jazz resonated with me well before I *understood* what was going on. I remember having a huge revelation with Medeski Martin & Wood's Tonic (their more free, acoustic side of their work), where I could hear how Medeski's piano and Wood's bass were dialoguing with each other, and that Billy Martin was responding to one or the other or both. After years of listening to all different types of music, it finally clicked in my ears.

 

There's a lot of music I don't resonate with. Even when I understand what's going on musically, it just doesn't do anything for me on an emotional level. For me, cookie monster vocals are a massive roadblock â I respect bands like Meshuggah for their rhythmic complexity and virtuosity but I just can't get there.

[Muad’Dib]

Maybe this will sound pedantic â I don't intend it to. What does the OP feel like you need to "understand"? Or rather, what do you think is the difference between swing/early jazz/smooth jazz and the wide variety of jazz you don't understand? What other music do you like? And why do you feel like you *should* *understand* jazz?

 

Jazz resonated with me well before I *understood* what was going on. I remember having a huge revelation with Medeski Martin & Wood's Tonic (their more free, acoustic side of their work), where I could hear how Medeski's piano and Wood's bass were dialoguing with each other, and that Billy Martin was responding to one or the other or both. After years of listening to all different types of music, it finally clicked in my ears.

 

There's a lot of music I don't resonate with. Even when I understand what's going on musically, it just doesn't do anything for me on an emotional level. For me, cookie monster vocals are a massive roadblock â I respect bands like Meshuggah for their rhythmic complexity and virtuosity but I just can't get there.

 

 

Melody, harmony , rhythm? Not just hitting random notes?

[CEB]

Free, screw that. I get paid to play.

[Muad’Dib]

Free, screw that. I get paid to play.

 

Your a riot! ð

[KuruPrionz]

Maybe this will sound pedantic â I don't intend it to. What does the OP feel like you need to "understand"? Or rather, what do you think is the difference between swing/early jazz/smooth jazz and the wide variety of jazz you don't understand? What other music do you like? And why do you feel like you *should* *understand* jazz?

 

Jazz resonated with me well before I *understood* what was going on. I remember having a huge revelation with Medeski Martin & Wood's Tonic (their more free, acoustic side of their work), where I could hear how Medeski's piano and Wood's bass were dialoguing with each other, and that Billy Martin was responding to one or the other or both. After years of listening to all different types of music, it finally clicked in my ears.

 

There's a lot of music I don't resonate with. Even when I understand what's going on musically, it just doesn't do anything for me on an emotional level. For me, cookie monster vocals are a massive roadblock â I respect bands like Meshuggah for their rhythmic complexity and virtuosity but I just can't get there.

 

 

Melody, harmony , rhythm? Not just hitting random notes?

 

If you keep listening you will begin to realize that somebody like John Coltrane or Miles Davis was not "just hitting random notes."

They are playing the notes they are feeling, it is very intentional or possibly instinctive since at a certain point if we are lucky music flows through us and out into the world.

 

Sun Ra was mentioned above, my brother saw him play in Boston with his Arkestra. He said records do not do it justice at all, it is a total performance that needs to be seen, heard and felt.

Try Eric Dolphy, he left us too soon but his style may be more approachable and the sound of a bass clarinet is more soothing than some saxophone or trumpet sounds.

 

Weather Report is good stuff, so is Return To Forever.

[Al Quinn]

It could be that you just don"t like it. I don"t like opera but so many others do. That"s the nature of art/ music: it"s in the eye/ear of the beholder. I know excellent rock and blues musicians that don"t like jazz. They say it doesn"t make sense to them.

[Baldwin Funster]

You dont like opera? Oh my...what kind of a monster are you? Next you will say you dont like scottish bagpipe music. Or Yoko ono....

[Sospiri]

If you've ever done military service then you will know that you can't beat marching to a pipe band. If you've ever listened to British drummer Tony Oxley, (and even Bill Evans offered him the drumseat but he felt he didn't want to be on the road for 10 months), you will have heard an ex-pipe band drummer. Excellent.

Opera is just the classical music version of a musical, such as Oklahoma, but if you don't like either, don't worry about it - plenty do like it.

Yoko Ono - pass, I've never listened to her, should I have done?

[Muad’Dib]

It could be that you just don"t like it. I don"t like opera but so many others do. That"s the nature of art/ music: it"s in the eye/ear of the beholder. I know excellent rock and blues musicians that don"t like jazz. They say it doesn"t make sense to them.

 

True! Although. There are some opera pieces that I like. The Queen of the night Aria from The Magic Flute. Or Habanera from Carmen.

[Legatoboy]

the older straight be-bopers hated it...making the time and time itself is 'the thing' in bop . but I do like free in sections inside of more traditional arrangements or frameworks .Sort of how FZ used it (he added voices to it of course and only as a simple example reference, don't have any other in hand right now).. but listening to free all day straight ahead, nada for me...I have given it a chance and took some time with it though and listened hard to Coleman and Cherry on their WKCR with Phil Shappe when they have Coleman and Cherry's birthday broadcasts...it can get interesting w/o a doubt.. those guys would actually get beat up at times for playing like that on the road at gigs.when they started out.. hard to believe but true.

[analogika]

I have a hard time understanding Free Jazz or fusion Jazz. Smooth Jazz and early Jazz from the 1900"s- through the early 1930"s I get. But I have a hard time with Jazz from John Coltrane or Chick Corea, or even Miles Davis and Theloneous Monk.

Coltrane/Corea/Davis/Monk, Free Jazz, and Fusion Jazz are wildly different things.

 

Bebop is not Free Jazz, and Fusion Jazz is a whole different thing again (leaving aside that by some definitions, "Fusion" is the overarching term for any melding of influences such as in Jazz-rock, or jazz-funk, or Indian-influenced jazz, while I've also heard it applied to mean exclusively the smooth, almost "elevator music" of Bob James or Earl Klugh (not at all knocking the virtuosity or the quality of these guys â it's merely a stylistic descriptor, the "vibe", so to speak).

[Muad’Dib]

I have a hard time understanding Free Jazz or fusion Jazz. Smooth Jazz and early Jazz from the 1900"s- through the early 1930"s I get. But I have a hard time with Jazz from John Coltrane or Chick Corea, or even Miles Davis and Theloneous Monk.

Coltrane/Corea/Davis/Monk, Free Jazz, and Fusion Jazz are wildly different things.

 

Bebop is not Free Jazz, and Fusion Jazz is a whole different thing again (leaving aside that by some definitions, "Fusion" is the overarching term for any melding of influences such as in Jazz-rock, or jazz-funk, or Indian-influenced jazz, while I've also heard it applied to mean exclusively the smooth, almost "elevator music" of Bob James or Earl Klugh (not at all knocking the virtuosity or the quality of these guys â it's merely a stylistic descriptor, the "vibe", so to speak).

 

 

Or maybe, I have no feelings, and can"t feel anything, because of my cold 𥶠black heart ð¤

[analogika]

We're all just pretending.

 

I mean, that's why we practise, right?

[Muad’Dib]

We're all just pretending.

 

I mean, that's why we practise, right?

 

 

For you Yes! For me not so much! I"m more inclined to be on my iPad or iPhone.

[HSS]

"Jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny.' - Frank Zappa

 

In all seriousness, just like any other genre of music, there's free jazz I like and free jazz I dislike. IMHO music doesn't require an "explanation". If it feels good, go with it. Who knows, there might even be some Tuvan throat-singing tunes I might like if I took the time to explore that genre.

 

I went to an Ornette Coleman "free jazz" show in St. Louis in about 1980. I was mainly a rock drummer at the time and I remember digging the show because some of the tunes had a really funky vibe with a drummer and percussionist who were turned loose and played their azzzes off.

 

WRG to fusion jazz, (e.g. Mahavishnu, Return to Forever, Weather Report, etc.), which is IMO is very different from "free jazz", I am a huge fan.

[Muad’Dib]

I guess we can interpret Jazz, how we want?

[Adan]

Discussions about free jazz sometimes bring to mind the conversations you overhear in museums while standing near a Jackson Pollock. "I don't get it . . . I could go home and do that right now!" No, actually, you can't.

[allan_evett]

I guess we can interpret Jazz, how we want?

 

 

It's quite a wide frontier, and I often feel that I'm still hanging in one of Jazz's border towns.

[KuruPrionz]

I guess we can interpret Jazz, how we want?

 

Same with flavors of ice cream, other humans and various aromas.