1 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 music theoriticus 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.

2 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

3 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 regular. 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

4 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

5 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.

6 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.

7 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

8 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

9 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

10 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

11 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.

12 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:

13 "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.

14 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

15 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

16 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

17 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

18 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.

19 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

20 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

21 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

22 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 .

23 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.

24 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.

25 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.