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Free jazz, or free form in the early to mid-1970s, [1] is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during this period believed that ...
- Ornette Coleman
- Eric Dolphy
- John Coltrane
- Alice Coltrane
- Cecil Taylor
- Albert Ayler
- Sun Ra
- Anthony Braxton
- Archie Shepp
- Peter Brötzmann
Regarded as one of the founders of free jazz, saxophonist Ornette Coleman possessed a unique improvisational voice. His quartet’s arrival in New York, with a much-discussed residency at the Five Spot, was hugely controversial, and the band’s sound was unlike any that had come before it. The quartet would play one of Ornette’s memorable themes as th...
A multi-instrumentalist, Dolphy is best known as an alto saxophonist, and for being one of the first musicians to play the bass clarinet in a jazz setting. He also played flute and, less frequently, clarinet & piccolo. Initially rooted in bebop (there exists a private recording of him practising with the great trumpeter Clifford Brown) Dolphy becam...
A musician who needs little introduction, Coltrane’s distinctive tenor saxophone soundwas heard in a range of stylistic settings through the 1950s and ’60s, both as a bandleader and as a sideman. The hard bop of the First Great Miles Davis Quintet and his own Blue Train was followed by the new modal approach of Milestones and Kind of Blue and then ...
Born Alice McLeod in Detroit, Michigan, she worked as a jazz pianist in various straight-ahead and swinging settings, including with Lucky Thompson, Kenny Clarke and the vibraphonist Terry Gibbs’ quartet. After she met John Coltrane the pair’s lives and music became more overtly spiritual, and she replaced McCoy Tyneras the pianist in John’s band i...
Another major pioneer of American free jazz, Cecil Taylor was noted for his radical, percussive piano playing and, like Ornette Coleman, was playing highly experimental forms of jazz as early as the late 1950s in New York. Classically trained, he displayed the influence of modern European composers including Bela Bartók and Karlheinz Stockhausen. T...
After initially playing R&B, Albert Ayler’s 1960s free jazz recordings prioritise pure, raw expression. His tenor saxophone sound is like no one else’s: honking, otherworldly and primal. He was initially mentored by John Coltrane, making overtly spiritual music and turning to Coltrane for financial help when he was destitute, but the older saxophon...
Sun Ra’s highly idiosyncratic music draws on the whole history of jazz – from ragtime, the sounds of New Orleans, bebop, modal jazz, jazz fusion and free jazz – to create a cosmic sound world that was enhanced by his highly theatrical live performances. Born Herman Poole Blount, he adopted the name Le Sony’r Ra, which was later shortened to Sun Ra....
One of many notable musicians to emerge from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), the Chicago-based advocacy & education group, saxophonist Anthony Braxton would go on to win a ‘ Genius Grant ‘ from the MacArthur Foundation (1994) and be named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master (2004). His huge discography ra...
Tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp burst onto the nascent Avant-garde jazz scene in 1960s New York with appearances in high profile bands led by Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane. Along with fellow tenor player Pharoah Sanders, he was at the forefront of a movement that took influence from various African cultures and traditions. He has been involved in t...
The German saxophonist and clarinettist Peter Brötzmann was one of the first European musiciansto embrace the new free jazz sounds of the mid-1960s, as American pioneers of the form found that they received a warmer response when touring in Europe than in the United States. Brötzmann’s brutal tenor sound is primarily inspired by Albert Ayler and, h...
Jan 22, 2024 · Ornette Coleman is widely regarded as one of the key pioneers of Free Jazz. Born in 1930 in Fort Worth, Texas, Coleman challenged the traditional conventions of jazz by introducing a new approach to improvisation and composition. One of Coleman’s notable contributions to Free Jazz was his innovative use of “harmolodic” theory.
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) [1] was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. His pioneering works often abandoned the harmony -based composition ...
jazz. free jazz, an approach to jazz improvisation that emerged during the late 1950s, reached its height in the ’60s, and remained a major development in jazz thereafter. The main characteristic of free jazz is that there are no rules. Musicians do not adhere to a fixed harmonic structure (predetermined chord progressions) as they improvise ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Apr 30, 2024 · Free jazz was a much misunderstood – and even maligned – genre when it emerged in the late 50s, but it resulted in some of the finest modern jazz. Back in 1959, Texan alto saxophonist Ornette ...
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Aug 10, 2021 · Free jazz stemmed from a basic principle, one that most musicians (and indeed, most artists) are familiar with: learn the rules—then break them. Like the avant-garde movement in visual arts, free jazz was an attempt to break from the traditions of jazz and create something entirely new. As jazz musicians became more comfortable with ...
