Free jazz

Free jazz is a movement of jazz music characterized by diminished dependence on formal constraints. Developed in the 1950s and 1960s, it was pioneered by artists such as Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Bill Dixon and Paul Bley. Some of the best known examples are the later works of John Coltrane.

Racial/social aspect

The emergence of free jazz, like previous developments in jazz, was largely tied to the African-American experience. Just as the development of bebop was a reaction against popular swing music, free jazz emerged to counter the growing white interest in finger-popping soul jazz and other music of the 1950s. This idea can be seen in the approaches of the musicians themselves, as in Ornette Coleman's This is Our Music (1960). Both these developments, bebop in 1940 and free jazz in 1960, reveal directions that were more intellectual, less danceable, and less marketable to white audiences. The two major innovations in free jazz - the increasing freedom from harmony and regular time - were seen by some as parallel to the 1960's Black Power movement and demands for total emancipation, which made it all the more potentially off-putting to mainstream listeners. Groups like the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the flagship group of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), and Sun Ra made Black identity an integral part of their public personae as musicians, more visibly than previous generations of jazz musicians. This is not to say that the music was racially segregated; white bassist Charlie Haden was a member of Ornette Coleman's influential quartet from the very beginning, and free jazz's principles were quickly assimilated into musical developments in all corners of global society.

Related Topics:
African-American - Bebop - Swing music - Soul jazz - 1950s - Ornette Coleman - Black Power - Art Ensemble of Chicago - AACM - Sun Ra - White - Charlie Haden

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~