[Dixielandjazz] Free Form Music

[Ken Mathieson]

Hi Folks,

I was once asked by BBC to contribute a review to an Arts radio programme of a gallery exhibition featuring a movie of free-form jazz by a group led by trombonist (not clarinettist) George Lewis. The experience in the gallery was interesting: The film of the band performance had been shot from both behind and in front and the two films were projected simultaneously on to opposite sides of a screen which was suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the space. The viewers could walk round the screen and see the front and rear views while listening to the soundtrack.

The music was also pretty interesting: There was no thematic material and solos and ensembles were completely random with little or no melodic or harmonic reference. Pieces just began randomly and development, while organic, was entirely unstructured. I like to listen to music of all kinds, but I found it pretty boring. There appeared to be only two tempos: becalmed and frantic 300mph. The most interesting thing for me were the drum solos. here was a guy playing a percussion instrument with non-specific pitches and he was the only one to play melodically. Overall I was unimpressed by the music and felt that, in the pursuit of musical freedom, the horn players and bassist had painted themselves into a corner where melody, harmony and rhythm didn't exist in any coherent or sustained way. The drummer seemed to be the only player with coherent musical ideas.

I have to say that the music in the film was much less accessible and structured than the music of the early Ornette Coleman, which I liked when it first came on the scene. It struck me back then that Ornette's music had similarities to New Orleans jazz, with its cheerful, if unpredictable, themes, its collective improvisation, its jaunty rhythms (thanks to Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell for that) and above all for its joyous optimism. Maybe, as an arranger I'm biased, but I find well-structured music more satisfying than anything else. In jazz, it's not just the great arrangers who define these structures; the great soloists throughout jazz history have all had a highly developed and often intuitive sense of structure which was deployed in building solos. On the other hand, the wilful denial of structure in most "free-form" jazz seems pointless and self-defeating.

Cheers,

Ken