Most Important Players in Free Improv.

[sonic1]

I am doing some research and so I will be asking some similar questions here soon, starting with this one:

Of all the artists in free improv, who do you believe are the TOP TEN most influential, important ones?

Don't feel limited by any geopolitical constraints, but do keep it to free improv., or music composed in such a manner as to it being lumped with such (like Braxton or Yoshihide). Feel free to elaborate on your choices or totally refute me even asking such a question.

Jared

[Khaled Ahmad]

Charlie Parker is IMO the first free jazz artist. I'd write more about how I feel, but I got to get going here soon!

Of course after that comes, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor. Ornette I believe got the movement started, Coltrane helped popularize it by being the symbol of the movement, and Cecil Taylor (at least to my ears) gave free jazz its "sound." I know that a lot of us that listened to jazz before we heard any free jazz probably associate free jazz with saxaphones, but the average person may associate it with more of the kind of music Cecil was playing with his percussive piano style.

[stonemonkts]

Lennie Tristano
Charles Mingus

[Sergio Zamora]

Jared,

Just to be clear, are you including all forms of free improvisation including free jazz or do you mean specifically what Bailey calls non-idiomatic free improvisation (which is generally what's meant by free improv 'round these parts in casual conversation)?

[Steve Reynolds]

Cecil Taylor
Ornette Coleman
John Coltrane
Sunny Murray
Jimmy Lyons
Evan Parker
John Stevens
Barry Guy
Joe Maneri
Anthony Braxton

tada!

[LeMo]

- Cecil Taylor
- John Coltrane
- Evan Parker
- Peter Brötzmann
- Anthony Braxton
- Roscoe Mitchell
- Alexandre von Schlippenbach
- Sam Rivers
- Derek Bailey
- Milford Graves

[Steve Reynolds]

my list is based on the assumption that the subject matter covers both areas jazz and improv if the reader needs these two to be separate

Not definitive, but adding to the above lists:

Albert Ayler

Hamid Drake

[Dan G]

early (not free improvising) influences :

Coleman
Ayler
Mingus
Dolphy
Coltrane
Monk

next wave (still jazz, but...):

Anthony Braxton
Art Ensemble
Cecil Taylor
Han Bennink
Tony Oxley


efi:

John Stevens
Evan Parker
Peter Brotzmann
Derek Bailey
Barry Guy
Alexander von Schlippenbach
AMM / maybe Keith Rowe more than anyone
Manfred Schoof


They are all hard to place into any category though - Cecil? where does he fit? Bennink and Oxley play anything and everything...

[sonic1]

I am sorry. I should have been more specific. Free Improv is not a great term. Sergio, you are right, I mean of the artists on labels like emanem, improvised music from Japan, erstwhile, etc. I wanted people to be inclusive, but within the non-jazz type music (I know some people consider it jazz).

Also there are several categories and subcategories it would be good to discuss too...

[crawjo]

Originally Posted by Steve Reynolds

Cecil Taylor
Ornette Coleman
John Coltrane
Sunny Murray
Jimmy Lyons
Evan Parker
John Stevens
Barry Guy
Joe Maneri
Anthony Braxton

tada!

Damn. That's almost exactly what I would go with, except maybe I'd take out John Stevens and add in Tony Oxley.

[Dan G]

Originally Posted by sonic1

I am sorry. I should have been more specific. Free Improv is not a great term. Sergio, you are right, I mean of the artists on labels like emanem, improvised music from Japan, erstwhile, etc. I wanted people to be inclusive, but within the non-jazz type music (I know some people consider it jazz).

Also there are several categories and subcategories it would be good to discuss too...

That doesn't make it much clearer, as there is not a lot similarity between Emanem and Erstwhile. Besides John Butcher and Phil Durrant, I don't think there is any overlap in artists (maybe Mark Wastell, I can't remember if he's on bith, but what he is doing will be very different), and I doubt Jon would see much comparison in the musical focus. Though there may be some similar roots, efi and eai aren't that similar. Someone who is important in one area (i.e. Nakamura in eai, or Bailey in efi) might have no influence on the other genre.

[Dan G]

Originally Posted by crawjo

Damn. That's almost exactly what I would go with, except maybe I'd take out John Stevens and add in Tony Oxley.

Crawjo - not picking on your taste, but just curious how familiar you are with Stevens. He really should be on every list about free improv, if not for his playing at least because he was the catalyst behind the British scene, organizing the Spontaneous Music Ensemble for decades (members included Evan Parker, Kent Carter, Peter Kowald, Trevor Watts, Barry Guy, Derek Bailey, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland...). He was a mentor to many young musicians, and many his own age would consider him that also, and would run improvisation workshops for anyone who wanted to attend(and even record them. Check out the tribute article to him by Martin Davidson (of Emanem records) that is on the European Free Improv site for a few more details.

[Richardo Caerleoni]

N.B. John Stevens was also an excellent "straight ahead" drummer when he chose to be, and in that context. As was/is Tony Oxley... One British drummer who wasn't afraid of Dexter Gordon - in fact, the reverse!

[Rob C]

Originally Posted by Dan G

early (not free improvising) influences :
...

next wave (still jazz, but...):
...

efi:
...

They are all hard to place into any category though - Cecil? where does he fit? Bennink and Oxley play anything and everything...

Seems to me that Cecil fits into all three of your categories, at various points in his career?

[sonic1]

Let us consider POST JAZZ music. There will be some crossover and I suggest we tolerate that. Cecil Taylor out of all the above mentioned may just fit into the post jazz world.

Erstwhile and Emanem do have some similarities-depending on the recordings. Certainly some Emanem recordings are more free jazz as opposed to free improv. They both have a lot of post jazz music. I would also include the japanese musicians in this, maybe even some of the japanese noise people-if they were very INFLUENTIAL. Like maybe Keiji Haino but not Scorn. Does that make sense?

Yes, they are very different. But so is Ellington from Ayler. But both are still considered within jazz by most people. I am really looking to get some different names than Ayler, Coleman, etc. We all know they are influential. But what about Keith Rowe? What about Evan Parker? What about Otomo Yoshihide? All VERY important to this current post jazz movement. Those are the sort of names I am looking for.

Let me put it this way, if many people might consider it Jazz, then omit it from your list (like Ayler, Coleman, Taylor, et al).

Jared

[Jesse]

milo fine.

[Steve Reynolds]

the whole eai scene has to be treated separately - as the comonality is only Rowe - and his link to jazz is so distant (in time and musically)

a couple of the people I would think of are Simon H. Fell, Gianluigi Trovesi and maybe the band Lunge with Gail Brand, Phil Durrant, Pat Thomas & Mark Sanders

all for different reasons

I know Jon Abbey thinks that band is old school but I think it combiones jazz and electronics in very unique and new ways

[Jon Abbey]

Originally Posted by sonic1

Erstwhile and Emanem do have some similarities-depending on the recordings.

I understand your general point, but I don't think there's a record on Erstwhile that Martin Davidson would have released (maybe Tom and Gerry, but since neither of them are Brits, doubtful), and there's not an Emanem release that I would have put out, even the few that I like. you're trying to lump together two distinctly different things here. maybe if you gave us your list to start, that would help people.

Dan, besides Butcher and Durrant, Mark W. has been on both labels (open and Angel Gate), and John Tilbury did an Emanem record, that silly three piano thing. Simon Fell has been on both also.

Steve, Fell is amazing, but I don't think he's been very influential, unfortunately.

[Jon Abbey]

Originally Posted by Steve Reynolds

the band Lunge with Gail Brand, Phil Durrant, Pat Thomas & Mark Sanders

I know Jon Abbey thinks that band is old school but I think it combiones jazz and electronics in very unique and new ways

Phil Durrant even thinks Lunge is old school, he tried to warn me off before I saw them play in London last year.

[Paul B]

The recently-departed Mr. Steve Lacy ought to be on any such list. Since I don't see him above, I'll add him. Jimmy Giuffre should also be mentioned....

Bye-ya.

[Dan G]

Originally Posted by Paul B

The recently-departed Mr. Steve Lacy ought to be on any such list. Since I don't see him above, I'll add him. Jimmy Giuffre should also be mentioned....

I'd have a hard time putting Lacy on the list, considering he only did it occassionaly, and later was quite adamant that there was little future in it. I asked him about this the last time I interviewed him, about 2001 or so, because he had just done one of his infrequent gigs with Derek Bailey. He said that he only did it because of Derek, but really had no interest in the whole idea, and didn't see the era when he was part of it as a big part of his career. He was much more into the idea of micro-dissecting compositions to get every possible idea out of them.

[GodSpeliZed]

Toshinori Kondo

[Paul B]

Dan, I only mention Lacy and Giuffre because I see people such as Ornette, Trane and Dolphy on various lists above. Per my comments on the Love Supreme thread, I feel none of these people should be considered free players. But if you're going to have Coltrane on a free improv list, Lacy ought to be there too. He was as great as Coltrane at stretching a minimal amount of information (i.e. a simple head) into an extended improvisation.

Bye-ya.

[sonic1]

Again, the only real limitation I am putting on here is that the music is post-jazz (though some of the artists may have a rooting or history with jazz).

And influential can be liberally applied too-influential to the audience, to the artists, etc.

Jon, I totally understand where you are coming from. But ECM puts out artists that Blue Note won't touch, Impulse! totally different from Palo Alto, Columbia would never put out what Splasc(h). Yet it is all considered "jazz" to some extent. I am trying to lump post-jazz as a music which is contiguous in some way, having in common the departure from jazz, in all its different (some describing influence and roots in jazz, others not, but somehow all post-jazz being that this is instrumental art music).

Maybe I should call this the most important post-jazz instrumental art music list. I was hoping not to get so wordy with this.


My list will be my own weird list but here it is. Feel free to have your list be as inclusive or exclusive as you feel necessary. I just want to see who people think are the most important new music musicians out there.

Otomo Yoshihide
Keiji Haino
Derek Bailey
Anthony Braxton
Keith Rowe
Sachiko M
Tetuzi Akiyama
AMM
John Butcher
Evan Parker

Now that I am looking at the list I botched together I see the problem with this thread.

Maybe let us start with talking about how to view post-jazz art music. I am not sure how all the terminology goes, as I hear different things from different people. I have heard the terminology thrown about. It would be nice to get some definition.

Can we discuss the terminology? What would you call the music on emanem? What would you call the music on Erstwhile? Are there many subgenres? and if so what are they?

Jared

[sonic1]

This was posted on the love supreme thread.

Now where do artists like Keiji Haino, non-electronic erstwhile stuff, the improvised music form Japan artists, etc fit? How about the more ethnic stuff from europe-like Willem Breuker (There is a whole genre of ethnic folk oriented improv. that I am only becoming slightly aware of, but find intriguing).

[Jon Abbey]

Originally Posted by sonic1

This was posted on the love supreme thread.

Now where do artists like Keiji Haino, non-electronic erstwhile stuff, the improvised music form Japan artists, etc fit? How about the more ethnic stuff from europe-like Willem Breuker (There is a whole genre of ethnic folk oriented improv. that I am only becoming slightly aware of, but find intriguing).

Haino-inside the big freely improvised music circle, outside either of the two subcircles inside there.

non-electronic erstwhile stuff-this is an imaginary category, but assuming I know what you mean (nmperign, Sugimoto Guitar quartet), it goes into "eai".

improvised music form Japan artists-depending on who it is, and which project of theirs it is, some are in eai, some are in freely improvised music but not within either of the two subcircles there, some might even be outside of this whole diagram (no good examples come to mind, maybe some of the early Zero Gravity stuff).

Breuker-efi

[sonic1]

So if these categories work we can work with each?

If so I will start another thread for each of the genres.

[Dan G]

I don't think Breuker has improvised a note in decades!