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| The birth of Free Jazz, New Orleans 1922. |
The birth of Free Jazz is one of the more shameful episodes in American history, and remains little known even to those who practice the art. In this searing FoamExposé, veteran musicologist Irving Phloem-Bundle [below left - Ed.] reveals the long-hidden truth.
"Okay," said bandleader Delahaye Montclair (2nd right), "whitey wants free jazz, that's what whitey gets." They played a short and chaotic set, entirely tune-free and each to his own rhythm. At one point Montclair shouted to Daisy Dumpling (far right) to sing "any old shit". The concert broke up in a hail of crockery and bread rolls.
The term free jazz stuck, but the meaning altered over time from its original exploitative origin to describe improvisational music free of conventional harmonic and rhythmic structure. "Scat" singing is also accepted as jazz form, its scatological genesis ("any old shit") conveniently forgotten.
Today's loaddown is a couple of swell long-playing L.P. records featuring ensembles led by drummer Norman Connors. A long way from the screeching cacophony of that far-off wedding gig, this is free jazz you'd be pleased to pay for, if you wasn't such a cheap-ass freeloading bum.
Generally speakin', pals, I ain't got no time for free jazz. I hear a bunch of guys havin' a swell time at my expense. But these here Norman Connors elpees stop short of the competitive strangled honking I associate with the form and serve up a relaxin' yet lively soundtrack ideal fer Satdy mornin'. Perhaps they ain't even free jazz. Maybe one is. I don't care.
ReplyDeleteHere's
the link.
about as perfect a musicology piece as i have ever read. i can't help feeling that this is the true origin of free jazz and not a brilliant satire.
ReplyDeleteWhy, likewise I'm sure, Mister Mour, although I fail to see why any of my screed gets mistaken for "satire".
DeleteNew Francis Cabrel link here, by request:
ReplyDeletehttps://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-comfy-brothers-album-du-jour.html?showComment=1633167689839#c5243379979375229001
New Dead, released yesterday.
Deletehttps://workupload.com/file/EEvQKpZSFyJ
You're Welcome.
'71?! I'm in! Muchachas graniolas, compadero!
DeletePor nada.
Delete500MB!!!!!!! In rural US I get 75kbps. How long was the gig in 71, 6 months..........bbbbwwwwwaaaahhhaaa
DeleteJust over three hours, pretty typical for '71.
DeleteThis is a very good show.
How about some Uncle Neil from 1970 at Carnegie Hall, the first release in his official bootleg series. This is the early show, not the widely bootlegged midnight show.
Deletehttps://workupload.com/file/7rE8ckjKBv7
Swell Uploads For The Elderly right here, folks!
DeleteThis was a most excellent history lesson -- and what a great photo to support your lesson. Brilliant! I enjoy a lot of free jazz but I can certainly understand why many wouldn't and plenty of it does seem to be aimless screeching and wailing. I find that I have less patience for it now than when first discovering it and I'm guessing that's not uncommon. Now I tend to prefer the inside-out or inside-out stuff that still has song structure to the complete balls-to-the-wall freeform freakouts I used to indulge in (Eric Dolphy vs Charles Gayle for example).
ReplyDeleteNot sure where it fits into this (false) dichotomy but I'm digging some Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes • Astral Traveling (1973) right now and it's great! I guess since it's got a beat and you can dance to it (e.g. a steady groove) it's not what I'm throwing in the "free jazz" bin but I'm sure I got it for free somewhere along the way.
DeleteI see that Irving got new glasses. The old horn-rims seemed to fit his look better...I'm just saying.
DeleteAs for free jazz, I never understand how anyone who likes jazz at all doesn't fully appreciate the greatness of the like of Ornette Coleman. His first three releases, Something Else, Tomorrow is the Question, & especially the third, The Shape of Jazz to Come are phenomenal, free jazz or just plain jazz, whatever.
By the time he was playing with bassist Charles Haden, horn great Don Cherry, & drummer Billy Higgins (on Shape of Jazz & its follow-up Change of the Century, Ornette was at the pinnacle of the jazz game.
Jazz is a free-form music shackled by gargantuan structure. It was in deep need of freedom by the time Delehaye said "Fuck you, cheap ass cracker". Thumbs up from this bloke.
Put yer uploads where yer mout' is, collidge boy.
DeleteCollege boy here. The first four Coleman greats plus a splattering of other tastes for the naysayers.
DeleteAll my own uploads, although I got some help from my frat bros. I bribed them with a kegger. Hoorah!
Ornette Coleman - Something Else!!!
https://mega.nz/file/Bp4CmDAK#vcHPfhUESxCewlF5nZtCx5CgG0_RkPF36yL_ONXApQg
Ornette Coleman - Tomorrow is the Question
Deletehttps://mega.nz/file/Jo52BJxI#SJQfOIj6b6DoT0gzRkwkC0QvF9GPpwz7soRsydsx7Jw
Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Things to Come
https://mega.nz/file/EtgSRRrT#tq8kyO3m8L_9rkWInajniUXlrGlnz1IwbjIgbLXMIXs
Ornette Coleman - Change of the Century
https://mega.nz/file/h05UjbpQ#_uM7WQFZTcFtldQzIqkJNMfRcigeWwjziWAzF73l34g
Ornette Coleman Quartet - The Unprecedented Music of Ornette Coleman
Deletehttps://mega.nz/file/wHJnSCSK#C1uFPYaWuzzOIKvQIUsNlvLi2jLVmSBuRr3UYTXkNrw
Albert Ayler - Witches & Devils
https://mega.co.nz/#!dcJCWKaa#Q3bJy7mjxwPwneDENPIsQ1qJB0HXGvzOWXeP1atPbnc
Albert Ayler et al. - New York Eye & Ear Control
https://mega.nz/file/pWQ1kIgB#DjNnHDJ_5ccQbwXhcxGEeOWq_7CdxMRaWSBvNBcZ6aY
Milford Graves w/Arthur Doyle – Bäbi
Deletehttps://mega.co.nz/#!yFME0SYJ#CLPVMA7BzcYVu1C3M-WYD1nKcbk2ODpCJG4ielAprTg
Arthur Doyle Electro-Acoustic Ensemble - Plays the African Love Call
https://mega.co.nz/#!zIsDhaqa#Bham4DEXQ6MSDA6cy1x1CVyLvY97E6AZedEdQv_rCSw
Anthony Braxton - News from the 70s, Felmay fy 7005, 1999.
https://mega.nz/file/VLYnAaiJ#G1P3epiaazL7lOw3q2Z6DsFEtmbvANi_tGUevjHKzz8
Charles Tyler Ensemble - Self-titled
https://mega.nz/file/BaBBkA4K#N_Y4sbeweyTVA6voLy75fjii1VHE9hK8EFw1mZ9XX5k
Collidge boy out.
Nate, I pinch your claws, and look forward to listening to them all. My opinions as expressed here are purely for entertainment purposes. Thank you!
DeleteMine too. Opinions, that is.
DeleteAlright, here is a heaping serving of Lonnie Liston Smith, one of the many Miles refugees who went on to create some very satisfying spiritual soul-jazz sides in the 70s. He also served as sideman for Pharoah Sanders, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Gato Barbieri, and Betty Carter (according to his AllMusic bio) and you can certainly hear a strong early Pharoah Sanders (and 70s Miles) influence on his albums with his "Cosmic Echoes" band along with a fat pinch of Alice Coltrane. Not for nuthin' Cecil McBee is holding down the groove on the bass while the rest of the Cosmic Echoes lay down some funky voodoo that will carry you away on the astral plane if you let it. Fans of any of the above mentioned name-checks will find plenty to enjoy here.
Deletehttps://workupload.com/file/dbgrkRz3YHX
wait a sec ... you didn't have the Ornette Coleman albums already?! FOR SHAME!! I thought you were asking for LLS. That's a very generous helping of top-notch free jazz right there and it certainly tops my LLS offering but maybe the Cosmic Echoes will be the soothing balm your soul needs after a sonic exorcism by Albert Ayler, et. al.
Delete(to add to my embarrassment I'm seeing that tracks 7-10 of Astral Traveling are duplicated due to my merging two differently tagged versions of the album at some point. /hangs head in shame)
DeleteNow look at the problems brewing, FT3. MrDave & I didn't know which collidge boy you were referring to, so we just handed in our assignments like good little students
Delete*shuffles feet* I never had no collidge larnin'. I wus axed to leave school on account wilful intransigence. Den I loins how to smoke dope, drop acid, and finesse the pinball machine into infinite plays. Den I dodges gainful employmink more or less successfully by writin' a story book for likeminded bums what find it hard to make sense of just about everything that's supposed to, like larnin' n' workin' n' gettin' married n' shit. But music runs like a beautiful shining thread thru life, connecting us when we can't touch or even see each other. Which is neat, huh.
Delete"smoke dope, drop acid, and finesse the pinball machine into infinite plays...dodges gainful employmink more or less successfully". That describes college in a nut shell. You woulda made a perfikt studont.
DeleteAh - that was at "Art School".
Deletewell personally I love free jazz, kinda relate it to the idea ''intelligence''in nature is the amount of stuff in something that isn't quessable by the form and previous ideas, since in free jazz the music isn't set to form or songs it has much that you can't quess ahead of hearing, not for everyone though
ReplyDeleteWell I for one trust anything Irving Phloem-Bundle says. Just look at the size of his skull, he must be a genius.
ReplyDeleteAnybody look up (or know already) what a Phloem Bundle is? It pays to increase your word power.
DeleteIt shows up every few years in the NY Times crossword.
DeleteMr. Leitch also knows.....
Mr. Leitch is a very sketchy individual.
Delete"I'm just mad about fourteen
Fourteen's mad about me
I'm-a just mad about a-fourteen
A-she's just mad about me ... electrical banana ..."
Ri-ight, Don. And don't ask him how old the "Stromberg Twins" were, and why he named them after a carburetor.
A couple of Last Exit albums were about as far as I got into free jazz, and that was through the connection with Miles through Sonny Sharrock.
ReplyDeleteThat was a group I was obsessed with back in the day. Wish I'd been at the gigs.
Deletehttps://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2019/09/cage-fight-saturday-last-exit-vs.html
DeleteThat really is the sort of excellent silliness I've come to expect from this blog.
DeleteThanks for the Musicology and the free download glued to its cover using two well-defined stripes of a peculiar adhesive that doesn't seem to get used in any other application (tip: be GENTLE removing the freebie)
ReplyDeleteProbably apocryphal but when Ornette Coleman put on a gig in early 1960s NYC under the heading 'Free Jazz Concert' he reportedly got a lot of miffed punters who didn't expect to have to pay.
That glue deserves its own thread.
DeleteMy poor poor long-suffering mother was burdened with a useless immature bugger of a son who failed to leave home until well past his sell-by-date, and who further tormented her with his left-field music tastes, often leaning towards the Free end of Jazz, prompting her to refer to the sounds emanating from the bedroom as "Arab Cafe music", "Jazz that's been through a black hole" and (during a particularly rowdy Albert Ayler session) "a load of bleedin' Mongs going berserk"
ReplyDeleteI have no kick against modern jazz unless they try to play it too darn fast
ReplyDeleteand change the beauty of the melody, until they sound just like a symphony.
I was with him until "symphony". Did he mean cacophony?
Delete" the symphony line has puzzled me forever. did anyone ever ask chuck about it? "cacaphony" seems right but a bit jolting. berry was a master lyricist. he must have had a meaning in mind that we don't get.
DeleteI always took it to mean taking it from simple ''song'' into overblown orchestra music/ kinda like having Shakesperian actors doing standup comedy in the style of Hamlet
DeleteThe above empty space is a gray area.
DeleteArt School degree or not, you demonstrate a keen eye for compositional subtext and its commentary on the dynamic symbiosis between situational micro-politics of interpersonal relationships and the macro-economic contradictions of late-stage capitalism.
Delete