Most histories will tell you that Free Jazz began in the late 1950s at New York City's Five Spot club. Ornette Coleman's ripping up of the rule book divided people into two bipolar opposite camps. Lenny Bernstein thought he was a genius but some jazz critics saw him as a fraud. However, there is also the occasional historical mention of pianist Lennie Tristano's forays into chord progression-less collective improvisation in the late 1940s.
Experimental Collective Improvisation / Harvey Pekar
Harvey Pekar was a comic book writer who, with Robert Crumb, drove the growth of the underground comic book scene in the 1960s and 1970s. He was also a notorious US talk show guest. Before the notoriety he was a jazz writer, publishing in US and UK jazz journals. In 1963 he wrote an article in the Jazz Journal (November issue) describing Tristano's short forays in 'free jazz', then discussed more contemporary musicians including Coleman and Dolphy.
In the late 1940’s Lennie Tristano, in an article called “What’s Right with the Beboppers”, observed that, “The boppers discarded collective improvisation and placed all emphasis on the single line. This is not unfortunate, since the highest development of both probably would not occur simultaneously.”
I believe Tristano’s statement is accurate. A musician who belongs to a group in which the members improvise simultaneously sacrifices some freedom of expression. He must listen attentively to the others in. the group so that the performance will have coherence.
The finest examples of collective jazz improvisation, of course, occurred in the traditional period. In traditional ensemble improvisation the musicians are guided by a pre-set chord pattern. More recently there have been two widely-discussed attempts at collective improvisation eschewing a chord progression.
The first was by a 1949 Tristano group including Lee Konitz, alto; Warne Marsh, tenor; Billy Bauer, guitar; Arnold Fishkin, bass; Denzil Best, drums; and Tristano, piano. Intuition and Digression are the titles of the pieces they produced, each taking up one side of a 10 inch 78 rpm record. They caused considerable controversy at the time of their release but have been almost forgotten since.
The other attempt was the Ornette Coleman “Free Jazz” album (Atlantic 1364) which was “recorded in one uninterrupted take of 36 minutes and 23 seconds”. The personnel included Don Cherry and Freddie Hubbard, trumpets; Coleman, alto; Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; Scott LaFaro and Charlie Haden, basses; and Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell, drums.
I feel that neither attempt. was completely successful, but as it appears that jazz is at another turning point it might be worthwhile to consider them in order to see whether they do offer a constructive base for contemporary jazzmen to build on.
Intuition opens at a fairly fast tempo with Tristano taking a superb solo. Konitz then comes in with a fine solo as Tristano comps for him. After Konitz, Bauer holds the spotlight for a time, also acquitting himself well; then the performance moves into genuine collective improvisation which is at first interesting but degenerates in quality. Although Tristano’s playing in the ensemble is sometimes brilliant, most of the phrases played by the individual musicians are short and simple. The performance bogs down rather than gains momentum, especially near the end of the track when the tempo slows. Digression is taken at a medium slow tempo, and here again Tristano plays beautifully at the beginning of the track—his work having a reflective quality. He is usually the strongest voice in the ensemble while the others generally seem reluctant to take chances and sometimes just noodle along.
Tristano and his men understood each other well and all played tastefully so that the ensemble sections of Intuition and Digression are, at least, coherent. However, they do not, for the most part, build. Certainly these two records are interesting but I feel that they would have been much more so if there had been more emphasis on soloing and less on collective improvisation. Tristano’s failure to experiment more with this kind of collective ensemble playing, at least on record, might indicate that he thought it offered little chance of development.
The members of the group Coleman assembled for “Free Jazz” are all associated with the current avant garde. Dolphy, in fact, may have had a greater direct influence on alto saxophonists thus far than Coleman. The context in which Dolphy plays is usually more traditional than the “Free Jazz” setting. Hubbard is a fine technician with an already identifiable style, though his solos sometimes suffer from a lack of restraint and organisation. Hubbard seems to have been influenced by trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown, and Miles Davis. His use of leaping and unusual intervals suggests that John Coltrane may also have inspired him. As for the other horn men, Coleman and Cherry, I have discussed their playing in an earlier article for this magazine and will not repeat myself here.
“Free Jazz” has solos by all the participants and is freer that Intuition and Digression in that the rhythm section members have less restricted functions and the alto, bass clarinet, and trumpet solos are commented on by other members of the front line. As a consequence, the solos are often submerged by spontaneously improvised ensemble passages. “Free Jazz’ is a fantastic jungle of melodic fragments, tone colours, and textures. A violently agitated mood pervades it at the outset and continues through the second side until the bassists, unaccompanied by horns, are highlighted. The reviews I have read of “Free Jazz” have expressed either almost unreserved praise or unreserved condemnation. After listening to the record again and again since it was released I find that I cannot agree with either view.
The bass section is particularly good. Haden plays economically and percussively, suggesting that he may have been influenced by Wilbur Ware. LaFaro exhibits his phenomenal imagination and technique. He infuses the first part of his solo with a Middle-Eastern flavour, then moves into his customary long-lined approach, shifting accents provocatively. The drum solos are also interesting. Blackwell and Higgins are two of the finest young drummers around, but seem to have been overlooked while Elvin Jones, another outstanding musician, has received a great deal of publicity.
Coleman exhibits tremendous vitality in his spot, surging ahead deliberately and with the strength of a glacier moving downhill. His lines are generally simple and lyrical. Cherry, though not so forceful, plays inventively and, when not shouldered out of the way by the other horns, builds nicely. (He has a wonderful imagination but is handicapped by a limited technique).
On the other hand, Dolphy and Hubbard do not fare too well. Dolphy’s solo is composed mainly of vocal cries and honks and meaningless runs. He seems to have developed several clichés which he relies on all too often these days. Hubbard has some nice ideas but his solo doesn’t hang together well. His double-timing makes no sense in context.
At times the spontaneous improvisation is good, especially during Coleman’s section, but—and this is crucial—it is frequently boring. There is a great deal of trivial noodling which often interrupts the continuity of the soloist’s line. Cherry, for example, really gets his toes
stepped on.
Tristano demonstrated that excellent solo jazz improvisation is possible without a pre-set chord progression. Coleman has corroborated this in recent years, though what he will often do is play in one basic key for long periods of time. This is probably what led Charlie Mingus to call Coleman an “old-fashioned alto player” in the May 26, 1960 issue of Downbeat.)
The merits of the free collective improvisation style that I have been discussing are questionable. The difficulty that jazzmen have in anticipating one another, without having a common point of departure such as a chord progression, can too easily lead to musically incoherent moments. Or it can lead to an extremely conservative and dull music with the musicians unwilling to take chances in their efforts to avoid this incoherence.
The tracks Intuition and Digression are available to Stream (e.g. Spotify). It's cool to hear what may have been lost to history.
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