Absolutely, especially Witches & Devils.shamann wrote: But definitely Albert Ayler.
I also really like Marilyn Crispell's free stuff, like Santeurio.
Free Jazz (recommendations)
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- KVRAF
- 2875 posts since 28 Jan, 2004 from Da Nang, Vietnam
I also really like Marilyn Crispell's free stuff, like Santeurio.
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- KVRAF
- 2875 posts since 28 Jan, 2004 from Da Nang, Vietnam
That album is *very* hard going.Beardedone wrote:And check out Metehny's Zero Tolerance for Silence.
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- KVRAF
- 2321 posts since 23 Mar, 2004 from Two lower than LS6
big props to Ornette Colemans "Free Jazz" album - the jazz equivalent of glitch hardcore.
Also his "Chappa Aqua Suite" as well.
Check out stuff by Art Ensemble of Chicago, Roland H Kirk, AMM, Eric Dolphy, late Coltrane, 70s Miles Davis ("Live/Evil" is a wicked free/fusion album).
and get some recordings of people chucking a drum kit down some stairs
Also his "Chappa Aqua Suite" as well.
Check out stuff by Art Ensemble of Chicago, Roland H Kirk, AMM, Eric Dolphy, late Coltrane, 70s Miles Davis ("Live/Evil" is a wicked free/fusion album).
and get some recordings of people chucking a drum kit down some stairs
Phil
"The fool who persists in his folly will become wise" - William Blake
*No more band for me* | **My Host**
"The fool who persists in his folly will become wise" - William Blake
*No more band for me* | **My Host**
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- KVRAF
- 3588 posts since 13 May, 2004 from montreal
Yes yes yes.Bunnyboy wrote:AMM
Oh and I forgot to mention Borbetomagus - probably the hardest free-jazz unit out there. Two saxes and guitar, sound like a DNA splice of Albert Ayler and Merzbow.
Check their classics 'Snuff Jazz' and 'Barbed Wire Maggots', or their Derek Bailey collabs for a taster.
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- KVRist
- 461 posts since 12 Jan, 2003 from Kyoto
Hope I'm not making a too-long list any worse... Free Jazz is a HUGE genre, and even though most of it is easily identifiable as Free Jazz ("a bunch of people making a racket!"), at the same time different subgenres can be almost like night and day -- while they generally carry something from the jazz tradition, some draw heavily from traditional/folk sources, others from the "high art" of western avante-garde composers, others from non-western sources, still others from rock and psychadelic music, others from experimental electronics, and others strive to be non-idiomatic. Just compare Evan Parker to Albert Ayler to AMM, etc...
You mentioned Trane's A Love Supreme, which is quite possibly my favourite album of all time, but while it was "more free" than most of the jazz at the time, I don't think it can be considered Free Jazz. Trane's "free"/"late" period began immediately after ALS (some of Trane's '61 work [eg the Village Vanguard] is freer than ALS). I would particularly recommend as starting points:
Meditations (probably the most-frequently-recommended work of JC's late period). Band is the classic quartet plus Pharoah Sanders & Rashied Ali.
Ascension -- playing with a large ensemble, the rumour is that the whole band took acid before recording (LSD had not yet been criminalized, BTW). To paraphrase the recording crew's reaction, "there's something about this music that makes you scream." This is included on the oddly-titled 2-disc set "the Major Works of John Coltrane," which I recommend. But I think nowadays Ascension is also on an album of its own.
Interstellar Space -- This is just Rashied Ali on drums and Trane on saxes. An hour of drum & sax duets didn't sound too appealing to me, and this was one of the last Trane CDs I bought. But I immediately loved it, and it's one of my favourites. Also probably a nice place to start as the music is doesn't have the overwhelming density of a full band.
Stellar Regions -- a quartet (no Pharoah Sanders) and a really fine recording. Alice Coltrane, while not the pianist that McCoy Tyner was, was IMHO better-suited to what Trane was doing at this point.
and if you want to go all-out, I recommend Live in Japan
I would second many of the recommendations already mentioned, especially Ornette, Ayler and Dolphy. And Miles' Live-Evil, and Borbetomagus . Off the top of my head, I would also add David S. Ware, Charles Gayle, and William Parker.
Okay, I'll shut up now
You mentioned Trane's A Love Supreme, which is quite possibly my favourite album of all time, but while it was "more free" than most of the jazz at the time, I don't think it can be considered Free Jazz. Trane's "free"/"late" period began immediately after ALS (some of Trane's '61 work [eg the Village Vanguard] is freer than ALS). I would particularly recommend as starting points:
Meditations (probably the most-frequently-recommended work of JC's late period). Band is the classic quartet plus Pharoah Sanders & Rashied Ali.
Ascension -- playing with a large ensemble, the rumour is that the whole band took acid before recording (LSD had not yet been criminalized, BTW). To paraphrase the recording crew's reaction, "there's something about this music that makes you scream." This is included on the oddly-titled 2-disc set "the Major Works of John Coltrane," which I recommend. But I think nowadays Ascension is also on an album of its own.
Interstellar Space -- This is just Rashied Ali on drums and Trane on saxes. An hour of drum & sax duets didn't sound too appealing to me, and this was one of the last Trane CDs I bought. But I immediately loved it, and it's one of my favourites. Also probably a nice place to start as the music is doesn't have the overwhelming density of a full band.
Stellar Regions -- a quartet (no Pharoah Sanders) and a really fine recording. Alice Coltrane, while not the pianist that McCoy Tyner was, was IMHO better-suited to what Trane was doing at this point.
and if you want to go all-out, I recommend Live in Japan
I would second many of the recommendations already mentioned, especially Ornette, Ayler and Dolphy. And Miles' Live-Evil, and Borbetomagus
. Off the top of my head, I would also add David S. Ware, Charles Gayle, and William Parker.Okay, I'll shut up now
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- KVRAF
- 9064 posts since 1 Aug, 2003
mouth watering suggestions here, i'll add John Zorn's Masada for Ornette-like stuff with updated production.
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- KVRist
- 52 posts since 24 Jul, 2004
My favourites:
Cecil Taylor: "Unit Structures" it's a great one, the concerts with Max Roach are a masterpiece, the solo piano material is also superb)
Don Cherry: "Orient" (with dutch madman Han Bennink on drums), and also "Mu"
Peter Brotzmann: "Machine Gun" (a classic). Bennink strikes again... (and if you want something of his solo works try "Nerve Beats")
Sun Ra is tha man, but I think it wouldn't be good to label him as "free jazz". It's much much more than that. With 160 LPs recorded in 40 years of work you've got a lot to research (I've got "only" 80 to the present day, heheh)
Cecil Taylor: "Unit Structures" it's a great one, the concerts with Max Roach are a masterpiece, the solo piano material is also superb)
Don Cherry: "Orient" (with dutch madman Han Bennink on drums), and also "Mu"
Peter Brotzmann: "Machine Gun" (a classic). Bennink strikes again... (and if you want something of his solo works try "Nerve Beats")
Sun Ra is tha man, but I think it wouldn't be good to label him as "free jazz". It's much much more than that. With 160 LPs recorded in 40 years of work you've got a lot to research (I've got "only" 80 to the present day, heheh)
"Épater les bourgeois"
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- KVRAF
- 1618 posts since 15 Aug, 2001 from montreal, canada
I checked out your tune on that site. Very cool man.
The drummer's on fire and the bass is pumpin in the back. I'd sure love to hear more with a cleaner recording.
One thing I didn't like is the hihat overdub. You don't need more percussion with a drummer wacking like that in the back.
Do you have any more jams I could hear somewhere?
The drummer's on fire and the bass is pumpin in the back. I'd sure love to hear more with a cleaner recording.
One thing I didn't like is the hihat overdub. You don't need more percussion with a drummer wacking like that in the back.
Do you have any more jams I could hear somewhere?
jpazdan wrote:http://www.indie911.com/index.php?cID=1476
My little combo, GreyGoGreen..combines the free jazz aesthetic with drum and bass..as well as using efx in the mix after the (usually) live, one take tracking ..efx I've learned about and dl'd from KvR.
thanks, jp
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- KVRAF
- 1618 posts since 15 Aug, 2001 from montreal, canada
Ooh backward quote! 
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- KVRer
- 6 posts since 29 Sep, 2004 from Chicago
[quote="paradiddle"]I checked out your tune on that site. Very cool man.
The drummer's on fire and the bass is pumpin in the back. I'd sure love to hear more with a cleaner recording.
One thing I didn't like is the hihat overdub. You don't need more percussion with a drummer wacking like that in the back.
Do you have any more jams I could hear somewhere?quote]
Thanks P..the "hihat" overdub? ..processed hihats..the drummer uses 2 different hihats, it's all live, as was the track, a first take..as playing at 165 bpm live for 5 minutes is a bit..um..taxing..for even a guy who can play like that. as far as the clean recording aspect...when we did this, it was too clean..I am experimenting with combining free jazz with d+b, and I was after the sound of d+b..which to me is Tony Williams playing James Brown @165bpm..in a warehouse..of course this isn't anybody elses idea of D+B..so there you go. Anyway, that was a lot of processing on the drum tracks..ambient stuff, over hard knee compression..things I've learned about here at KvR..including tuned uses of SE's Transverb on the soprano. All in all, what I am trying to do is get the soul and feel and energy of live playing, free jazz, melded with contemporary production techniques..something along the lines of what Teo Macero would be doing now..
there's more material coming , as soon as I get it going. thatnks for your comments.
jp
The drummer's on fire and the bass is pumpin in the back. I'd sure love to hear more with a cleaner recording.
One thing I didn't like is the hihat overdub. You don't need more percussion with a drummer wacking like that in the back.
Do you have any more jams I could hear somewhere?quote]
Thanks P..the "hihat" overdub? ..processed hihats..the drummer uses 2 different hihats, it's all live, as was the track, a first take..as playing at 165 bpm live for 5 minutes is a bit..um..taxing..for even a guy who can play like that. as far as the clean recording aspect...when we did this, it was too clean..I am experimenting with combining free jazz with d+b, and I was after the sound of d+b..which to me is Tony Williams playing James Brown @165bpm..in a warehouse..of course this isn't anybody elses idea of D+B..so there you go. Anyway, that was a lot of processing on the drum tracks..ambient stuff, over hard knee compression..things I've learned about here at KvR..including tuned uses of SE's Transverb on the soprano. All in all, what I am trying to do is get the soul and feel and energy of live playing, free jazz, melded with contemporary production techniques..something along the lines of what Teo Macero would be doing now..
there's more material coming , as soon as I get it going. thatnks for your comments.
jp
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- KVRAF
- 4878 posts since 13 Jun, 2002 from Montreal
True as is SongX but in the apparent chaos is real beauty and order. I git to the point where I had lines from ZTFS playing my head that I came to love.Beardedone wrote:
And check out Metehny's Zero Tolerance for Silence.
That album is *very* hard going.
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- KVRer
- 6 posts since 29 Sep, 2004 from Chicago
[/quote]
True as is SongX but in the apparent chaos is real beauty and order. I git to the point where I had lines from ZTFS playing my head that I came to love.[/quote]
Yes! Those lines are as "valid" as any melody line ever made..the beauty of them for me (as in Tranes and Miles' and all of Ornettes work) comes from the fact that they were played live in response to the spontaneous improvisation that was going on...by some unbelievably talented and soulful players.
jp
True as is SongX but in the apparent chaos is real beauty and order. I git to the point where I had lines from ZTFS playing my head that I came to love.[/quote]
Yes! Those lines are as "valid" as any melody line ever made..the beauty of them for me (as in Tranes and Miles' and all of Ornettes work) comes from the fact that they were played live in response to the spontaneous improvisation that was going on...by some unbelievably talented and soulful players.
jp
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- KVRAF
- 1618 posts since 15 Aug, 2001 from montreal, canada
Ok, it just sounded like it wasn't part of the track cuz it sounded more upfront. Anyway I do like your stuff but too much effects can really blur the whole track. Unless it's the desired effect you were going for.Thanks P..the "hihat" overdub? ..processed hihats..the drummer uses 2 different hihats, it's all live, as was the track
Anyway when ya get more tracks, send me an PM!
Later!
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- KVRer
- 6 posts since 15 Nov, 2004
Myself and my band mates are all big free jazz enthusiasts. You can check out our website at http://www.theeasternseaboard.com
We just released a cd on the Black Saint label called Nonfiction. Anyway, keep fighting for a free jazz world.[/img]
We just released a cd on the Black Saint label called Nonfiction. Anyway, keep fighting for a free jazz world.[/img]