freejazzfromthefishmarket

FEATURE ARTICLE

A guide to jazz--the history of free jazz of the 1960s
by Masa Yamashita

Thank you for reading this article. I will guide you here to the history of free jazz.
Jazz is a style of a music born in the United States in the twentieth century. Today, jazz is listened and performed all around the world. This time, in this four-time series of a FEATURE ARTICLE on this 'Free Jazz from the Fish Market Magazine,' I will focus on the progress of jazz especially after the 1960s by introducing the significant and famous recordings that represent the styles of the era.

1　The Jazz of the 1960s

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the American Negroes bred their original African music with the traditional European music (i.e. Classics and musical folklore from various parts of Europe), which gave birth to jazz. I understand that the unique characteristics of the music were its lively rhythms and improvisations.

Jazz is still a genre in art rather young having less than a history of one hundred years. New Orleans jazz, or in other words, Dixieland jazz, were jazz performed mostly in subject to improvisation plays by big bands and established in the 1920s. In the 30s, swing jazz performed by larger-sized big bands playing ensemble performances and ad lib solos of each individual instruments became a trend. The 40s came and a style called bebop with more complicated rhythms and melodies came to the scene (the style of jazz after this certain period was called in common, 'modern jazz').
In the 50s, the results of the past got united. Thanks to the progress in recording technology, many great performances were recorded and are heard over and over even today (However this doesn't necessarily mean that there were no recordings in the 20s).
It wasn't that the jazz from the New Orleans jazz vanished. Far from it, they kept being played all around the world to today.
At this particular guide, we check out what the cutting edge of the jazz performances was in the 60s.

　What were in the minds of the most edgy jazz players’ of the 60s? I understand today that they must have been trying to develop the freedom of their improvisations further and improve their expressions of performances.
That is to say, until the 50s, the ad libs were based on the chordal progression of the original melodies. The complex breaking-up and re-consisting of the original chords were attempted to the extreme and the progressive players were seeking, "So, what's next?"
The trumpet player Miles Davis totally renewed the members of his jazz combo (a small-sized band) that enjoyed a great success in the 50s. Together with John Coltrane on tenor saxophone and Bill Evans on piano, he succeeded in developing a new style of performance called the modal jazz, which interpreted the ad libs from the chords differently from before.
Alto-saxophone player Ornette Coleman, piano player Cecil Taylor and tenor-saxophone player Albert Ayler explored further 'free' ways of improvisation performances.
As mentioned already, jazz was born at the first place as a combination of Western music and African music. But then jazz started to develop again by absorbing contemporary music that used atonality or aleatory, Klezmer (Jewish music), flamenco, Indian music etc., from almost any kind of genre of music and never stopped going forth.

From now on, I will introduce records from the end of the 1950s to the beginning of the 60s. To experience the cutting edge of the jazz scene of the 60s, let's check out the changing styles of performances by John Coltrane and Bill Evans.

1. 'If I were a Bell' Miles Davis Quintet 'Relaxin' 1956

　This is a recording from the 1950s by the Miles Davis Quintet.
The members were Miles on trumpet, "Red" Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums and John Coltrane on tenor-saxophone. They played this standard number (a popular song of those days) in a medium tempo.
The ad libs of each instrument were all based on the original line of chords. Please listen to Coltrane's tenor. He was still somehow a little stiff, but you could hear his tones and melody, which were very different.

2.'Bye Bye Blackbird'　Miles Davis Sextet 'Miles Davis & John Coltrane'1958

　In 1958, Mile's combo shifted to a sextet with Coltrane on tenor, Cannonball Adderley on alto-saxophone, Bill Evans on piano, Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums (Adderley wasn't on this particular tune).
This tune is also a standard number. At his solo part, Coltrane has already acquired his unique style of performance, the 'sheets of sounds,' which were consisted by an enormous number of tiny musical notes played restlessly.

3.'Giant Steps'　John Coltrane Quartet 'Giant Steps'1959

　John Coltrane that parted from Miles' combo organized his own combo. As though he was trying to challenge to the ultimate of improvisation based on fixed lines of chords, he fought with this tune that he composed himself.
The theme melody is simple but the chordal progression is extremely complicated. There had been bitter criticism that the tune were like doing the scale sheet. But if you listen closely, don't you feel the beauty of the melody lines going up and down sharply in almost an endless manner?

4.'Transition'　John Coltrane Quartet 'Transition'1965
	Coltrane reached a summit in improvisation performance by complicatedly analyzing the chords in 'Giant Steps' and furthermore, mastering the techniques of the modal jazz, in which he simplified the line of chords to the limit and ad-libed more freely. The next stage that he stepped in was the style called 'free form,' which was to free all musical limitations and ad-lib absolutely freely. The title of Coltrane's own tune and album 'Transition' definitely indicated the musical situation that he was in. Basically, the tune is performed based on a single chord of modal jazz. At some parts, performances that sound like a man's screaming are heard. The piano is McCoy Tyner. By listening to the solo part of his piano, you could understand well what the modal context is. From the basic scale, he goes back and forth to a different scale freely and creates his melody line. The bass is Jimmy Garrison and the drums is Elvin Jones. This drums is great! It responds keenly to Coltrane's sax with a fabulous ad lib. This is one of the greatest drumming of its kinds--that is to say, four-beat drumming. For the fruition of a complicated style of performance such as Coltrane's--shooting out tiny musical notes like machineguns--a drummer like Elvin Jones must have been indispensable.
5.'Dear Load'　John Coltrane Quartet 'Transition' 1965
	Let's listen to a ballad from the same period the same album. Roy Haynes stood in for Elvin Jones on drums. Garrison on bass that wasn't conspicuous in 'Transition' is playing an interesting bass line.

6.'Naima' John Coltrane Quintet 'at Village Vanguard Again' 1966

Coltrane, who entered his era of free form, renews all of the members of his combo besides Garrison on bass.
Tenor-sax became Pharaoh Sanders; Coltrane's wife Alice Coltrane on piano and the drums was Rashied Ali.
Coltrane composed ‘Naima’ in the days of 'Giant Steps' but here, in this album, 'Naima' was performed in free improvisations with no limitations by chord lines.
Also focus on the rhythm. The original is in four, but the drumming isn't four but a sort of a combination of continuous trembling and rolling that is making the whole band swing.

7.'Autumn Leaves'　Bill Evans Trio 'Portrait in Jazz' 1959 8.'Alice in Wonderland' Bill Evans Trio 'Sunday at Village Vangurd'1961
	The pianist in the Miles Davis combo, Bill Evans you might have already heard at 2 was one of the most important players in the jazz scene after the 1960s. He had been already drawing attention from the 50s but he didn't organize his own combo or make records by himself. At last in 1959, Evans met his ideal players, Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums. They started their performances as a trio and recorded many masterpieces named among the greatest jazz recordings of all time. At first, listen to the chanson tune, 'Autumn Leaves.' Different from the regular jazz combo performances in the past, the bass and the drums didn't only accompany the piano, but they played equally with the piano, responding to each other's performances playing each individual ad lib. LaFaro and Motian were not only accompanying Evans with their crotchets. Evans was not swinging straightly but swinging in a very unique style like playing in circles. 'Alice in Wonderland' is the theme song of Walt Disney's animation movie, but is recreated into an absolutely different jazz tune. Very sad to say, the bassist LaFaro died in a car accident a few days after this recording. He was still twenty-four.

9.'Little Lulu' Bill Evans Trio 'Trio 64' 1963

After LaFaro died, Evans played with many different bassists, but he couldn't meet a better partner than LaFaro.
I think that Gary Peacock, whom was in his only record recorded with Evans in 1964, was the best bassist that compared favorably with LaFaro.
This trio played regularly for a while but for some reason, Peacock quitted the trio and started to play with the free jazz performers that I am going to introduce at the second time of this series and recorded many great recordings.
The performances of Evans are absolutely sticking with the chordal progression of the tunes.

To be continued.