Avant-Garde Jazz

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In brief:

The Avant-garde Jazz genre at JMA generally consists of jazz that is usually atonal, and quite often a-rhythmic as well. Avant-garde jazz can be ‘free’, in that there is no prescribed structure for the musicians to follow, or there may be some sort of compositional structure being used as well. Other factors that can result in an avant-garde tag include the use of extremes, such as extremely loud music, or extremely quiet music etc. Also, experimental presentations can be considered, such as a piece where the performers are playing without being able to hear each other, or all of the musicians are submerged in water, etc. Generally the Avant-garde Jazz genre is reserved for musicians from a jazz background, but JMA also includes some non-jazz avant-garde musicians in our Jazz Related Improvisation/Composition genre.

The history:

In all arts, the term avant-garde refers to those who lead the way towards experimentalism and change. This was true in music up until about the mid-60s, when western concepts of harmony and structure hit a breaking point. Prior to the 60s, western concepts of musical advancement centered around increasingly chromatic harmonies moving towards atonality, and increasing difficulties and complexities in rhythm. This breaking point, or dead end for western ideas of continued advancement occurred in the world of concert hall music with John Cage’s chance operations, and it occurred in the jazz world with the arrival of ‘free jazz’. Both John Cage’s aleatoric music, and free jazz, turned western ideas of linear advancement on their head and instead showed the ongoing development of music to be more like a snake swallowing its tail, more circular than linear. In other words, how different was ‘free jazz’ from early man’s attempts to intuitively make music with a hollow log or reed. Surely there are differences, but there are also unmistakable similarities.

After this sort of philosophical breaking point, the term ‘avant-garde’ found a final resting place in the world of jazz as being jazz that is usually atonal, often a-rhythmic and quite often free of any structure. Over the years, many avnt-garde jazz artists began to mix compositional structure with free style playing, but there still continues to be devotees to a 60s style totally free approach.

As we move further into the 20th century, what is termed “avant-garde jazz’ may not necessarily be on the front-lines of change, instead, Avant-garde Jazz as defined by JMA, and as defined by most jazz resources stands as one more genre with its own fixed history, definitions and boundaries. Today’s artist can chose elements from the ‘avant-garde’ as well as any of the other historical jazz genres. In today’s jazz world, the elements introduced by the avant-garde are alive and well, and more common than ever, but many artists today will mix those avant-garde elements with all the other stylistic elements musicians can choose from. Today's top jazz composers and performers often challenge themselves to make music that blurs boundaries such as free and structured, or atonal and tonal.

From a musician’s point of view, the advent of free jazz opened some doors, and closed some others. The initial impact of the freedom was exhilarating as artists like Lennie Tristano, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, John Gilmore, Marshall Allen, Pat Patrick, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp and Albert Alyer unleashed some of the greatest jazz ever recorded, but in time, a lack of harmonic changes (chord changes) to work with made many musicians feel like they were playing the same solo over and over. After the initial explosion of the mid 60s, many musicians were happy to go back to the eternal challenge of trying to reconstruct music from a set of complex and harmonically rich chord changes. Still, there continues to be artists such as Joe Morris, Ivo Perelman, Evan Parker and Peter Brotzmann, who continue to make meaningful modern free jazz.

avant-garde jazz top albums

Showing only albums and live's | Based on members ratings & JMA custom algorithm | 24 hours caching

ERIC DOLPHY 'Out to Lunch!' Album Cover 'Out to Lunch!'
ERIC DOLPHY
4.60 | 56 ratings
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HENRY THREADGILL Henry Threadgill & Make A Move ‎: Everybodys Mouth's A Book Album Cover Henry Threadgill & Make A Move ‎: Everybodys Mouth's A Book
HENRY THREADGILL
4.77 | 7 ratings
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PHAROAH SANDERS Elevation Album Cover Elevation
PHAROAH SANDERS
4.72 | 9 ratings
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JOHN COLTRANE Last Performance at Newport July 2 1966 Album Cover Last Performance at Newport July 2 1966
JOHN COLTRANE
5.00 | 3 ratings
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GRAHAM COLLIER Darius Album Cover Darius
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4.88 | 4 ratings
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GRACHAN MONCUR III Some Other Stuff Album Cover Some Other Stuff
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4.71 | 8 ratings
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PHAROAH SANDERS Karma Album Cover Karma
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4.56 | 34 ratings
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CECIL TAYLOR Silent Tongues (aka I Grandi Del Jazz) Album Cover Silent Tongues (aka I Grandi Del Jazz)
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WAYNE SHORTER The All Seeing Eye Album Cover The All Seeing Eye
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ERIC DOLPHY Last Date Album Cover Last Date
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JOHN COLTRANE Offering: Live At Temple University Album Cover Offering: Live At Temple University
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PHAROAH SANDERS Live at the East Album Cover Live at the East
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This list is in progress since the site is new. We invite all logged in members to use the "quick rating" widget (stars bellow album covers) or post full reviews to increase the weight of your rating in the global average value (see FAQ for more details). Enjoy JMA!

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avant-garde jazz Music Reviews

WHIT DICKEY Whit Dickey / Mat Maneri / Matthew Shipp : Vessel In Orbit

Album · 2017 · Avant-Garde Jazz
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snobb
New Millennium, partially the second decade, in creative jazz is very much a drummer's time. For long time drummers were known mostly as collaborators no leaders with few exemptions. During last decade or more we experienced a peak of drummers as leaders on a world jazz scenes(as rule - drummers-composers). Many of them are responsible for most interesting jazz coming from last two decades. Whit Dickey is one of them.

Seasoned New-York-based drummer Whit Dickey was better known as Matthew Shipp and David S. Ware bands member. In 1998 he started leader's career. "Vessel In Orbit" is his return to AUM Fidelity, the label, responsible for his debut as leader, and his first new band almost for a decade. Dickey trio with his old collaborator pianist Matthew and violist Mat Maneri plays complex music, demonstrating almost intuitive interplay between members.

The music is dark, free, not too loud and well organized. Compositions are credited to all trio members, still central album's part sounds more like improvisation. There are some chaos, and some beauty in album's music, and looking from six years(and some more excellent Dickey albums, released later)distance, one can see where Dickey's glorious period started. Very soon the drummer will concentrate on more composed music and will release several albums(with different small bands)which will push him on the forefront of todays creative jazz scene.

PHAROAH SANDERS Tauhid

Album · 1967 · Avant-Garde Jazz
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snobb
From a distance of 50+ years, Pharoah Sander's second studio album (and his Impulse! debut) sounds a bit different than it did some decades ago. Sanders made his name working with John Coltrane on his avant-garde jazz albums, but it's Alice Coltrane's "astral jazz" which sounds much closer to the music on "Tauhid".

Just three songs, of which "Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt", the opener, lasts more than 16 minutes. Long slow-tempo piano/guitar intro sounded great in spiritual jazz meditative fashion of the time, but today is obviously too long. Sanders' sax starts after 9th minute only and it sounds mellow and relaxed, far from his signature explosive free jazz soloing. There are lot of tunes snippets on this song (sometimes recalling Coltrane's "A Love Supreme"), and even more - Eastern rhythms. The other two songs (vinyl edition side B) are a bit more energetic, both contain extravagant world rhythms. To be precise, there are only a few moments of Sander's more energetic, almost harsh sax soloing on all three tracks. At the same time, there are some of his flute soloing as well, which is an acquired taste mostly.

Sanders will develop "spiritual jazz" on his later releases, often moving towards post-bop or even r'n'b. "Tauhid" sometimes had almost cult status as his impressive solo beginning. It still is his important work, showing from where his music came.

SOFT MACHINE Drop

Live album · 2009 · Avant-Garde Jazz
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Mssr_Renard
This is actually a very good archival live album. A bit to loud and the bass is very thumping. But you can hear the duelling organs, saxophone and drums just fine.

The album seems like one long improvisational jam. Amidst the many, many archival live-albums it proves difficult to discover the really good ones. Well here is good one. The band plays a wild set bordering fusion and free jazz at times.

Of course the soundquality is not perfect, but this is an old recording (1971!) and I am very happy it survived and was released. When Wyatt left the band and before Marshall joined, Phil Howard played drums for five months, wich makes this album even more special.

This album should be in every Soft Machine collection (you can purchase it via Bandcamp) and in my opinion is even essential for any fusion and/or jazzrock collection.

SUN RA The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (aka Cosmic Equation aka The Cosmos)

Album · 1965 · Avant-Garde Jazz
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js
“The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra” came out in 1965 when the world of free jazz was starting to peak. Although often lumped with the free jazz crowd, Ra always made it clear that his band did not play free jazz per se, Ra was the leader and organizer and when you were in his band, you were not free, you were “in the Ra jail”. Sonny’s weird humor aside, the band certainly used intensely free sections when called upon, but still, this album was often criticized by the free crowd at the time for being too much like composed modern concert hall music. Well you certainly can't keep everyone happy and I doubt Sun Ra ever tried or was the lest bit interested in pleasing anyone but himself and his faithful band. Despite the fact that Sonny put out so many albums, quite often each album has a unique approach not to be duplicated on subsequent albums. “Heliocentric” has some familiar Sun Ra elements, but also has some musical. elements that exist only on this album. This is an Arkestra album, but it’s a slightly small Arkestra and features some of Ra’s best long standing band members.

One of the salient features on this album are all the low instruments, bass trombone, bass marimba, bass clarinet, baritone sax, Ronnie Boykin’s powerhouse bass fiddle and lots of tympany. As a contrast we also get some extreme upper register sounds from Ra’s celesta and Marshall Allen’s piccolo. Sun Ra’s band had a knack for taking European orchestral instruments and making them sound African, and that is in full effect here. The tympanis in particular take on the sound of a very low pitched talking drum. On the opening title track murky low end ramblings from the marimba and bass are punctuated with held tones on the horns in imitation of the horns you would hear on an African field recording, along with frequent interjections from the tympany. On “Outer Nothingness” the band becomes more active with short chaotic outbursts followed by mysterious low rumbles. Side one closes out with, “Other Worlds”, which is a classic free jazz free-for-all.

On side two we open with a short off kilter jazz waltz before the band settles into more juxtapositions of quiet sections and more charged sections. Halfway through “Of Heavenly Things”, Boykins slips into a walking bass line as the others take turns with their trademark odd solos. “Nebulae” is a real treat as we get to hear Sonny working out on the celesta, not an instrument he used often. The album closes out with “Dancing in the Sun” a chaotic bebop romp that is quite short in true bebop fashion. This is one of Sonny’s better offerings and the recording quality is quite good for a Sun Ra album. There are no vocal chants on here, the space chants can be fun live, but tedious on albums, this album is pure instrumental music and pure magic.

MASAHIKO TOGASHI Session In Paris, Vol. 1 "Song Of Soil"

Album · 1979 · Avant-Garde Jazz
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snobb
Masahiko Togashi's "Song Of Soil", recorded in Paris in 1979 and reissued in France by Wewantsounds just a few months ago, is most probably his best known album in the Western world. Percussionist Togashi was one of the cornerstones of Japanese free jazz in the late 60s. In 1969 Togashi lost the use of his legs in an accident, but he developed a new drum kit and returned to playing.

Well known in Japan from his collaboration with leading domestic artists (Sadao Watanabe, Masabumi Kikuchi, Masahiko Satoh among many other), Togashi played with some leading Western jazz artists who were visiting Japan as well (Gary Peacock, Richard Beirach, Steve Lacy, etc). "Song Of Soil" is recorded on Masahiko's rare tour in Europe with two jazz greats, trumpeter Don Cherry and bassist Charlie Haden.

Originally released in Japan in 1979, this album contains six Togashi compositions, all loose and very percussive. Don Cherry improvises freely over dense Masahiko drumming, plays a lot of flute too. Haden's acoustic bass is very wooden and physical. Masahiko's compositions are rooted in Japanese folklore as well as his rhythms, but the music in whole is too bulky and not all that memorable. In fact, the album sounds more like it comes from the late 60s, not 70s. The sound quality of the reissue is excellent, so fans of Togashi and the freer side of Cherry and Haden can find some interesting moments here.

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