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>This belongs here even though I don't personally agree with >everything that is being said about preforming or listening to >free improv. Still worth a read. > >https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/nov/15/free-improvisation-jazz-ultimate-underground-music > >Free improvisation: still the ultimate in underground music? > >Pioneered in the 1950s by musicians breaking the rules of jazz >and composition, free improvisation is still as difficult – >and potentially transcendent – as it ever was. A Guardian >documentary takes you inside its world > >by Noah Payne-Frank > >“There are people that hear it once and think: never >again!” says Evan Parker of free improvisation, a musical >style that some might compare to a jazz band falling down the >stairs – and others find transcendental. “Then there are >people who hear it once and say, ‘My god, what was that?’ >But they creep back, because there’s something that’s >connected for them. There’s a worldview involved that >touches people.” This short film, as part of the >Guardian’s series on underground music, featuring Parker as >well as other free improv luminaries such as John Edwards and >Eddie Prévost, gives you a six-minute taste of this >worldview. >Free improvisation: still the ultimate in underground music? >
I do experience with people who hear avant-garde (free improv) for the first time and their reaction is one of which it looks like they ate an onion. You do have to truly appreciate the stuff that we listen to because not everyone is going to appreciate it. Is it what I consider underground... NO!!!! There are some free improvisers that have been accept by a majority of jazz listeners.
>None of this is to say that the music is elitist – in fact >it represents the absolute rejection of the elite. The origins >are disputed, but at some point in the late 1950s jazz players >and modern composers who were repelled by the codification >conservatism of their peers and broke free. There is no >manifesto, no union or club you can join, just a shared >worldview and an acceptance that no one is going to get rich >from it. The claims of non-hierarchical band structures are >not always borne out – you can’t deny the seniority of >experience, or the person who organised the gig – but this >is as close as you’re going to get to a music that reflects >socialist values. > I think this is a very true statement. I feel that straight ahead jazz musicians have always felt that they are the elite... that they play true jazz music. I remember reading articles, statements from Wynton and Crouch pretty much condemning free improvisers. Also Kool and the Gang walking out in disgust at a Sun Ra concert. There definitely has to be an appreciation for this form of art.
>All of this makes it the ultimate in underground music. The >music is simply too inaccessible for the mainstream, and no >one involved is particularly interested in it anyway. >
Avant-garde has never been inaccessible. In fact it is very accessible, it’s just that some choose not to want to have access.
>There are key recordings – Parker’s Topography of the >Lungs, AMM’s AMMMusic – but for many of the musicians, the >process of making the music is as important as the results. >This creates a suspicion that free improvisation is simply >music for musicians, that an audience can never get close to >it in the same way a performer can. There is some truth in >this. Occasionally at live shows, you feel as if you’ve >intruded on someone’s private space, or that you’re >watching scientists at work in the lab. But if you put the >effort in and offer yourself to it, the shock you might feel >at first will recede, and, as Parker says, you’ll creep >back.
Not sure where Parker was going with this... but okay. No matter what the genre is, at live shows you are always sharing your music with your audience. It is way more personal at a live show than a record for sure. It is more intimate because the listener has gone beyond the realm of just listening to the record to seeing the artist in person and possibly have a conversation with them. How is this intrusion?
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