>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

to me it's not difficult. in fact, it's very simple and direct. you will feel it instantly. that is to say if the performance is open and including.

>“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.”

yes, some people react this way but to me it's not important if you like/not like it, or if you feel that you would or wouldn't go to a improv concert again. the experience then and there is the thing. what happens after is not important. also, every improv concert is not the same. for starters, they can sound wildly different from each other and also i would say that the intent of the musicians can vary a lot, and that shows in the music and the experience of listening.

the woldview thing. yeah, maybe for the most part.

>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.

about the rejection of the elite. yeah, definitely back in the days but nowadays people choose to play so called free improv for different reasons and have different intent in doing so.

wynton and crouch are elitist but there definitely are elitist among improv musicians now too.

in an ideal session there is no hierarchy at all but i think that rarely is the case. even though there is no outspoken hierarchy (or more of an authority i would say), it occurs while the performance is happening.

i can try and explain it better if you want. i have some experience in this.

>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.

i think the only part of this paragraph that is parkers is "you'll creep back", the rest is the writer of the article. it's weird that he says that musicians feel that the result is important. i think it's mostly not the case.

about the music for musicians. i think it often becomes that due to the performance not being open and including as i mentioned before. also, musicians playing strictly from their ego. if it is open, inclusive and non authoritarian, the listener is exectly as much of a part of the creation as the musician.

about the intruding into someone's space, i don't know where he gets that. maybe the writer experienced that.