I tend to gravitate toward the more experimental jazz albums. So, if you can list those kinds of albums, that would be ideal for me.
Hi there!
That’s a little tricky, but mostly because limiting the list to just a few elminates so many trends and key points in the development of avant garde jazz, past and present, but here goes:
Ornette Coleman – Free Jazz
John Coltrane – Ascension
Anthony Braxton – For Alto (not my favourite of his, but a key recording for certain!)
Art Ensemble of Chicago – Fanfare for the Warriors
Sun Ra – Space is the Place
Dave Holland Quartet – Conference of the Birds
Hans Koch Trio with El Nil Troop – Heavy Cairo Traffic
Milford Graves – Grand Unification
Derek Bailey and DJ Ninj – Guitar, Drum n Bass
Naked City – eponymous
Like I said, there are many others, but here is my reasoning for the ones I have listed here:
Ornette Coleman – Free Jazz: one of if not the first LP to feature a large ensemble basically free form improvisation (with only a starting and ending keys and note (singluar)) that was the springboard for his innovative Harmolodic approach to composition and improvisation.
John Coltrane, of course, broke many moulds, but this album extended his improvisations to a new level and inspired his wife to continue in this vein for several albums that incorporated Asian traditional instruments which, in turn, influenced many other musicians and performance styles.
Anthony Braxton For Alto was the first (or maybe the most prominent) presentation of solo avant garde parametered improv recordings. It lead him to explore duos, trios, quartets, and multiple orchestra composition and modular improv before moving on to trace music that incorporated multimedia, et cetera.
Art Ensemble of Chicago – Fanfare – This recording presented a mixture of improv, newly styles of composition, and various older styles of classic jazz, bringing together many veins of the genre for the first time on one LP. They had been doing it already for years, but it came together more definitively here and influenced many other musicians to do the same.
Sun Ra – Space is the Place: Another huge innovator in the genre, Sun Ra took the music from the concert halls and lofts and brought it to the big screen with this film and its sound track. A monumental influence on many scores as a result.
Dave Holland Quartet – Conference of the Birds: With this LP, Holland extended his noisy avant garde side to include smooth melodies and harnessed the powerful playing of three important harsh players, merging angular structures with accessible tunes, almost creating an angry response to his take on the "new music".
Hans Koch with El Nil Troop presented the first in a series of noise jazz compositions that not only featured traditional "World music" instruments, but embraced the melodies typically played on them as part of the experimental presentations. His trio released many other similar recordings afterwards and many other performers followed suit. Eventually movements such as the New Jewish Renaissance emerged.
Milford Graves – Grand Unification: His outstanding experiments in percussion playing have blazed a trail for years, but with this CD, he combines many of the improviation methods mentioned above and creates astounding solo compositions that exemplify his various styles and musical philosophies.
Derek Bailey and DJ Ninj: This album was pieced together by John Zorn for the Tzadik label and although they did not meet until halfway through the recording, the merger of drum and bass with harsh improvising guitar sounds opened the door for new improving team-ups and brought noise jazz to a new generation of listeners. He followed this release with recordings featuring joint efforts with Japanese art punkers Ruins and several others before his death a two years ago.
Naked City’s first eponymous CD was an explosion of styles performed with the energy of ten metal bands. Many of the songs were extremely short and and the tempo and melodic changed were severe. The influence of this album on jazz musicians and many other players of various genres is extensive and growing to this day.
Go check those out and that will lead you to hundred more of exceptional and amazing experimental recordings!
Cheers!
December 16th, 2009 at 12:16 am
Hi there!
That’s a little tricky, but mostly because limiting the list to just a few elminates so many trends and key points in the development of avant garde jazz, past and present, but here goes:
Ornette Coleman – Free Jazz
John Coltrane – Ascension
Anthony Braxton – For Alto (not my favourite of his, but a key recording for certain!)
Art Ensemble of Chicago – Fanfare for the Warriors
Sun Ra – Space is the Place
Dave Holland Quartet – Conference of the Birds
Hans Koch Trio with El Nil Troop – Heavy Cairo Traffic
Milford Graves – Grand Unification
Derek Bailey and DJ Ninj – Guitar, Drum n Bass
Naked City – eponymous
Like I said, there are many others, but here is my reasoning for the ones I have listed here:
Ornette Coleman – Free Jazz: one of if not the first LP to feature a large ensemble basically free form improvisation (with only a starting and ending keys and note (singluar)) that was the springboard for his innovative Harmolodic approach to composition and improvisation.
John Coltrane, of course, broke many moulds, but this album extended his improvisations to a new level and inspired his wife to continue in this vein for several albums that incorporated Asian traditional instruments which, in turn, influenced many other musicians and performance styles.
Anthony Braxton For Alto was the first (or maybe the most prominent) presentation of solo avant garde parametered improv recordings. It lead him to explore duos, trios, quartets, and multiple orchestra composition and modular improv before moving on to trace music that incorporated multimedia, et cetera.
Art Ensemble of Chicago – Fanfare – This recording presented a mixture of improv, newly styles of composition, and various older styles of classic jazz, bringing together many veins of the genre for the first time on one LP. They had been doing it already for years, but it came together more definitively here and influenced many other musicians to do the same.
Sun Ra – Space is the Place: Another huge innovator in the genre, Sun Ra took the music from the concert halls and lofts and brought it to the big screen with this film and its sound track. A monumental influence on many scores as a result.
Dave Holland Quartet – Conference of the Birds: With this LP, Holland extended his noisy avant garde side to include smooth melodies and harnessed the powerful playing of three important harsh players, merging angular structures with accessible tunes, almost creating an angry response to his take on the "new music".
Hans Koch with El Nil Troop presented the first in a series of noise jazz compositions that not only featured traditional "World music" instruments, but embraced the melodies typically played on them as part of the experimental presentations. His trio released many other similar recordings afterwards and many other performers followed suit. Eventually movements such as the New Jewish Renaissance emerged.
Milford Graves – Grand Unification: His outstanding experiments in percussion playing have blazed a trail for years, but with this CD, he combines many of the improviation methods mentioned above and creates astounding solo compositions that exemplify his various styles and musical philosophies.
Derek Bailey and DJ Ninj: This album was pieced together by John Zorn for the Tzadik label and although they did not meet until halfway through the recording, the merger of drum and bass with harsh improvising guitar sounds opened the door for new improving team-ups and brought noise jazz to a new generation of listeners. He followed this release with recordings featuring joint efforts with Japanese art punkers Ruins and several others before his death a two years ago.
Naked City’s first eponymous CD was an explosion of styles performed with the energy of ten metal bands. Many of the songs were extremely short and and the tempo and melodic changed were severe. The influence of this album on jazz musicians and many other players of various genres is extensive and growing to this day.
Go check those out and that will lead you to hundred more of exceptional and amazing experimental recordings!
Cheers!
References :
Will
http://www.myspace.com/justvultures
http://sonicproducerbeats.blogspot.com
December 16th, 2009 at 12:56 am
Hum…I don’t know how to answer this question. Or even if I can answer it confidently. I might be able to tell a the story, but only partially.
I like the first answer you got. I suggest you check out his recommendations. I would have put most of his recommendations in my answer too. I won’t repeat any.
Its important to consider that, at the time, what was considered avant garde is now mainstream, legends like Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, along wtih Dizzy and Bird should be some of the very first on the list. But, I think I understand that your not asking for those guys. I just figured it was worth mentioning.
The first recording, that I know of, of music without melody was recorded in 1949, by Lennie Tristano. The last two songs on the Intuition album were "free jazz" , 11 years prior to the great Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz album.
George Russell- Ezz Thetics.
George Russell innovated jazz with his "modal" ideas. Very often, Miles Davis is credited for starting the modal movement with his album Kind of Blue, and even a year earlier with his song Mile’s Mode. Really, what happened is the piano player for Kind of Blue, Bill Evans, had come from working in Russell’s band. Evans showed Mile’s what he had learned from Russell, modal music.
The mid 1960’s were huge in revolutionizing the the traditional way of playing jazz, which I think was getting boring. There are way too many albums to list.
Some of the key players often played as sidemen in each others band. They were all on to something great. Look for albums with these innovators…
Eric Dolphy
Andrew Hill (especially his Point of Departure album)
Sam Rivers
Bobby Hutcherson
Richard Davis
Booker Ervin’s album The Freedom Book
Richard Davis (a completely free thinking bass player. Hes on the Freeom Book)
Jaki Byard
Charles Mingus
Tony Williams Lifetime- Emergency!
I think this album opened the door to good electric jazz in the 1970’s. In my opinion, a lot of the electric jazz, fusion, was an economic move by jazz musicians. There was a bigger audience for electric jazz, mostly because acoustic instruments simply aren’t adequate for venues bigger than a small club. The bigger the venue, the more money for the starving musicians. Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.
This album was made before it was profitable. John McLaughlin is amazing, a real innovative guitar player. A very successful experiment.
Wildflowers- The Complete Loft Sessions.
In the 1970’s, the experimental scene was too innovative. The players couldn’t find places to have them play. The musicians had very little paying gigs. They shared empty warehouse spaces to live and practice. This became a very fertile ground for innovation. The Wildflowers collection is really good. Also check out albums by Alice Coltrane and Rahsid Ali. Henry Cow was a great band in Europe. Try thier album Concerts.
Wynton Marsalis got started in th e1980’s which did a lot for jazz popularity, but nothing for its innovations. Still there are some great avant garde albums…
John Carter- Dauwhe (get this album)
Muhal Richard Abrams-Colors in Thirty Third
Andrew Cyrille- Good to Go
Marty Ehrlich- The Traveller’s Tale
James Newton- The African Flower
Bob Moses- When Elephants Dream of Music.
The 1990’s was a great time for jazz innovations. The New York downtown scene was very alive.
John Zorn, William Parker, Time Berne, and a bunch that I’m not remembering were blowing the dust off the avant garde scene.
To be very honest, I think today’s jazz scene is as good as it was in the 1960’s. In the past ten years, I have witnesssed the music change. It seems like there is no standard of how the music shoould be played. A ot of thises players came out of Berklee in Boston. I don’t know what they are doing there, but they freed these musicians. There are too many great albums to list. Here are a few,…
Tim Berne- You have to get his most recent from his record label, screwgun records. In my opinon, its one of the most successful experiments recorded. It atmospheric avant garde music. Its a real trip.
Drew Gress- Seven Black Butterflies
Scott Colley- Archetiect of the Silent Moment.
Mujician- Space Time (amazing)
Kurt Rosenwinkel-Deep Song (any album)
Seamus Blake- Stranger Things Have Happened
Tim Berne and Science Friction- The Sublime and the…(live)
Ried Anderson- Dirty Showtunes
Ari Hoenig- Inversations
Dafnis Prieto- Absolute Quintet
Mat Maneri Quartet- Blue Decco
Roy Campbell- It’s Krunch Time
Human Feel- Galore
Aaron Parks- Invisible Cinema
Bernie Maupin Quartet- Early Reflections
(of all the albums on this list, this is the most quiet. Don’t let that fool you. If you like this album, you should also check out the Marty Ehrlich Dark Wood Ensemble albums, and Andew Hill’s album Dusk, and Paul Motains’s recent albums on the ECM label). Mellow avant garde is powerful stuff.
Mario Pavone- Toulon Days
Chris Potter- Song For Anyone
William Parker- Painter’s Spring
PS-The best radio station for innovative jazz (BY FAR) is WKCR(.org). Check their schedule, because sometimes they play other styles of music too. WKCR is where I discovered most of the musicians on this list.
For you, I suggest listening on Wednday evening (6-9pm). Its the "Musicians Show". Each week, a New York City musician gueats as a DJ. The musician is active, on the scene, and usually plays stuff that is new and even unrealeased.
You will hear whats important today. WKCR is the best.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr/
References :