CHAPTER 15

The Avant-Garde

1) Forward March
a) “Avant-garde” was originally used to denote the military advanced guard. It
eventually came to refer to pioneering work in the arts. Avant-gardism was meant to
liberate artists from tradition and often went hand in hand with progressive social
thought.
b) Two prominent avant-garde movements of the twentieth century gathered steam
following the world wars. Jazz was vital to both.
i) The First Avant-Garde Wave
(1) The 1920s avant-garde deliberately set out to break with the artistic past. It
was a response to World War I, the expansion of women’s rights, and
technological advances including radio, talking pictures, and transcontinental
flight. This avant-garde was provocative but hopeful.
(2) Jazz was considered by the cultural elite to be an inspiration and resource
for the avant-garde.
ii) The Second Avant-Garde Wave
(1) The conditions of the avant-garde of the 1950s and 1960s paralleled those
of the 1920s: new colonial wars and occupations, the Cold War, the struggle for
racial equality, demands for gender equality, and the unraveling of some settled
social conventions. These conditions created a different avant-garde, one that
reflected uncertainty and anguish instead of the modernist optimism of the 1920s.
(2) The most potent expression of these trends was found in two twentieth-
century forms: film and jazz. The New Wave cinema from France and Italy
examined confusion and desperation. Jazz also developed ways to express its
disavowal of tradition.
c) What’s in a Name?
i) Earlier names for avant-garde jazz included:
(1) “anti-jazz,” criticizing the avant-garde’s apparent attack on mainstream
jazz;
(2) “free jazz,” after the title of an Ornette Coleman album that had a picture
of a painting by the modernist Jackson Pollock on its cover;
(3) “black music,” indicating that the ferocity of the music reflected African
American frustrations;
(4) “new music,” the “New Thing,” “revolutionary music,” and “fire music.”
ii) Cecil Taylor’s first album suggested the term that stuck: Jazz Advance (1956).
iii) “Avant-garde” became an umbrella term for this new music.
(1) Rhythm: Discarded a steady dance beat for an ambiguous pulse, or several
pulses at once.
(2) Harmony: Discarded harmonic patterns based on scales and chords for an
unpredictable harmony based on the needs of the moment.
(3) Melody: Whether melodic or noise-heavy, melody was disengaged from
traditional harmonic patterns and resolutions.
 (4) Structure: Blues and song forms were discarded for the creation of form
through free improvisation.
(5) Instrumentation: In addition to typical jazz instruments, symphonic and
world music instruments were used.
(6) Presentation: Jazz was no longer entertainment; it was now serious and
challenging—art for art’s sake.
(7) Politics: Its assertive posture placed it in the general context of the
increasingly militant racial and antiwar struggles of the 1950s and 1960s.
iv) The appearance of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor on the scene divided the
jazz world. They were both hailed as geniuses and dismissed as charlatans. Many
musicians (such as Duke Ellington) and critics considered them a threat.
d) Ornette Coleman (b. 1930)
i) In 1959, Ornette played a long engagement at the Five Spot in New York.
Classical composers (Leonard Bernstein, Gunther Schuller) who heard him declared
him a genius. Jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and Charles Mingus were derisive.
By 2007, he had won the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded for an album (Sound
Grammar).
ii) He grew up in Texas playing in R&B bands. In 1949, he moved to New Orleans,
where he met drummer Ed Blackwell. In 1956, he formed the American Jazz Quintet
with three major interpreters of his music: drummer Billy Higgins, bassist Charlie
Haden, and pocket trumpeter Don Cherry.
iii) John Lewis persuaded Atlantic Records to sign Coleman and bring him to New
York to record. The six albums recorded on Atlantic between 1959 and 1961 created
tremendous controversy, even about the album titles, which seemed to embody the
authority of the New Negro: The Shape of Jazz to Come, Change of the Century, This
Is Our Music, Free Jazz.
iv) Musical Style
(1) There are two clear aspects of his style:
(a) His compositions are strongly melodic and emotional; even his detractors
acknowledge that.
(b) His saxophone sound is jarring, which alienates people from his music.
His use of a plastic saxophone contributes to the harshness of the sound.
Coleman was after a sound like the human voice.
(2) He also used microtones, that is, pitches in between those found in a
traditional scale.
(3) He argued that a pitch ought to reflect its context: a particular note in a
happy piece should sound different when that same note is played in a sad piece.
(4) When he played a standard, he played off the melody, not the harmony.
The harmonies followed from his melodic conception, opening up new avenues
for improvisers.
(5) He dispensed with the piano because it hampered his freedom from the
tempered scale and it promoted chords. Our musical sensibility is assaulted by the
stark texture of alto sax and trumpet playing melody over a rhythm with no
accented beats and soloing with no governing structure or familiar frame of
reference.
 (6) Rhythm and harmony were improvised, as was the melody. Cherry’s
sound merged with Coleman’s on the themes, with the harmony provided by the
responses of the bassist. The drummer provided the rhythm in breath-like
patterns.
v) “Lonely Woman”
(1) Written in 1954, this piece became his most frequently performed
composition. His 1959 recording of it became popular because most of it
consisted of statements of the melody with little improvisation.
(2) The introduction consists of Haden’s double stops and Higgins’s fast ride-
cymbal rhythm, which has no discernible downbeats or upbeats. The melody is
played by sax and trumpet and seems to float over the bass and drums. The piece
swings, especially during Coleman’s solo.
(3) There are two sections to the piece, each indicating a different harmonic
area. Haden’s playing suggests major and minor key changes. Cherry hits the
wrong pitch near the end, which can happen when any two musicians create
harmony together on the spot.
vi) Free Jazz and Harmolodics
(1) Ornette played on two important projects at the end of 1960.
(a) On December 19 and 20, he was featured on two pieces of Schuller’s
Third Stream album Jazz Abstractions. On December 21, he recorded Free
Jazz with his double-quartet, made up of his musicians plus Dolphy and others
from the Schuller session. In contrast to Jazz Abstractions, this music was
freely improvised by all the musicians.
(b) The rest of his career can be seen as an attempt to juggle notation with
improvisation. He coined the term “harmolodic” (a contraction of harmony,
movement, and melody), a key feature of which is that musicians may
improvise, even on notated music, in terms of register, key, and octave, as
long as the music’s melodic integrity is kept intact.
(c) He composed music for a wide variety of ensembles, including chamber
groups, orchestra, and rock bands. He also played trumpet and violin. In 1972,
he recorded Skies of America with the London Symphony Orchestra.
(d) Coleman also put together a fusion band called Prime Time, which
performed notated pieces. Each member of the band (James Blood Ulmer,
guitar; Jamaaladeen Tacuma, bass; Ronald Shannon Jackson, drums) went on
to form his own eclectic band. Prime Time played some of the music of Skies
of America.
e) Cecil Taylor (b. 1929)
i) Unlike the leaders of other styles of jazz, who share more or less the same
background, the leaders of the avant-garde come from divergent backgrounds:
Coleman from rhythm and blues, Coltrane from jazz, and Cecil Taylor from classical
music. Only Coltrane played with the other two musicians.
ii) Taylor was the first to record with his own group and the last to achieve
recognition. His prodigious technique was never in doubt, but his ability to swing or
to play the blues or bop-derived jazz was questioned. His personal style alienates
many listeners. His concerts can last three or more hours.
iii) Early Years
 (1) Taylor’s mother was a pianist who started him on piano lessons when he
was five; the same year, she took him to see Chick Webb at the Apollo. He
enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music in 1951, but soon started to
resent the fact that African and African American cultures--which he recognized
as a source for avant-garde music—were not respected.
(2) After graduating from the New England Conservatory, he convinced the
Five Spot to hire his quartet for six weeks in 1956. This club became the home of
futuristic jazz and the place where he recorded Jazz Advance.
(3) The band included Steve Lacy on soprano saxophone, who had previously
played in Dixieland and swing bands. The rhythm section consisted of classically
trained Buell Neidlinger on bass and self-taught Dennis Charles on drums. Taylor,
like Coleman, wanted musicians who would follow him into new territory. Jazz
Advance consists of pieces by Monk and Cole Porter and free-form-like, atonal
originals featuring a ferocious rhythmic attack.
(4) On the basis of this album he was asked to perform at the 1957 Newport
Jazz Festival, which he did without generating much of a reaction.
(5) The turning point came in 1961, when he started to play with tenor
saxophonist Archie Shepp, who later recorded with Coltrane and made his own
avant-garde recordings; alto sax player Jimmy Lyons, who played with Taylor for
25 years; and drummer Sonny Murray, who profoundly influenced Taylor’s
approach to rhythm.
iv) Unit Structures
(1) Taylor did not write conventional scores. He preferred graphic notation to
indicate the direction of the music. The musicians did not see these scores. Instead
he played what he wanted on the piano and the musicians had to pick it up by ear
and improvise on it.
(2) He described his method as working with “unit structures” (also the name
of one of his albums). He constructed his pieces from modules, or units, and the
band worked and improvised through each unit in turn.
(3) Jimmy Lyons transferred Taylor’s ideas onto the saxophone with bebop
timbre and phrasing, and he translated them and their potential to the rest of the
band. Sonny Murray did away with the idea of pulse, which one can still hear in
Coleman’s band, and intensified the level of interaction based on the energy of the
performance.
(4) Taylor played duets with many drummers, but after Murray left he formed
a close bond with drummer Andrew Cyrille from 1964 to 1975. Cyrille then
formed his own ensemble.
(5) Taylor was very different from Coleman, who wore his emotions on his
sleeve, avoided piano, had no formal education, discovered the African American
timbral sound ideal, used relatively conventional notation, and eventually went to
fusion. By contrast, Taylor was emotional but virtuosic and intellectual,
emphasized the piano’s percussive qualities, studied modern classical theory and
atonality, and avoided conventional notation; his dance connection was with
ballet.
 (6) His hands are a blur as he pummels the keyboard, creating cascades of
sound. He seems to pluck the strings in softer sections, creating Romantic-
sounding melodies.
(7) Over the next few years he garnered awards, grants, and critical
acceptance. He also developed a cult following, especially in Europe, where in
1988, in Berlin, a festival devoted to him was staged, resulting in more than a
dozen albums. He started to play major clubs internationally and led various kinds
of bands. He remains the symbol of the unyielding avant-garde musician.
v) “Bulbs”
(1) This piece was recorded by a Taylor quintet under the aegis of Gil Evans.
It starts with the instrumentalists echoing Taylor’s opening figures.
(2) The piece contains traditional triads, whole-tone and pentatonic scales,
chord clusters, and free passages. The nine melodic units reappear in different
contexts. His percussive attacks, melodic and rhythmic patterns, and dissonant
harmonies animate the piece.
(3) Lyons’s solo is Bird-like in its timbre and fluidity. Lyons whimsically
quotes from Franz von Suppé’s Poet and Peasant Overture. Near the end of the
recording there is a burst of polyphony, a kind of avant-garde New Orleans style.
2) The New Thing
a) The avant-garde divided the jazz world in half. On the one hand, it was criticized
for being too political—its brashness and intentional dissonance seen to be too closely
connected to the demands of the Civil Rights Era, including Vietnam War protests, Black
Power, and other movements. On the other hand, its supporters called the New Thing a
people’s music, even though it alienated more people than it attracted.
b) Coltrane was well respected for mastering the bop and avant-garde idioms. He
became the unofficial referee between the two styles.
c) Eric Dolphy (1928–1964)
i) A reed player from Los Angeles, he played in dance bands during the 1940s and
jammed with musicians such as Mingus. In 1958, he came to New York with Chico
Hamilton’s band. In 1959, he played off and on with Mingus until shortly before his
own death. He was on Coleman’s Free Jazz album in 1960. He toured Europe with
Coltrane in 1961 and appeared on several of his albums, including Live at the Village
Vanguard.
ii) He often played with trumpeter Booker Little, including some live recordings at
the Five Spot. He was also affiliated with the Third Stream and single-handedly made
the bass clarinet a jazz instrument.
iii) He built his style on bebop but took harmonies and timbre further into areas of
extreme dissonance.
d) Albert Ayler (1936–1970)
i) Ayler hit the scene with an extreme musical style that left audiences and critics
struggling for apt descriptors.
ii) He came from Cleveland, where he studied alto saxophone, played in R&B bands,
and then joined the army, where he switched to tenor. He experimented with the
tenor’s “hidden register.”
 iii) Back in the United States he released his album Spiritual Unity in 1964 on ESP-
Disk, a tiny label that eventually became a major source for avant-garde jazz. His
huge sound evoked strong reactions.
iv) From 1962 to 1970, he went through a number of styles, at one point focusing
almost exclusively on composition. He led various groups, one of which had a front
line of sax, violin, and trumpet, and played music that suggested classical music. He
also tried to reach a rock audience but failed. He died at age thirty-four in an apparent
suicide.
v) “Ghosts”
(1) This is Ayler’s signature piece. He recorded it many times and it was on
his first important album, Spiritual Unity, two times. It contains three primary
elements of his music: old-time religious fervor, marching, and singable melodies.
The statement is followed by free improvisation.
(2) This 1966 version contains no solos and the theme is never stated clearly.
These musicians work together so closely that each one knows how to fill out the
canvas minimally without overwhelming it.
(3) There are three sections: introduction, collective interpretation of the
theme, and coda. It has strong rhythms but does not swing. There is a march
feeling at times and the theme is very singable.
3) Three Paradoxes
a) The avant-garde carried jazz to the edge. It upped the emotional expressiveness of
the music, unlike the classical-music avant-garde, which was more intellectual. But
audiences reared on swing and post-swing found it unappealing.
b) During the late 1960s, rock was attracting people who a generation earlier would
have been jazz fans.
c) There are three paradoxes, given the avant-garde’s outside status:
i) It influenced a surprising number of established but neglected musicians.
ii) It was more inclusive than any previous jazz style.
iii) It has proved to be as durable as mainstream jazz.
d) The First Paradox and Older Musicians
i) Musicians such as Miles, Rollins, Mingus, and Coltrane addressed avant-garde
techniques and overcame their initial skepticism.
ii) Sun Ra (1914–1993)
(1) One of the lesser-known avant-garde artists was Sun Ra (born Herman
Blount in Alabama). He came to Chicago, worked with an R&B band, and then
worked as a pianist for Fletcher Henderson in 1946.
(2) He studied black nationalism and Egyptian history. He named himself Sun
Ra and his band the Arkestra. His 1950s recordings included R&B, experimental
jazz, unusual meters, early electric instruments, and synthesizers. His records
were privately pressed and distributed by his followers, who were mostly from
Chicago.
(3) In 1961 he came to New York, and by the middle of the decade he was
working regularly in clubs, festivals, and throughout Europe. His performances
knew no boundaries of genre or style (e.g., fusion, John Cage collaborations,
“Hello, Dolly!”) and were played by a large ensemble. He made dozens of
albums, including The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra.
 e) The Second Paradox and the AACM
i) Before the avant-garde, jazz musicians played exclusively in their own style and
never looked to the past.
ii) The definition of avant-garde seems to indicate a futuristic outlook, yet avant-
garde jazz was open to every kind of influence, including instruments not used in jazz
up to this point, some from other parts of the world.
iii) The second generation of avant-garde musicians came of age in the 1970s and
was schooled in the Midwest. They formed collectives, not unlike the fraternal
societies of New Orleans. The collectives arranged rehearsals, secured work, and set
the stage for the creation of new music. The Black Artists Group (BAG) arose in St.
Louis. The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) lasted
for 40 years.
iv) The AACM was started in Chicago by pianist, composer, and bandleader Muhal
Richard Abrams. He played in bop-based bands during the 1940s and founded the
Experimental Band in 1961 as a vehicle for original new music. In 1965, he, along
with some other musicians, started the AACM with Abrams as president. Each
member had to write new music for the ensemble. Abrams noted that this was much
like what jazz musicians had done in the early days of jazz.
v) Saxophonist Joseph Jarman was part of the most important band to come out of
the AACM, the Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEC). Other members were Roscoe
Mitchell (sax), Lester Bowie (trumpet), Malachi Favors Maghostut (bass), and
Famoudou Don Moye (drums). The AEC popularized “little” instruments—bells,
whistles, hand drums—which were used in AACM concerts to add some African
content.
vi) AEC concerts were continuous and ended with a hard-swinging number or blues.
They described their concerts as “Great Black Music: From the Ancient to the
Future” and included free improvisation, notated compositions, and a variety of
rhythms.
vii) Anthony Braxton from the AACM wrote many original pieces but also ran a
series looking at the compositions of Charlie Parker.
viii) The AACM’s real breakthrough was when Abrams went to New York in 1976,
where he made multiple recordings with various kinds of ensembles.
ix) Two other AACM bands started in New York were the Revolutionary Ensemble
and Air. The former was created by Leroy Jenkins, bassist Sirone (Norris Jones), and
percussionist Jerome Cooper.
x) Flutist and alto and baritone saxophonist Henry Threadgill led Air with bassist
Fred Hopkins and drummer Steve McCall in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Air
played Threadgill originals as well as Scott Joplin rags and Jelly Roll Morton pieces.
Threadgill later started groups known for their unusual instrumentation, such as
trombone with French horn, two electric guitars, accordion, two tubas, and oud (a
Middle Eastern type of lute).
xi) Anthony Braxton (b. 1945)
(1) Chicago native Braxton plays all the reed instruments and piano. In 1969
he released a double album of unaccompanied alto saxophone solos that created
quite a furor over whether it even represented jazz.
 (2) His quartet, In the Tradition, played traditional repertory in nontraditional
ways. His sources and performance practices were much broader than what most
people understood as proper to jazz. He eventually settled into academia as a
music professor.
xii) “Spirit Possession”
(1) Roach’s 1978 album with Braxton, Birth and Rebirth, restated the
improvised duet as an encounter founded on spontaneity, quick thinking, and a
virtually conversational responsiveness.
(2) The numbers are not guided by the usual signposts of chorus structure, chord
changes, and a stable meter.
f) The Third Paradox and the Loft Era
i) By 1980, free jazz had come to mean free to play anything, not just music without
rules. It had also exhibited at least as much staying power as swing or bop. There was
a tradition of avant-garde music in various countries in Europe as well as the United
States.
ii) During the 1970s, New York was the magnet for avant-garde musicians from all
over: for example, saxophonist Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, and Hamiet Bluiett
from the Black Artists Group (St. Louis); saxophonist and bass clarinetist David
Murray; alto player Arthur Blythe; flutist James Newton; bassist Mark Dresser; and
composer-trumpeter Butch Morris.
iii) For all this activity, new venues were required. Some concerts took place in
private homes and some in lofts transformed into full-time concert spaces in New
York’s abandoned warehouse district.
iv) During this era, the new music in New York was played in lofts, churches, and
galleries and was recorded by small labels often owned by the musicians. This lasted
for around 12 years, at which time the major labels and venues began to accept the
new music. The key word for the loft scene was “eclectic.”
v) David Murray (b. 1955)
(1) Murray synthesizes the avant-garde and the jazz tradition. He came from
Oakland, California. He memorized many of the great tenor solos of Hawkins,
Lester, Ben Webster, and his favorite, Paul Gonsalves.
(2) He came to New York in 1975. Initially hostile to the avant-garde, he
eventually warmed to Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler. One of his best-known
pieces is “Flowers for Albert.”
(3) He cofounded the World Saxophone Quartet along with three BAG
musicians: Julius Hemphill, the main composer; Oliver Lake; and Hamiet Bluiett.
(4) “Hattie Wall”
There are no solos (and no rhythm section); instead, the block-chord riffs open up
for collective spurts—or breaks—of polyphonic improvisation, suggesting a
mighty locomotive occasionally tooting its exuberant whistle.
g) By 2008, the avant-garde had been developing for 50 years and had influenced
every kind of jazz in terms of timbre, instrumentation, and repertory. Still, outside a
handful of major cities, the avant-garde remains largely unknown.