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Free improvisation or free music is
improvised music Musical improvisation (also known as musical extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment") musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous ...
without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician(s) involved. The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in its own right. Free improvisation, as a genre of music, developed in the U.S. and Europe in the mid to late 1960s, largely as an outgrowth of
free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during ...
and
modern classical In music, modernism is an aesthetic stance underlying the period of change and development in musical language that occurred around the turn of the 20th century, a period of diverse reactions in challenging and reinterpreting older categories o ...
musics. Exponents of free improvised music include saxophonists
Evan Parker Evan Shaw Parker (born 5 April 1944) is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation. Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free ja ...
,
Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chica ...
,
Peter Brötzmann Peter Brötzmann (born 6 March 1941) is a German saxophonist and clarinetist. Biography Early life Brötzmann was born in Remscheid, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He studied painting in Wuppertal and was involved with the Fluxus movement ...
, and
John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jaz ...
, composer
Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...
, drummer
Christian Lillinger Christian Lillinger (born 21 April 1984) is a German drummer, composer and percussionist. He was born in Lübben, grew up in the German village of Kuschkow, and has been living in Berlin since 2003 working as a musician and composer. Christian ha ...
, trombonist George E. Lewis, guitarists Derek Bailey,
Henry Kaiser Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. Prior to World War II, Kaiser was involved in the construction industry; his company was one of ...
and
Fred Frith Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock ...
and the improvising groups
Spontaneous Music Ensemble Spontaneous may refer to: * Spontaneous abortion * Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis * Spontaneous combustion * Spontaneous declaration * Spontaneous emission * Spontaneous fission * Spontaneous generation * Spontaneous human combustion * Spontan ...
,
The Music Improvisation Company ''The Music Improvisation Company'' is an album by saxophonist Evan Parker, guitarist Derek Bailey, Hugh Davies on various self-made electronic devices, and percussionist Jamie Muir (along with vocalist Christine Jeffrey added on two tracks) wh ...
,
Iskra 1903 ''Iskra 1903'' is an album by trombonist Paul Rutherford, guitarist Derek Bailey and bassist Barry Guy which was recorded at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1970 and in a studio in 1972 and first released as a double album on the Incus la ...
, The
Art Ensemble of Chicago The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz group that grew out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians ( AACM) in the late 1960s. The ensemble integrates many jazz styles and plays many instruments, including "little ...
and
AMM Amm or AMM may refer to: Entertainment Music *AMM (group), British free improvisation group Television *Amy's Mythic Mornings, an educational show on APTN Kids Video games * Automated MatchMaking, in the context of the Warcraft III Ladder system ...
.


Characteristics

In an
atonal Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a s ...
context, free improvisation refers to where the focus shifts from
harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However ...
to other dimensions of music:
timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or musical tone, tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voice ...
, melodic intervals,
rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular recu ...
and the spontaneous interaction between musicians. Although performers may choose to play in a certain style or
key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...
, or at a certain
tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...
, conventional songs are highly uncommon in free improvisation; more emphasis is generally placed on mood,
texture Texture may refer to: Science and technology * Surface texture, the texture means smoothness, roughness, or bumpiness of the surface of an object * Texture (roads), road surface characteristics with waves shorter than road roughness * Texture (c ...
or more simply, on performative gesture than on preset forms of
melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...
,
harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However ...
or
rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular recu ...
. These elements are improvised at will, as the music progresses. John Eyles notes that
guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
ist Derek Bailey has been quoted as saying that free improvisation is "playing without memory". In his landmark book ''Improvisation'', Bailey writes, "The lack of precision over its ree improv'snaming is, if anything, increased when we come to the thing itself. Diversity is its most consistent characteristic. It has no stylistic or idiomatic commitment. It has no prescribed idiomatic sound. The characteristics of freely improvised music are established only by the sonic musical identity of the person or persons playing it." Free music performers, coming from a disparate variety of backgrounds, often engage musically with other
genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
s. For example, acclaimed soundtrack composer
Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone (; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classica ...
was a member of the free improvisation group Nuova Consonanza.
Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chica ...
has written
opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
, and
John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jaz ...
has written acclaimed orchestral pieces. As it has influenced and been influenced by other areas of exploration, aspects of
modern classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
(
extended technique In music, extended technique is unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional methods of singing or of playing musical instruments employed to obtain unusual sounds or timbres.Burtner, Matthew (2005).Making Noise: Extended Techniques after Expe ...
s),
noise rock Noise rock (sometimes called noise punk) is a noise music, noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimal music, minimalism, industrial music, and New York hardcore, a ...
(aggressive confrontation and dissonance), IDM (computer manipulation and digital synthesis),
minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...
and
electroacoustic music Electroacoustic music is a genre of popular and Western art music in which composers use technology to manipulate the timbres of acoustic sounds, sometimes by using audio signal processing, such as reverb or harmonizing, on acoustical instrumen ...
can now be heard in free improvisation.


History

Though there are many important precedents and developments, free improvisation developed gradually, making it difficult to pinpoint a single moment when the style was born. However, its lineage is linked to Afro-American music, particularly the experiments made in the 1960s commonly known as "Free Jazz." The musical advancements made through improvisation through Free Jazz served as inspiration to European musicians, who then created "Free Improvisation" as a differentiation. British Guitarist Derek Bailey contends that free improvisation must have been the earliest musical style, because "mankind's first musical performance couldn't have been anything other than a free improvisation." Similarly,
Keith Rowe Keith may refer to: People and fictional characters * Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Keith (surname) * Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949) * Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...
stated, "Other players got into playing freely, way before AMM, way before Derek ailey Who knows when free playing started? You can imagine
lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...
players in the 1500s getting drunk and doing improvisations for people in front of a log fire.. the noise, the clatter must have been enormous. You read absolutely incredible descriptions of that. I cannot believe that musicians back then didn't float off into free playing. The
melisma Melisma ( grc-gre, μέλισμα, , ; from grc, , melos, song, melody, label=none, plural: ''melismata'') is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referr ...
in Monterverdi must derive from that. But it was all in the context of a repertoire." At the same time, Free Improvisation is a problematic term. It is neither free nor improvised as in their strict definitions. Musicians who play free improvisation develop highly individualized musical vocabulary which are then played without the restriction of a score. In this sense, the freedom implied by the term Free Improvisation is more of an aesthetic of playing towards notions of freedom than freedom in the pure sense.


Classical precedents

By the middle decades of the 20th century, composers like
Henry Cowell Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 202 ...
,
Earle Brown Earle Brown (December 26, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since ...
,
David Tudor David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music. Life and career Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan ...
,
La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...
,
Jackson Mac Low Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004) was an American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright, known to most readers of poetry as a practioneer of systematic chance operations and other non-intentional compositional methods in his work, whi ...
,
Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...
,
Sylvano Bussotti Sylvano Bussotti (1 October 1931 – 19 September 2021) was an Italian composer of contemporary classical music, also a painter, set and costume designer, opera director and manager, writer and academic teacher. His compositions employ graphic n ...
,
Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...
, and
George Crumb George Henry Crumb Jr. (24 October 1929 – 6 February 2022) was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical ...
, re-introduced improvisation to European art music, with compositions that allowed or even required musicians to improvise. One notable example of this is
Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...
's ''
Treatise A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions."Treat ...
'': a graphic score with no conventional notation whatsoever, which musicians were invited to interpret. Improvisation is still commonly practised by some organists at concerts or church services, and courses in improvisation (including free improvisation) are part of many higher education programmes for church musicians. Notable contemporary organists include
Olivier Latry Olivier Jean-Claude Latry (born 22 February 1962) is a French organist, improviser, and composer. He is professor of organ in the Conservatoire de Paris. He became interested in the organ after listening to recordings by Pierre Cochereau. His ...
and
Jean Guillou Jean Victor Arthur Guillou (18 April 1930 – 26 January 2019) was a French composer, organist, pianist, and pedagogue. Titular Organist at Saint Eustache in Paris, from 1963 to 2015, he was widely known as a composer of instrumental and vocal ...
. Free improvisations for organ has also occasionally been recorded and released on albums, such as
Like a Flame ''Like a Flame'' is a double-album with free improvisations for organ by Frederik Magle released in December 2010 on the Swedish record label Proprius Music (PRCD 2061). It was recorded on the then new Frobenius pipe organ in Jørlunde church ...
by
Frederik Magle Frederik Reesen Magle (; born 17 April 1977) is a Danish composer, concert organist, and pianist. He writes contemporary classical music as well as fusion of classical music and other genres. His compositions include orchestral works, cantatas, ...
.


Jazz precedents

Improvisation has been a central element of
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
since the music's inception, but until the 1950s, such improvisation was typically clearly within the jazz idiom and based on prescribed traditions. Perhaps the earliest free recordings in jazz are two pieces recorded under the leadership of jazz pianist
Lennie Tristano Leonard Joseph Tristano (March 19, 1919 – November 18, 1978) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher of jazz improvisation. Tristano studied for bachelor's and master's degrees in music in Chicago before moving to New Yo ...
: "Intuition", and "Digression", both recorded in 1949 with a
quintet A quintet is a group containing five members. It is commonly associated with musical groups, such as a string quintet, or a group of five singers, but can be applied to any situation where five similar or related objects are considered a single ...
including saxophone players
Lee Konitz Leon Konitz (October 13, 1927 – April 15, 2020) was an American composer and alto saxophonist. He performed successfully in a wide range of jazz styles, including bebop, cool jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Konitz's association with the cool jazz ...
and
Warne Marsh Warne Marion Marsh (October 26, 1927 – December 18, 1987) was an American tenor saxophonist. Born in Los Angeles, his playing first came to prominence in the 1950s as a protégé of pianist Lennie Tristano and earned attention in the 1970s as ...
. In 1954
Shelly Manne Sheldon "Shelly" Manne (June 11, 1920 – September 26, 1984) was an American jazz drummer. Most frequently associated with West Coast jazz, he was known for his versatility and also played in a number of other styles, including Dixieland, s ...
recorded a piece called "Abstract No. 1" with trumpeter
Shorty Rogers Milton "Shorty" Rogers (born Milton Rajonsky; April 14, 1924 – November 7, 1994) was an American jazz musician, one of the principal creators of West Coast jazz. He played trumpet and flugelhorn and was in demand for his skills as an arran ...
and reedsmith
Jimmy Giuffre James Peter Giuffre (, ; April 26, 1921 – April 24, 2008) was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He is known for developing forms of jazz which allowed for free interplay between the musicians, anticipating f ...
which was freely improvised. Jazz critic
Harvey Pekar Harvey Lawrence Pekar (; October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010) was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical ''American Splendor'' comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a ...
has also pointed out that one of
Django Reinhardt Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953), known by his Romani nickname Django ( or ), was a Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe and has been hailed as one of its most ...
's recorded improvisations strays drastically from the chord changes of the established piece. While noteworthy, these examples were clearly in the jazz idiom. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the
free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during ...
movement coalesced around such important (and disparate) figures as
Cecil Taylor Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet. Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex ...
,
Sun Ra Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific out ...
,
Ornette Coleman Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Colle ...
, and
John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of br ...
, as well as many lesser-known figures such as
Joe Maneri Joseph Gabriel Esther Maneri (February 9, 1927 – August 24, 2009), was an American jazz composer, saxophone and clarinet player. Violinist Mat Maneri is his son. Boston Microtonal Society In 1988, Maneri founded the Boston Microtonal Society, ...
and
Joe Harriott Joseph Arthurlin Harriott (15 July 1928 – 2 January 1973) was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone. Initially a bebopper, he became a pioneer of free-form jazz. Born in Kingston, Harriott ...
. Free jazz allowed for radical improvised departures from the harmonic and rhythmic material of the composition – for instance, by permitting performers to ignore conventional repeating song-structures. Such music often seemed far removed from the preceding jazz tradition, even though it almost always preserved one or more central elements of that tradition while abandoning others. These ideas were extended in the 1962 ''
Free Fall In Newtonian physics, free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it. In the context of general relativity, where gravitation is reduced to a space-time curvature, a body in free fall has no force acting on i ...
'' recording by jazz clarinetist
Jimmy Giuffre James Peter Giuffre (, ; April 26, 1921 – April 24, 2008) was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He is known for developing forms of jazz which allowed for free interplay between the musicians, anticipating f ...
's trio, featuring music that was often freely and spontaneously improvised, and which had only tenuous similarity to established jazz styles. Another important recording was ''
New York Eye and Ear Control ''New York Eye and Ear Control'' is an album of group improvisations recorded in July 1964 by an augmented version of Albert Ayler's group to provide the soundtrack for Michael Snow's film of the same name. Background ''New York Eye and Ear Cont ...
'' (1964), a soundtrack for a film by
Michael Snow Michael Snow (born December 10, 1928) is a Canadian artist working in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are ''Wavelength'' (1967) and '' La Région Centrale'' (1971), with the f ...
, recorded for the
ESP-Disk ESP-Disk is a New York-based record company and label founded in 1963 by lawyer Bernard Stollman. History Though it originally existed to release Esperanto-based music, beginning with its second release (Albert Ayler's ''Spiritual Unity''), ESP b ...
label under the leadership of saxophonist
Albert Ayler Albert Ayler (; July 13, 1936 – November 25, 1970) was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer. After early experience playing R&B and bebop, Ayler began recording music during the free jazz era of the 1960s. Howev ...
. Snow suggested to Ayler that the band simply play without a composition or themes. The
Spontaneous Music Ensemble Spontaneous may refer to: * Spontaneous abortion * Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis * Spontaneous combustion * Spontaneous declaration * Spontaneous emission * Spontaneous fission * Spontaneous generation * Spontaneous human combustion * Spontan ...
was formed by John Stevens and
Trevor Watts Trevor Charles Watts (born 26 February 1939) is an English jazz and free-improvising alto and soprano saxophonist. Biography Watts was born in York, England. He is largely self-taught, having taken up the cornet at age 12 then switched to s ...
in the mid-1960s and included, at various times, influential players such as Derek Bailey,
Evan Parker Evan Shaw Parker (born 5 April 1944) is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation. Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free ja ...
,
Kenny Wheeler Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC (14 January 1930 – 18 September 2014) was a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. from the 1950s onwards. Most of his performances were rooted in jazz, but he was also active ...
, Roger Smith, and John Butcher. As with the
Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is a nonprofit organization, founded in 1965 in Chicago by pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, pianist Jodie Christian, drummer Steve McCall, and composer Phil Cohran. The AACM is devote ...
(AACM), many of these players began in jazz, but gradually pushed the music into a zone of abstraction and relative quietude. The British record label Emanem has documented much music in this vein. There was (and continues to be) often considerable blurring of the line between
free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during ...
and free improvisation. The Chicago-based AACM, a loose collective of improvising musicians including
Muhal Richard Abrams Muhal Richard Abrams (born Richard Lewis Abrams; September 19, 1930 – October 29, 2017) was an American educator, administrator, composer, arranger, clarinetist, cellist, and jazz pianist in the free jazz medium. He recorded and toured the Uni ...
,
Henry Threadgill Henry Threadgill (born February 15, 1944) is an American composer, saxophonist and flautist. He came to prominence in the 1970s leading ensembles rooted in jazz but with unusual instrumentation and often incorporating other genres of music. He h ...
,
Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chica ...
,
Jack DeJohnette Jack DeJohnette (born August 9, 1942) is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. Known for his extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians including Charles Lloyd, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, John Abercrombie, ...
,
Lester Bowie Lester Bowie (October 11, 1941 – November 8, 1999) was an American jazz trumpet player and composer. He was a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and co-founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Biography Born in t ...
,
Roscoe Mitchell Roscoe Mitchell (born August 3, 1940) is an American composer, jazz instrumentalist, and educator, known for being "a technically superb – if idiosyncratic – saxophonist". ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' described him as "one of the key figures ...
,
Joseph Jarman Joseph Jarman (September 14, 1937 – January 9, 2019) was an American jazz musician, composer, poet, and Shinshu Buddhist priest. He was one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of the ...
, Famadou Don Moye,
Malachi Favors Malachi Favors (August 22, 1927 – January 30, 2004) was an American jazz bassist who played with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Biography "Favors's tendency to dissemble about his age was a well-known source of mirth to fellow musicians of his g ...
and George E. Lewis was formed in 1965 and included many of the key players in the nascent international free improv scene. (Braxton recorded many times with Bailey and Teitelbaum; Mitchell recorded with
Thomas Buckner Thomas Buckner (born 1941) is an American baritone vocalist specializing in the performance of contemporary classical music and improvised music. In his work, he utilizes a wide range of extended (non-traditional) vocal techniques. Buckner als ...
and
Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...
.) In 1966
Elektra Records Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the 1 ...
issued the first recording of European free improvisation by the UK group
AMM Amm or AMM may refer to: Entertainment Music *AMM (group), British free improvisation group Television *Amy's Mythic Mornings, an educational show on APTN Kids Video games * Automated MatchMaking, in the context of the Warcraft III Ladder system ...
, which included at the time
Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...
,
Eddie Prévost Edwin John Prévost (born 22 June 1942) is an English percussionist who founded the free improvisation group, AMM. Early years Of Huguenot heritage, Prévost's silk weaving ancestors moved to Spitalfields in the late 17th century. He was bor ...
,
Lou Gare Leslie Arthur "Lou" Gare (16 June 1939 – 6 October 2017) was a British free-jazz saxophonist born in Rugby, Warwickshire, England, perhaps best known for his works with the improvised music ensemble AMM and playing with musicians such as Eddie ...
,
Keith Rowe Keith may refer to: People and fictional characters * Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Keith (surname) * Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949) * Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...
and Lawrence Sheaff. In 1967 classical strings-focused
Just Music Just Music were a West German avant-garde music ensemble, an interchangeable collective of classically trained instrumentalists founded at the , Frankfurt/Main in 1967 by multi-instrumentalist Alfred Harth. An inherent anti-commercial bias kept th ...
had been formed by
Alfred Harth Alfred Harth, now known as Alfred 23 Harth or A23H, is a German multimedia artist, band leader, multi-instrumentalist musician, and composer who creatively mixes genres. Career Harth founded a free improvisation band, Just Music (1967 to 1972) ...
and been recorded on ECM (1002) in 1969 in
West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
.


International free improvisation

Through the remainder of the 1960s and through the 1970s, free improvisation spread across the U.S., Europe and East Asia, entering quickly into a dialogue with
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
,
happenings A happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow during the 1950s to describe a range of art-related events. History Origins Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happen ...
,
performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
and
rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
. By the mid-1970s, free improvisation was truly a worldwide phenomenon. In 1976 Derek Bailey founded and curated Company Week, the first of an annual series of improvised music festivals in which Bailey programmed performances by ad hoc ensembles of musicians who in many cases had never played with each other before. This ''
musical chairs Musical chairs, also known as Trip to Jerusalem, is a game of elimination involving players, chairs, and music. It is a staple of many parties worldwide. Gameplay A set of chairs is arranged with one fewer chair than the number of players ...
'' approach to collaboration was a characteristically provocative gesture by Bailey, perhaps in response to John Stevens' claim that musicians needed to collaborate for months or years in order to improvise well together. The final Company Week was in 1994. Since 2002
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
collective Vitamin S has hosted weekly improvisations based around randomly drawn trios. Vitamin S takes the form beyond music and includes improvisers from other forms such as dance, theatre and puppetry. Since 2006, improvisational music in many forms has been supported and promoted by ISIM, the International Society for Improvised Music, founded by Ed Sarath of the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
and Sarah Weaver. ISIM comprises some 300 performing artists and scholars worldwide, including
Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...
,
Oliver Lake Oliver Lake (born September 14, 1942) is an American jazz saxophonist, flutist, composer, poet, and visual artist. He is known mainly for alto saxophone, but he also performs on soprano and flute. During the 1960s, Lake worked with the Black Art ...
, Thomas Buckner,
Robert Dick Robert Dick (January 1811 – 24 December 1866), was a Scottish geologist and botanist. Life He was born at Tullibody, in Clackmannanshire. His father was an officer of excise in nearby Alloa. At the age of thirteen, after receiving a good ...
, India Cooke,
Jane Ira Bloom Jane Ira Bloom (born January 12, 1955) is an American jazz soprano saxophonist and composer. Early years Bloom was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Joel and Evelyn Bloom. She began as a pianist and drummer, later switching to the alto saxophon ...
, Karlton Hester, Roman Stolyar,
Mark Dresser Mark Dresser (born September 26, 1952) is an American double bass player and composer. Career Dresser was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. In the 1970s, he was a member of Black Music Infinity led by Stanley Crouch and performed w ...
, and many others. Founded in Manchester, England, in 2007, ''the Noise Upstairs'' has been an institution dedicated to the practice of improvised music, hosting regular concerts and creative workshops where they have promoted international and UK-based artists such as
Ken Vandermark Ken Vandermark (born September 22, 1964) is an American composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist. A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered composi ...
,
Lê Quan Ninh Lê Quan Ninh (born Paris, 1961) is a French percussionist active in contemporary music and free improvisation. He began studying piano at the age of 7, but turned towards percussion as a teenager. When he was 16, he entered the National Con ...
,
Ingrid Laubrock Ingrid Laubrock (born 24 September 1970) is a German jazz saxophonist, who primarily plays tenor saxophone but also performs and records on soprano, alto, and baritone saxophones. She studied with Jean Toussaint, Dave Liebman and at the Guildhal ...
, Beats & Pieces Big Band, and
Yuri Landman Yuri Landman (born 1 February 1973) is a Dutch inventor of musical instruments and musician who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a number of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japan ...
. On top of these events, the Noise Upstairs runs monthly jam nights, the premise being that anyone can turn up and join in by putting their name in the hat and trios are chosen at random to freely improvise together. These jam session also include a set from special guests which have included many international musicians such as Jason Kahn, Sonia Paço-Rocchia, Daniele Ledda, Helmut Lemke and Christine Sehnaoui, as well as top UK improvisers Mick Beck, Phil Marks, Pete Fairclough, Shatner's Bassoon, Anton Hunter, Rodrigo Constanzo, Johnny Hunter, Martin Archer, Sam Andreae, Seth Bennett, John Jasnoch and Charlie Collins, among many more. Other groups such as the 1984ensemble, which was formed in 2013 by trombonist Kris T Reeder in Oxford, featuring musicians from the Oxford Improvisers have expanded free-improvisation, using live electronic and acoustic instruments with computers.


The downtown scene

In late 1970s New York a group of musicians came together who shared an interest in free improvisation as well as rock, jazz, contemporary classical, world music and pop. They performed at lofts, apartments, basements and venues located predominantly in
downtown New York Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...
( 8BC, Pyramid Club, Environ,
Roulette Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning ''little wheel'' which was likely developed from the Italian game Biribi''.'' In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the ...
, Studio Henry, Someplace Nice, The Saint, King Tut's Wa Wa Hut and later
The Knitting Factory The Knitting Factory is a nightclub in New York City that features eclectic music and entertainment. After opening in 1987, various other locations were opened in the United States. The Knitting Factory gave its audience poetry readings, perform ...
and Tonic) and held regular concerts of free improvisation which featured many of the prominent figures in the scene, including
John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jaz ...
,
Bill Laswell William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, w ...
, George E. Lewis,
Fred Frith Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock ...
,
Tom Cora Thomas Henry Corra (September 14, 1953 – April 9, 1998), better known as Tom Cora, was an American cellist and composer, best known for his improvisational performances in the field of experimental jazz and rock. He recorded with John Zorn, B ...
,
Toshinori Kondo was a Japanese avant-garde jazz and jazz fusion trumpeter. Career Kondo was born in Ehime Prefecture. He attended Kyoto university in 1967, and became close friends with percussionist Tsuchitori Toshiyuki. In 1972 the pair left university, an ...
,
Wayne Horvitz Wayne Horvitz (born 1955) is an American composer, keyboardist and record producer. He came to prominence in the Downtown scene of 1980s and '90s New York City, where he met his future wife, the singer, songwriter and pianist Robin Holcomb. He ...
,
Eugene Chadbourne Eugene Chadbourne (born January 4, 1954) is an American banjoist, guitarist and music critic. Life and career Chadbourne was born in Mount Vernon, New York, but grew up in Boulder, Colorado. He started playing guitar when he was eleven or twel ...
,
Zeena Parkins Zeena Parkins (born 1956) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist active in experimental, free improvised, contemporary classical, and avant-jazz music; she is known for having "reinvented the harp". Parkins performs on standard harp ...
,
Anthony Coleman Anthony Coleman (born August 30, 1955) is an avant-garde jazz pianist. During the 1980s and 1990s he worked with John Zorn on '' Cobra'', ''Kristallnacht'', ''The Big Gundown'', ''Archery'', and ''Spillane'' and helped push modern Jewish music in ...
,
Polly Bradfield Polly Bradfield is an American violinist from the New York City free improvisation scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Her closest musical associates were Eugene Chadbourne and John Zorn. She also played on records by William Parker and F ...
,
Ikue Mori (born 17 December 1953), also known as Ikue Ile, is a drummer, electronic musician, composer, and graphic designer. Mori was awarded a "Genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 2022. Biography Ikue Mori was born and raised in Japan. She sa ...
,
Robert Dick Robert Dick (January 1811 – 24 December 1866), was a Scottish geologist and botanist. Life He was born at Tullibody, in Clackmannanshire. His father was an officer of excise in nearby Alloa. At the age of thirteen, after receiving a good ...
,
Ned Rothenberg Ned Rothenberg (born September 15, 1956) is an American multi-instrumentalist and composer. He specializes in woodwind instruments, including the alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, and shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute). He is known ...
,
Bob Ostertag Robert "Bob" Ostertag (born April 19, 1957) is a musician, writer, and political activist based in San Francisco. He has published seven books, one feature film, a DVD, twenty-six albums, and collaborated with numerous musicians. Musically, he ...
,
Christian Marclay Christian Marclay (born January 11, 1955) is a visual artist and composer. He holds both American and Swiss nationality. Marclay's work explores connections between sound, noise, photography, video, and film. A pioneer of using gramophone records ...
, David Moss, Kramer and many others. They worked with each other, independently and with many of the leading European improvisers of the time, including Derek Bailey,
Evan Parker Evan Shaw Parker (born 5 April 1944) is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation. Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free ja ...
,
Han Bennink Han Bennink (born 17 April 1942) is a Dutch drummer and percussionist. On occasion his recordings have featured him playing soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, trombone, violin, banjo and piano. Though perhaps best known as one of the pivotal fig ...
,
Misha Mengelberg Misha Mengelberg (5 June 1935 – 3 March 2017) was a Dutch jazz pianist and composer.Feather, Leonard & Gitler, Ira (2007) ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz'', p. 459. Oxford University Press. A prominent figure in post-WWII European Jazz ...
,
Peter Brötzmann Peter Brötzmann (born 6 March 1941) is a German saxophonist and clarinetist. Biography Early life Brötzmann was born in Remscheid, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He studied painting in Wuppertal and was involved with the Fluxus movement ...
and others. Many of these musicians continue to use improvisation in one form or another in their work. In the tradition of Derek Bailey's Company Week, monthly Improv Nights have become a tradition at John Zorn's East Village performance space The Stone. Organized as benefits to raise the expenses needed to keep the venue operational, these concerts of improvised music have featured hundreds of musicians from a variety of backgrounds, generations and traditions.


Electronic free improvisation

Electronic devices such as oscillators, echoes, filters and alarm clocks were an integral part of free improvisation performances by groups such as
Kluster Kluster was a Berlin-based German experimental musical group formed in 1969 by Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Conrad Schnitzler, and Dieter Moebius. Their improvisational work presaged later industrial music. The original Kluster was short-lived, exist ...
at the underground scene at Zodiac Club in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
in the late 1960s. For the 1975
jazz-rock Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...
concert recording '' Agharta'',
Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
and his band employed free improvisation and electronics, particularly guitarist
Pete Cosey Peter Palus Cosey (October 9, 1943 – May 30, 2012) was an American guitarist who played with Miles Davis' band between 1973 and 1975. His fiercely flanged and distorted guitar invited comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. Cosey kept a low profile for ...
who improvised sounds by running his guitar through a
ring modulator In electronics, ring modulation is a signal processing function, an implementation of frequency mixing, in which two signals are combined to yield an output signal. One signal, called the carrier, is typically a sine wave or another simple w ...
and an
EMS Synthi A The VCS 3 (or VCS3; an initialism for ''Voltage Controlled Studio, version #3'') is a portable analog synthesizer with a flexible modular voice architecture introduced by Electronic Music Studios (London) Limited (EMS) in 1969. EMS release ...
. But it was only later that traditional instruments were disbanded altogether in favour of pure electronic free improvisation. In 1984, the Swiss improvisation duo
Voice Crack Voice Crack was a Swiss electronic free improvisation band. Formed in late 1972 by Andy Guhl and Norbert Möslang, Voice Crack began as a free jazz duo. Then they used pre-recorded tape effects and live sound processing. By 1983 they had elimina ...
started making use of strictly "cracked everyday electronics". More recently, electronic free improvisation has drawn on
Circuit bending Circuit bending is the creative, chance-based customization of the circuits within electronic devices such as low-voltage, battery-powered guitar effects, children's toys and digital synthesizers to create new musical or visual instruments and ...
,
Noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a musical context. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical ...
, DIY-culture and
Turntablism Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into a PA system ...
, represented by performers such as
Otomo Yoshihide is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist. He mainly plays guitar, turntables, and electronics. He first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in ...
, Hemmelig Tempo,
Günter Müller Günter Müller (born October 20, 1954) is a German sound artist who originally performed as a percussionist and drummer, active primarily in free improvisation. He was born in Munich, West Germany, but has lived in Switzerland since 1966. Ba ...
,
poire z poire_z (pronounced "pwar-zed") was an electronic free improvisation music group formed in 1998. Its members all have long careers in improvised music; critic Fred Grand of ''Avant'' calls poire_z a "post- AMM supergroup." Band history At a musi ...
, and many others.


Electroacoustic improvisation

A recent branch of improvised music is characterized by quiet, slow moving, minimalistic textures and often utilizing laptop computers or unorthodox forms of electronics. Developing worldwide in the mid-to-late 1990s, with centers in New York, Tokyo and Austria, this style has been called ''
lowercase music Lowercase is an extreme form of ambient minimalism where very quiet, usually unheard sounds are amplified to extreme levels. Minimal artist Steve Roden popularized the movement with an album entitled ''Forms of Paper'', in which he made recording ...
'' or EAI (
electroacoustic improvisation Live electronic music (also known as live electronics) is a form of music that can include traditional electronic sound-generating devices, modified electric musical instruments, hacked sound generating technologies, and computers. Initially the pr ...
), and is represented, for instance, by the American record label
Erstwhile Records Erstwhile Records is an independent record label devoted to free improvisation, particularly the electroacoustic variety, contemporary, experimental composed music, and combinations of both. Erstwhile was founded by Jon Abbey in 1999, whose perso ...
and the Austrian label Mego. EAI is often radically different even from established free improvisation. Eyles writes, "One of the problems of describing this music is that it requires a new vocabulary and ways of conveying its sound and impact; such vocabulary does not yet exist – how do you describe the subtle differences between different types of controlled feedback? I've yet to see anyone do it convincingly – hence the use of words like 'shape' and 'texture'!"


Free improvisation on the radio

The London-based independent radio station Resonance 104.4FM, founded by the
London Musicians Collective The London Musicians Collective (LMC) is a cultural charity based in London, England devoted to the support and promotion of contemporary, experimental and improvised music. From its foundation in 1975 until its reorganization in 2009, the LMC or ...
, frequently broadcasts experimental and free improvised performance works. WNUR 89.3 FM ("Chicago's Sound Experiment") is another source for free improvised music on the radio. Taran's Free Jazz Hour broadcast on Radio-G 101.5 FM, Angers and 101.3 FM,
Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...
is entirely dedicated to free jazz and other freely improvised music. A l'improviste, (France musique) French Radio, Listen online the last four broadcasts, only free music every week by Anne Montaron. Based in the neighboring town of Newton, Boston is served with a good amount of free improvisation music from Boston College's non-commercial radio station 90.3 FM WZBC, as part of its vast number of experimental programs.


See also

*
Aesthetics of music Aesthetics of music () is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, beauty and taste in music, and with the creation or appreciation of beauty in music. In the pre-modern tradition, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics expl ...
*
Avant-garde music Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in its field, with the term "avant-garde" implying a critique of existing aesthetic conventions, rejection of the status quo in favor of unique or original elemen ...
*
Experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...
*
Intuitive music Intuitive music is a form of musical improvisation based on instant creation in which fixed principles or rules may or may not have been given. It is a type of process music where instead of a traditional music score, verbal or graphic instruction ...
*
Musical collective Musical collective is a phrase used to describe a group of musicians in which membership is flexible and creative control is shared.Liisa Ladouceur"Collegjthk ctive Souls" ''This Magazine'', November/December 2004. The concept is distinct from th ...
*
Musics (magazine) ''Musics'' was a music-related magazine that was published from 1975 to 1979. In 1975 Derek Bailey, Steve Beresford, Max Boucher, Paul Burwell, Jack Cooke, Peter Cusack, Hugh Davies, Mandy and Martin Davidson, Richard Leigh, Evan Parker, Joh ...
*
Surrealist music Surrealist music is music which uses unexpected juxtapositions and other surrealist techniques. Discussing Theodor W. Adorno, Max Paddison defines surrealist music as that which "juxtaposes its historically devalued fragments in a montage-like m ...
*
List of free improvising musicians and groups This is a list of musicians and groups who compose and play free music, or free improvisation. In alphabetical order: Musicians * Susan Alcorn – pedal steel guitar * Jason Alder – clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet * Thomas Anke ...


References


External links


International Society for Improvised Music

''Signal to Noise'' magazine
A publication on avant-garde jazz and electro-acoustic improvisation

{{DEFAULTSORT:Free Improvisation Jazz genres Jazz techniques Jazz terminology