Class 1 (Avant-garde, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor)

Avant-garde

An umbrella term for a new way of approaching jazz, in which musicians were attempting to explore a more free way of thinking about music, moving beyond the traditional rules and expectations. In attempting to uniquely express themselves, avant-garde musicians changed, reinterpreted, or abandoned nearly every aspect of mainstream jazz. Often, instead of a steady groove, there could be an ambiguous or multiple pulses, harmonic patterns were no longer based on predetermined scales or chords, and the melody was mainly guided by however the soloist wanted to express themself, with little regards to harmonic patterns. Each of these were typically developed by the musicians mid performance, using the energy, context, and their intuition to improvise the rhythm, harmony, and melody. Some pieces were still composed, but typical blues or pop song structures weren’t employed, encouraging free improv guided by themes or inspirations. The instrumentation sometimes included symphonic and world instruments, and the performances weren’t explicitly aiming to reach a mainstream audience.

Paradoxes given avant-garde’s outside nature

1. Influenced many established musicians who may have been neglected for their abstract or forward thinking ideas, provided an environment for some.

2. It was more inclusive than any other jazz style, with no strict expectations and welcomed past influences despite attempting to disavow tradition.

3. As durable as mainstream jazz, with there still being practitioners now or at least reverberations of the style in other idioms.

Ornette Coleman

An alto saxophonist who was a leading figure of the avant-garde movement. He grew up in Texas playing alto with R&B bands, putting a bluesy influence on his style. He didn’t want to extend the sounds of his predecessors, and opted for a very jarring timbre, accentuated by the fact that he preferred a plastic alto and often employed microtones, believing that pitch should reflect context. He was also very melodically oriented, playing lyrically and had the harmonies follow as improvised extensions of his melodies. His groups reflected a similar idea in their performances by improvising the rhythm, harmony, and melody and letting the governing structure be guided by their intuition.

Despite being an avante-garde musician, he still tended to write compositions, which even his detractors admit were strongly melodic and emotional. However, his “harmolodic” approach encouraged musicians to take liberties with their written lines as long as they maintained melodic integrity.

Coleman had a long engagement at the Five Spot in 1959, bringing much attention to his style and stirring much controversy. He also recorded six albums with Atlantic around the same time, fueling said controversy with challenging and abstract pieces. However, some classical musicians and others believed he was a genius, and he was eventually accepted as such by the end of his career, even earning the first Pulitzer for an album with Sound Grammar.

Cecil Taylor

A leading figure of avant-garde jazz who developed his own avant-garde piano style. No one doubted his prodigious technique, but people were suspicious of his ability to even swing or play the blues, especially given his classical background. A critic described that he played piano as though it were 88 tuned drums, he often alienated audiences with lengthy performances, and he was obsessive about rehearsing or practicing.

He studied music at the New England Conservatory, but was disappointed in the lack of respect towards African American culture, seeing it as a viable resource for avant-garde. Not long after graduating, he entered a 6-week residency at the Five Spot in 1956, where he received mixed success and scrutiny. This led him to record Jazz Advance, which was also successful enough to have him perform at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival to a bewildered crowd. In 1961, he recruited the alto sax Jimmy Lyon, who proved to play a critical role in his Unit Structures approach.

Taylor liked to refer to his compositional style as unit structures. Rather than conventional scores, he would write out a series of sketches and symbols, which were separated into units. These units would help provide ideas to improv off of and guided the direction of performances. However, Taylor was the only one who played off of these unit structures, and had the musicians pick up on the ideas by ear. Jimmy Lyons was especially good at doing such, and would help the other musicians develop and phrase these ideas with improv.