Free jazz

History and character

Free jazz emerged in the late 1950s and early '60s in the United States as a break with the rules of modern jazz: no prearranged chord progressions, no obligatory forms (12-bar, 32-bar AABA), freedom of meter, and attention to timbre and collective energy. Ornette Coleman opened the way with "The Shape of Jazz to Come" (1959, with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins; it contains "Lonely Woman") and with "Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation" (1960), recorded by a double quartet split between the left and right channels. Cecil Taylor brought the piano toward clusters and atonal structures (Unit Structures, 1966), Albert Ayler fused free playing with hymns, marches, and spirituals (Spiritual Unity, 1964), John Coltrane pushed toward collective improvisation with Ascension (1965, with six added horns and use of altissimo and multiphonics) and the duets with Rashied Ali (Interstellar Space, 1967), and Sun Ra developed a cosmic free style (The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, 1965).

In Chicago the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians: Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Henry Threadgill) was founded in 1965, in St. Louis the Black Artists Group, and in New York the "loft jazz" of the '70s; in parallel came spiritual jazz (Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane) and European free improvisation (Peter Brötzmann — "Machine Gun," 1968; Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Globe Unity Orchestra, Willem Breuker, the Italian scene of Mario Schiano and the Italian Instabile Orchestra). Free jazz has a strong link to the civil rights movement and to the African American cultural politics of the '60s.

The aesthetic: collective improvisation (recovering the polyphony of New Orleans), a pulse without regular meter, extended techniques (altissimo, multiphonics, honks and squawks, slap tongue, bowed double bass, prepared or cluster piano), world-music instruments, and short themes that act as a "launch pad." Today it lives on in the contemporary scene (Matana Roberts, Mary Halvorson, Irreversible Entanglements, Shabaka Hutchings, and Kamasi Washington on the spiritual side) and influences noise, experimental rock, and electronic music.

Scales and keys

The principle: materials instead of fixed scales

In free jazz the scale is not imposed by a chord: the musician chooses materials (interval cells, motifs, modes, symmetrical scales, chromatic blocks, timbres) and develops them in dialogue with the others. Understanding these families helps you improvise and compose credible "free" themes.

Interval cells

• Definition: small groups of 2–4 notes with characteristic intervals, transposed and inverted. Examples: the 0-1-4 cell (C Db E), a cell of fourths (C F Bb Eb), the 0-2-6 cell (C D F#).
• Color: the cell of fourths sounds "open" and modal, the 0-1-4 tense and dark.
• Use: motivic development (Ornette, late Coltrane, Braxton).
• Common mistakes: playing random notes with no motivic logic: free playing works when the material is recognizable.

Pentatonic and modes as a starting point

• Minor pentatonic on C: C Eb F G Bb. Dorian on D: D E F G A B C.
• Use: Ornette's and Ayler's themes are often tonal or modal and singable (hymns, marches, folk), while the improvisation moves away. "Lonely Woman" (Ornette, 1959) has a melancholy minor theme over a fast pulse.

"Shouted" blues scale

• On Bb: Bb Db Eb E F Ab. Use: the blues is the root: Ayler and Brötzmann distort it with altissimo and growl.

Chromatic scale and 12-note aggregates

• Formula: all 12 semitones. Use: Cecil Taylor's clusters (groups of adjacent notes played with the palm or forearm), atonal lines.

Symmetrical scales

• Whole-tone: C D E F# G# A#. Diminished: C Db Eb E F# G A Bb. Use: lines that "float" without a tonal center, frequent in late Coltrane and spiritual jazz.

Harmolodics (Ornette Coleman)

A personal theory in which harmony, melody, and rhythm have equal value: every musician can "modulate" following the melody (even in transposed keys for different instruments), without a shared progression. It is not a scale but a way of relating to pitch.

Microtones and timbre

Flexible intonation (quarter tones, pitch bending), multiphonics, noise: pitch also becomes color.

How to choose

Harmony

No fixed progressions

There is no chord sequence to follow: the harmony emerges from the simultaneous lines (collective counterpoint) or from pedals (bass drones), modal vamps (in spiritual jazz), clusters, and the sonorities of the piano.

Harmonic strategies

• Pedal/drone: a fixed bass over which everything moves (Pharoah Sanders, late Coltrane).
• Floating tonality: the tonal center shifts following the soloist (harmolodics).
• Free counterpoint: independent lines that create chance verticalities.
• Clusters and sound masses: blocks of adjacent notes (Cecil Taylor, free orchestras).
• Tonal theme + free improvisation (Ornette, Ayler).

Density

It oscillates between dense masses (everyone playing fortissimo) and transparencies (duos, silences): the form is made of density, not chords.

Voicings

Piano with clusters and dissonant quartal chords; no "standard" voicings. When there is a vamp (spiritual jazz), quartal voicings in the style of McCoy Tyner.

Typical progressions

Rhythm and groove

Pulse instead of meter

Often a pulse (continuous rhythmic energy) is maintained but without a regular meter: accelerando and ritardando create a "wave-like" rhythm. Sunny Murray, Milford Graves, Rashied Ali, Andrew Cyrille, and Han Bennink play flows of strokes (cymbals, rolls, toms) instead of grooves.

Sections in tempo

Many pieces alternate themes in tempo (fast swing: Ornette with Billy Higgins/Ed Blackwell) and free sections; spiritual jazz uses vamps in 6/8 or 4/4 with African polyrhythms.

Total interplay

Every musician can change the rhythmic direction; the form arises from mutual listening.

Microtiming

The very concept of being "in/out of time" is superseded: what matters is tension and density.

Drums

Principle

The free drummer is a co-improviser: not keeping time, but creating energy, color, and density. Drummers: Sunny Murray, Milford Graves, Rashied Ali, Andrew Cyrille, Ed Blackwell, Billy Higgins (Ornette), Han Bennink, Paul Lovens, Hamid Drake.

"Flow" pulse

Continuous rolls on the cymbals (ride and crash played like a "sea"), rolls on the toms and snare without fixed accents, bass drum used as color (scattered hits, not quarter notes).

Bass drum and snare

Free accents; snare with the wires on or off to change the timbre; hits on the shell and the rim.

Cymbals and percussion

Various cymbals (china, splash, cracked cymbals), bells, gongs, African and Asian percussion, objects on the drumhead (chains, bowls), bow on the cymbals.

Dynamics

Extreme: from near silence to fortissimo; collective crescendos are the "form."

Interaction

With the double bass (often arco and free pizzicato) and with the horns: immediate response, imitation, contrast.

Sections

Theme (sometimes in tempo), collective improvisation, solos/duets, climax, decrescendo, theme or open ending.

Fills

The concept of a fill does not exist: everything is a "phrase."

Sounds

Kit tuned open and resonant, large dark cymbals, lots of added percussion.

Typical mistakes

Noise without listening, dynamics always at maximum (no form), involuntarily falling back into rock or swing patterns when the music calls for freedom.

Bass

Sound

Double bass with powerful pizzicato and arco (also col legno: struck col legno), harmonics, double stops; sometimes two double basses (Ornette's Free Jazz: Scott LaFaro and Charlie Haden; Coltrane's Ascension: Art Davis and Jimmy Garrison).

Role

Pedals and drones, free lines in counterpoint with the horns, "free walking" that follows the soloist's melody (Charlie Haden with Ornette), ostinatos in spiritual jazz.

Notes

No obligation to play the root; the choice follows the dialogue.

Examples

Charlie Haden, Jimmy Garrison, Henry Grimes, Malachi Favors (Art Ensemble), William Parker, Barre Phillips.

Harmonic instruments

• Piano: clusters, atonal chords, glissandi, percussive techniques (Cecil Taylor), inside-piano playing (plucked or struck strings), or no piano at all (Ornette).
• Guitar: noise, feedback, extended techniques (Sonny Sharrock, Derek Bailey).
• Harp (Alice Coltrane) and harmonium in spiritual jazz.
• Organ (Sun Ra), analog synths (Sun Ra on the Minimoog from the '70s).

Melody and vocals

Themes

Short themes, often singable and "folk-like" (hymns, marches, folk tunes, blues) or angular and atonal; frequently in "dirty" unison (different intonations) for a vocal effect.

Improvisation

Motivic development, "spoken" or "shouted" phrases, altissimo, multiphonics, honks, growl, slap tongue, circular breathing (Evan Parker), microtones; pitch is one of the variables, not the only one.

Voice

Singing, shouts, recitations (Jeanne Lee, Leon Thomas with his yodel, Linda Sharrock), choirs in spiritual jazz.

Effects

Rarely electronic (echo and reverb in Sun Ra); otherwise extreme acoustic sound.

Instruments

• Alto sax (also plastic, Ornette), tenor, soprano, baritone, bass clarinet
• Trumpet, cornet, trombone
• Piano (also prepared), organ, synth (Sun Ra)
• Double bass (also two)
• Drums and added percussion
• Electric guitar (with feedback), harp, harmonium
• Voice, ethnic instruments (shakuhachi, kora, bells, gong)

Drum patterns

Synths and sounds

• Piano V — Piano: Grand piano with maximum resonance and extreme dynamics; clusters with the palm; for prepared piano add noises and objects (sample layers).
• Mini V — Cosmic synth: Sun Ra style: noise, glissandi, high resonance, slow LFOs on pitch.
• ARP 2600 V — Textures and noise: Noise generator, ring modulator, sample & hold for improvised textures.
• B-3 V — Organ: Sun Ra and "church" free playing: full drawbars, fast Leslie, clusters.

Song structure

Possible forms

• Theme – free improvisation – theme (Ornette, Ayler).
• Continuous collective improvisation (Free Jazz, Ascension) with alternating "tutti" and solos that emerge from the mass.
• Suite in several parts (A Love Supreme as a spiritual antecedent, Sun Ra).
• Spiritual vamp with a crescendo up to free playing and a return to the vamp (Pharoah Sanders).
• Length: from 5 to 40 minutes.

Building form without chords

Contrasts of density (tutti/duo/solo), dynamics (piano/fortissimo), register (low/high), timbre (pure/noise), tempo (pulsed/free). Agreed signals (a motif, a glance, a gesture) trigger a change of section.

Mixing and mastering

Sonic goal

Energy, clarity, and space: even in the sound masses every instrument must be recognizable; dynamics intact (no compression that flattens the climaxes), stereo used to separate the voices (like the L/R double quartet of Free Jazz). Loudness −20/−14 LUFS depending on dynamics, very high PLR.

Drums

Overhead/room pair as the base: HP 40 Hz; clear cymbals (don't boost above 8 kHz: they become annoying in continuous flows); bass drum and toms with spot mics at a low level; no compression (at most 1 dB, slow). Wide pan 80–100%.

Double bass

Mic + DI; HP 35 Hz; 80–120 Hz; −3 dB at 200–250 Hz; +2 dB at 1 kHz (definition of the bow and fast notes); opto 2–3 dB. With two double basses: one at −30%, the other at +30%.

Piano

Stereo pair; HP 35 Hz; −2 dB at 250 Hz; presence 2–4 kHz; no compression (clusters have enormous transients: safety limiter on the bus only).

Horns

HP 60–100 Hz; no extreme EQ (altissimo has lots of highs: possibly −2 dB at 3–4 kHz with a dynamic EQ that acts only on the peaks); no compression or 1–2 dB; distributed pan (in a double quartet: quartet 1 on the left, quartet 2 on the right).

Vocals

HP 80 Hz; minimal compression; plate or room 1–1.5 s.

FX

Shared natural space (room or hall 1.5–2.2 s); Sun Ra and some records use tape echo and obvious reverbs as an effect.

Buses and groups

No glue; safety limiter on the master bus.

Sidechain

Never.

Master

Chain: minimal EQ – limiter on the peaks only (−1 dBTP). Target −18/−14 LUFS integrated; the climaxes should exceed the quiet passages by 10–15 LU.

Common mistakes

Compression that turns the climaxes into a "flat wall," cymbals that cover everything, a crowded center, uncontrolled extreme highs from altissimo playing (listening fatigue).

Reference tracks for the mix

Ornette Coleman — Lonely Woman; Ornette Coleman — Free Jazz; John Coltrane — Ascension; Albert Ayler — Ghosts; Pharoah Sanders — The Creator Has a Master Plan.

Reference listening

• Ornette Coleman — Lonely Woman (The Shape of Jazz to Come, 1959)
• Ornette Coleman — Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation (1960)
• Eric Dolphy — Out to Lunch! (1964)
• Albert Ayler — Ghosts (Spiritual Unity, 1964)
• John Coltrane — Ascension (1965)
• Sun Ra — The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (1965)
• Cecil Taylor — Unit Structures (1966)
• John Coltrane & Rashied Ali — Interstellar Space (1967)
• Peter Brötzmann Octet — Machine Gun (1968)
• Pharoah Sanders — The Creator Has a Master Plan (1969)
• Art Ensemble of Chicago — Theme de Yoyo (1970)