Free improvisation: still the ultimate in underground music?

Pioneered in the 1950s by musicians breaking the rules of jazz and composition, free improvisation is still as difficult - and potentially transcendent - as it ever was. A Guardian documentary takes you inside its world, talking to visionary performers like Evan Parker and John Edwards
View the video at www.theguardian.com/music/vid...

[@topologyrob]

The double bass is a great source of sonic exploration

[@mikeratledgeguy]

the electric guitar as well!

[@huguesfardaoclarinettesolo7210]

Music comes from mind and body together. If in a moment or a second or during an entire life you sense you have (or maybe you MUST) play that way, play that sound right now because it's what you are deeply feeling, then play it, it's you ; don't betrayed yourself when playing music.

[@zitherbefree]

Yes, this is my world... thank you very much for this great movie, greetings from Vienna, Guenter.

[@forestoffrogs8117]

Best kind of music there is

[@butwhataboutmusic1231]

Yes! This is great... Like an ultimate and honest expression of the performer in a particular moment! Thanks for the great movie!

[@modernmusicstudio303]

Having too many restrictions in music limits us to create music that is different from others. There probably wouldn't be most of the genres we know without imporvisation!

[@shugaroony]

Enjoyed that.

[@sarahalexander4367]

Would love to hear commentary/playing of Joëlle Léandre included in something like this!

[@udomatthiasdrums5322]

love it!!

[@DM-gv6lz]

Thanx. Radical individualism & authenticity on neways of the sound

[@ivantadeoiretasanchez1753]

Thanks for this video. I am realley greateful because I am doing my PhD about this music. Thakns.

[@HenryDMcPherson]

Me too!

[@zkreso]

Great background music for doing office/paperwork. Well, in my experience anyway

[@taunaengus4978]

Beautiful way to our inner worlds.

[@Buddlebot]

Genius and fun

[@suricatafari]

short, simple, pretty accurate.

[@BobSmith-un5mw]

Love it. However, it's best when mixed with some structure and then you can deviate from the structure and rebuild it.

[@RelativePitch]

Nope. “Some structure” is nonsense. There is no such thing as music with no structure. Listen to Evan. If you add the “however” then you don’t love it.

[@ThankyouJword]

They can com up with momentary structures for even just a moment as ya know structure is also part of life just is a far smaller aspect to it than what we think, also as a muscian i understand tht no sctructure is pure muscial freedom but to me muscic is showing us the way and takes us higher and for some of our less musically learned brothers and sisters need to hear a little bit of stucture to help grow towards a love of musical freedom, its our responsibilites as players to be a bridge for others not a wall.

[@ThankyouJword]

​@@RelativePitchi think when they say structure they mean something recognizable that loops around a couple times givong the audience a sense of knowing and understanding therfore connecting the viewer to what ur doing better

[@julietspaghetti]

Green Mill Chicago

[@sonoraaurora]

Very well. But will be better also hear some female voice about improvisation, like Susana Santos for example

[@BenjaminCarey]

Agreed. Great Waitress (Altman, Mayas) were featured visually but weren't interviewed. Missed opportunity

[@xxxxxx-yw7sh]

This is the music version of abstract art then?

[@edoardodalpra4742]

Music always was abstract, what is interesting in avantgarde ("classical" avantgarde) in my opinion is how it gives every sound a ton of value and weight. Give a listen to Luigi Nono, in particular his tribute to Carlo Scarpa, if you want to give it a try! In jazz avantgarde, the most important thing instead is the free expression of the musician. A live free jazz performance is something unbelievable, believe me. Even if you're not into the music, the atmosphere has something so raw and pure about it.

[@hassanas-sabbagh6562]

Free jazz and free improv are approximate equivalents of abstract expressionism.

[@joaquinodriozola4963]

Im into avant garde stuff and free improv. But what happened to the style of free jazz played in the late 50s and 60s? Where's the sense of melody, rythm, even composition. Hell, even Albert Ayler composed!

[@thespungolator3421]

this is a completely different area of free jazz from what Albert Ayler did, European free jazz. different things being explored and it has had its own development as a music

[@Charlie-Lincoln]

William Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, Tim Berne, Oliver Lake, Darius Jones, among others

[@apothecurio]

@@Charlie-Lincoln Darius Jones especially. I think he really has a magic with flowing from composed to total free improv effortlessly.

[@javmbz_schlithler]

5:31 did I hear what I thought I did?

[@edoardodalpra4742]

NO MATTER HOW OUT YOU PLAY YOU CAN'T ESCAPE THE L I C K

[@djsowari]

How come there are no women making comments on the video? At least some are featured but it would have been nice to reflect the current scene and have at least one out of three commenting a woman.

[@BrianGossard]

Complaint noted. Virtue signaled.

[@foramejora]

lol

[@jonathanedwards8696]

Because jazz, like rock & roll, is a male-dominated profession. I don't know why. I know and know of, many great musicians that are women in both genres. Jazz-Jane Ira Bloom, Tal Wilkenfeld, Carla Bley, Emily Remler, and Julie Lieberman. Rock-Joan Jett, Chrissy Hynde, Suzy Quantro, Candy Duffer. And Sheila E's great drumming covers Afro-Cuban and other styles. That's just for a few examples.

[@ThankyouJword]

I call this real music

[@cesareantinellipickinup]

Impro.... improvviso....improvvisation...I impro you improvvise, sicché improvvisamente

[@cesareantinellipickinup]

Real nice thanks

[@MrNinjaFish]

I know why this is just as important as classical music or Ariana Grande but I'm not going to tell you why

[@johnanderson505]

music outside the "changes", with no "hot licks" and without the tyranny of advanced instrumental technique

[@johnny2hats144]

Not really tyranny is it? The limits, sure, I’ll grant you that. But it’s not tyranny. I play music according to certain conventions. I choose not to play outside those, but I have no problem with musicians who reject that path. But I’ve yet to be tyrannised by the forms and conventions I play within. It could even be argued that you have to be more creative to play within the parameters of conventional music. I find this kind of music interesting but that’s as far as it goes. Others find a strong connection with it, it’s just that I don’t.

[@raygreen2134]

This is absurdism and surrealism in music

[@hassanas-sabbagh6562]

Paradoxically, no set structures or rules, most improvised numbers sound alike.

[@BastianUllr]

I think this is the sound of the lost white man, screaming from their inner despair, devoted to their useless and pointless freedom, exposing their dissonance to the other selfish minds around them. Insane and disjointed reality on the lonely overpopulated planet we live in... I will jump back to things that I can dance to. Rules give me the freedom I need.

[@BrianGossard]

Such a pleasant outlook.

[@BastianUllr]

@@BrianGossard yes. People have serious issues. We see a great deed in the things that are killing the species, that are driving us to destruction. I'm unsure why... I don't doubt someone would think that is pleasant, or great... What did you found pleasant, going back? Or was it the disjointed existance.

[@thetopface]

Bastian Ullr free improvisation was pioneered by people of color just as much if not more than it was by white people. Free improvisation is very political and intentionally anti-capitalist.

[@BastianUllr]

I am not criticizing the way they play, nor saying this is wrong. I like it. I am very aware of Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, among others. I am saying it portraits the condition we endure. Yes, say "hip-hop" culture, or Latin-American druglords culture is just as selfish, chaotic and self-destructive. I am not, by any means, communist, but the way of thought that spreads through schools carelessly that comes from Adam Smith (later developed as the school of Chicago) is preached to the world as "white man word." It contains certain principles that are just are just as non-scientific as racism, such as "every man is selfish and this drives its motif". The progress is such a "white statement", not because people of other color want (as if it matters), but because was made as a distinctive "gift" to other cultures. Thank you for coming back at me. Art to my eyes is a window to our human condition.

[@thetopface]

Bastian Ullr oh, sorry about that, I misread your previous comment!

[@udomatthiasdrums5322]

love it!!

[@udomatthiasdrums5322]

love it!!