Ekkehard Jost (1978)
European Jazz Avantgarde - Where Will Emancipation Lead ?
Does anyone still remember Barbü, the short, black-bearded Swiss alto saxophonist? At the end of the Fifties, Barbü - his real name was Werner Lüdi - came to Hamburg and caused some confusion among the various Hardbop-amateur bands with his improvisation style. In 1963, he temporarily went on tour with the Gunter Hampel ensemble, then he altogether disappeared from the Jazz Scene. Some say he now lives in Zurich writing texts for an advertising agency. None of the few people who remember Barbü feel quite certain in their judgements as to whether he had ignored the rigid harmony-frames of Hardbop on purpose or simply wasn't able to play changes. However, they all remember his very expressive, vital improvisation style. He managed to stimulate any percussionist to give his best and to throw any Cool- and Westcoast fan off his feet.
What does the story of Barbü have to do with my attempt to write a history of European Free Jazz? Writing Jazz History - as in any kind of Historiography - must base on documents. Something which cannot be verified by either written sources or tape recordings, will either fall into oblivion or be consigned to mythology. Something a contemporary remembers can be rather vague, glorified by nostalgic feelings and falsified by bad memory: Did Buddy Bolden really played that loud? And what exactly happened when Bebop was "invented" at "Minton's"? Was perhaps Barbü an unrecognized pioneer of Free Jazz in Europe? Or was there someone else in Wanne-Eickel, Itzehoe or else where who started it earlier? Is it true that since 1957, the "Reform Art Unit" in Vienna has been playing a sort of music that, as they claim, omits any of the conventional principles of musical creation (comp.: cover text of R. A. U. 1005) - and, if so, how important was this for the entire development of Jazz in Europe?
In general, our presumption of History is such, that anything happening without publicity is not accepted to be History.
In Jazz, however, publicity has been represented by the mass media, almost from the very beginning: articles in magazines, radio broadcasts and - most important - record productions. Whoever or whatever not documented by any of these media sources, is almost automatically ousted from the process of historical reflection. As much as this may seem regrettable, it is a fact we cannot overlook.
If we accept that statements made about a music faded away for a long time - especially a music without written scores, one that cannot be fixated by scores in great parts - are necessarily filtered by our memory and saturated with opportune personal preferences not to be controlled à posteriori, we will soon realize that it is necessary to overcome the gap separating past and future by analyzing substantial documents left from the past, in our case here, mainly recordings. Within the last couple of weeks, I went out of my way to listen to approximately 90 records and two dozen radio broadcasts featuring concerts, workshops, festivals, etc. I do not claim that I have a complete knowledge of European Free Jazz now, but the procedure was useful in that fresh experience put a new gloss over fading memories.
Still, one must realize that there are certain limitations. Musical documents (records, broadcasts) are subject to a selective mechanism; this is an important fact if we want to deal with the earliest phase of European Free Jazz. In general, record companies are profit-oriented and are only interested in productions promising possibly fast profit. Since not many people in the record business trusted that European Free Jazz would become a commercial success, documents of this music are rare. A more complete picture of what went on then is available only since that time when musical co-operatives such as FMP, INCUS and ICP began to make their own productions, i.e. when an increasing number of musicians turned to self-productions of their music.
- Matching such objective limitations, influences of such formal nature, there are subjective restrictions. For quite some time, I have observed the development of Free Jazz with my own eyes (and ears), particularly here in the FRG and West Berlin; I attended the Free Music Workshops in Berlin but not the sessions held at the "Little Theatre Club" in London, neither did I attend the "Free Jazz Workshop de Lyon" or the "Lille Jazz Action". By and large, I know the self-productions made by musicians in this country; I know less about those in Scandinavia or Great Britain. Therefore, my personal view of the way Free Jazz developed in Europe could be considered "ethnocentered", and when I put the emphasis on one event or the other, this is a necessary result of my own geographical location.
Still another limitation is of subjective nature, but more in a general way than individual. The fact that by listening to records we deal with an objectification of music cannot mean that this alone would enable us to write objective History. Someone claiming he could describe objective facts without letting even a tinge of his personal opinion influence him, is inevitably trapped by a sort of naive positivism. The act of selection itself, of what an author chooses to write about, is based on his opinion, of what he thinks is - and is not - worth writing about and is, therefore, depending on his own valuations. Thus, I cannot conceal from the reader that my approach to analyze formal musical patterns of Free Jazz in Europe is embedded in my own subjective experience; I admit that I have certain likes and dislikes and that my personal views decide upon what I feel is historically important and what is not. All this is quite normal; but in view of the dogmatic aesthetics established in jazz literature, I felt it was necessary to be emphasized.
History of Jazz in Europe up to the middle of the Sixties is marked by a united effort to imitate creative developments in the United States. The changing aesthetics of Afro-American music, the development of new structural patterns and a gradual expansion of musical material were readily absorbed by European musicians; the closest possible imitation of the respective American original was a standard for musical quality. It was, probably, not only the lack of self-assurance concerning their own creative capacity that caused European musicians to produce such a decade of epigones and imitations; the range of expectations put up by audiences and Jazz critics added to this development. To them, the prophet was in his own country only when interpreting the message sent by the American Gods. Just how deeply rooted this system of valuations strictly in accordance with American standards of Jazz critique was, even up till the end of the Sixties, is illustrated by cover text J. E. Behrendt wrote in 1969:".I am convinced that with Tchicai, Europe has a black Europe-born musician whose standard compares with that of the big American innovators ...". Lucky Europe !
Towards the middle of the Sixties, there was a gradual change in the way European musicians related to their American models. The development of American Jazz itself may have caused this, but so could have the change in the way European musicians perceived themselves.
Free Jazz, developing during the late Fifties and early Sixties in the U.S., brought along the most radical break in Jazz History, for both musicians and listeners (though often compared with the so-called "Bebop-Revolution", this comparison does not quite match). One of the most evident characteristics of Free Jazz as performed by Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor with their groups around 1969, was the way certain fundamental rules of Jazz improvisation were ignored; laws which had been accepted since the beginnings of Jazz and which had never been questioned, suddenly lost their dominance: above all, fundamental rhythm (beat), the principles of tonality and functional harmony, and the predominance of melodic continuity. On one hand, Free Jazz abided by the basic emotional qualities of traditional Afro-American music and even stressed its inherent rhythmical intensity; on the other hand, Free Jazz in its own formal aspects and tonal structures, gradually came closer to resemble structural patterns which had been developed by European Avant-garde Music during the last 50 years. However, "resembling" should not be mistaken for "adjusting to".
A number of Jazz musicians in Europe, who had played "Modern Jazz" in all its varieties during the Sixties, began - with a phase interval of 5 years - to catch up on the development introduced by American Free Jazz musicians, in 1965. Like their American models, they broke with the routine of harmonic-metrical schemes, dissolved the beat into an irregular series of accentuations and concentrated on musical sound instead of improvisations oriented to melodic lines. At the same time, however, they began to drift from the direct influence of American musicians. They created their own expressions and structural patterns, making them central points of their musical activities. Thus, towards the end of the Sixties, a specific European type of Free Jazz found its way to the public.
What were the causes for this unexpected emancipation? At least two factors are worth being mentioned, one as inherent in music itself and the other as some sort of ideological - or, if you will, political factor. The musical factor is based in the fact that with the origin of Free Jazz, for the first time in Jazz History, European musicians were confronted with a style that was no more definite, i.e. that had ceased to be a system of relatively limited standards, but with a variety of individual and group styles, one hardly comparing to the other: the distinction between structural patterns set up by musicians like Taylor, Coleman and Coltrane had always outweighed what they had in common - something one could certainly not apply to Gillespie, Parker or Powell. The development of an own style within this conglomerate of styles called "Free Jazz" was easier than ever before.
A second cause for the musical European emancipation movement is a social one and has much to do with the social and political atmosphere among young people during the late Sixties. The students' movement in Germany and France had come to a climax in 1968, and numerous young musicians sympathized with it. Two essential characteristics of this movement might have influenced the young Free Jazz phalanx's self-perception above all: firstly, a general distaste for any kind of authority and, secondly, a sort of underlying anti-Americanism that was intensified by the cruel consequences of the Vietnam War. For the first time since World War II, the position of the U.S. as "lodestar" had been thoroughly questioned. And, since Jazz musicians do not exist outside of society but are part of it, it seems natural that the tendencies noted above found shape in their perception of self and - in a mediated way - in their music.
The detachment of European Free Jazz from American Free Jazz is not an event with a fixed date, rather a process. Although record productions are documents timing a certain stage of such a process, they do not represent the process itself. They could be considered provisional results of a development whose beginning and ending remain concealed to the immediately involved partaker. The tighter the time intervals between such provisional results within a series of events the clearer becomes the view of the entire process. Unfortunately though, the time intervals of the "provisional results" documented on records, is miserable as far as covering the early stages of Free Jazz. The few recordings that do exist, however, show three essential stages within the early phase of this developing emancipation:
(1) a first, still reluctant approach to untie from the patterns of late Bop is evident in the LP "Heartplants" by the Gunter Hampel Quintet recorded in January, 1965;
(2) an increasing trend to "Europeanize" musical expression accompanied by an attempt to unite all existing creative capacity, as in the music of the Globe Unity Orchestra recorded in Dec. 1966 and
(3) a first attempt to multiply individual and group-specific approaches, as in the recordings of ensembles such as those of Peter Brötzmann, Manfred Schoof, Joachim Kühn und Wolfgang Dauner of the year 1967.
The Gunter Hampel Quintet of 1965 was run by musicians whose range of experience was vitally influenced by "Modern Jazz" - besides Hampel himself these are Manfred Schoof, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Buschi Niebergall and Pierre Courbois. Heartplants, the only LP recorded by this group, presents Free Jazz as harmonic-metrical, consequently "free" interaction music only in one piece, in Iron Perception by Schlippenbach. The other pieces are influenced by various stylistic levels of "Modern Jazz", much less representing a synthesis than a concurrence of diverse structural patterns, including modal structures as initiated by Coltrane/Davis during the Milestones-phase (Heartplants and Our Chant) as well as free tonal Iines à la George RusselI (No Arrows) and even reminiscences of the beauty-sound-aesthetics of the Modern Jazz Quartet (Without Me). And although all this is sporadically blended i.e. interlaced with more or less extensive Free Jazz eruptions, one could hardly call it a truly original style. The significance of Heartplants is certainly not - as their producer Behrendt notes in his book 'Windows to Jazz' (Frankfurt, 1977) - that they "revealed to a large audience that a new European Jazz was born". Rather, they marked a first hesitant step within a gradual process of detachment; the notion "detachment" means less the American Jazz itself that its traditional procedures of making music.
Unlike Heartplants, the first recording produced by the Globe Unity Orchestra roughly two years later, breaks with tradition more radically - not only regarding their break-away from traditional musical organisation and traditional Jazz sound structures but primarily in their dismissal of the child-parent relationship between American and European Jazz. The Globe Unity Orchestra was founded in 1966, owing its existence to RIAS Berlin requesting Alexander von Schlippenbach to write a composition for the Berlin Jazz Festival of that year. Schlippenbach successfully managed to create a compositorial framework that allowed for a great number of Free Jazz players; a composition that organized a structural variety without falling back on old Bigband clichés while still leaving enough space for individual creative exertion and spontaneous interactions of all participants, despite all musical organisation.
The nucleus of the Globe Unity Orchestra was made of members of the, Schoof Quintet and the Peter Brötzmann Trio. Added were five horn players and vibraphonist Karl Berger. Schlippenbach wrote two compositions of very distinct character for the Orchestra's Berlin performance and the record productions that followed: Globe Unity and Sun. Globe Unity is characterized by an intensive rhythmical power-play, with corresponding parts for solos and collective ensemble organized by given scale material, clusters or tonally undefined chords. The basic conception shows certain affinities to Coltrane's Ascension, although a direct influence is unlikely. (Call- and response patterns are a common technique to organize orchestral Free Jazz.). StilI, a comparison with Ascension is quite instructive; it reveals certain essential characteristics of Free Jazz made in Europe, already in that early phase of its existence. The basic rhythmical posture of Globe Unity is - compared with that of Afro-American musicians - more hectic, nervous, at times more violent. The improvisations presented by the horns concentrate more on sound and energy than melodic continuity; they are so consequently anti-melodic that not even the "screamers" in Ascension (e.g. Sanders and Shepp) can compare.
Even more impressive than in the Globe Unity composition/improvisation is the systematic exploration of sound in Sun. Sun is less tight in its musical structure than Globe Unity, more contemplative in its emotional substance and contains more intense concentration on sound colouring rather than concentrating on energetic power. The instrumentation emphasises this; the "little instruments" - as the Art Ensemble of Chicago later dubbed them - i.e. sound instruments like rattles, triangles, lotus flutes, flexafones, etc., play a dominant part. But also the way the horns are played shows a differentiated treatment of sound patterns, particularly the trumpet solos played by Claude Deron and Manfred Schoof; both solos are characterised by undefined pitch (half-pressed valves) and distorted sounds.
When the Globe Unity Orchestra's first production was presented to the public, it met with strong resentment and caused many a misunderstanding. Newspaper headlines ran "Odd men playing jokes at the Philharmonic" and "a blend of Jazz and Chamber Music" - neither of these quotations under-line the clear-sightedness of contemporary Jazz critics. In any case, the resentment versus the Globe Unity music and its classification as being part of the hybrid "Third Stream" had a result: public performances of the orchestra became rare. Only since 1972/73, the ensemble has performed on a regular basis, serving a gradual stabilisation of their musical "language". This does in no way diminish the standard of the first Globe Unity within the historical development of original European Free Jazz, it proved that there was a musical substance in the making that could do without pre-fabricated patterns; it helped to make clear that there was a growing potential of European musicians - in and apart from Globe Unity - to make this substance become alive.
Already in 1967, a development multiplying those energies provoked by the Globe Unity of 1966 began to show up in a number of record productions that also present a certain stylistic differentiation of the European "Free" Scene: Transfiguration by the brothers' Rolf and Joachim Kühn ensemble; Free Action by Wolfgang Dauner; a recording produced by the Manfred Schoof Sextet for Wergo where Schlippenbach, Dudek and Niebergall among others play along with Schoof; and For Adolphe Sax by the Peter Brötzmann Trio. What these four productions have in common is their definite "good-bye" to all Modern Jazz patterns. However, each musician has his own consequence from that dismissal. The Kühn Brothers mostly use structural patterns already developed within traditional styles and transpose them in the context of a free interaction-music, without questioning fundamental categories such as swing, linear melodic invention and "workmanship" in the traditional meaning. Brötzmann's For Adolphe Sax (FMP 0080) in turn represents a radical break with just these categories. He does away with tonal canters, discernible melodic runs and themes. Only sporadically, there is a development process pretending to end at some point; instead, there is an almost breathless series of brief episodes of contrasting, emotional character, where the phases of extroversion by far outweigh those of calmness and poise. Brötzmann's music can - and I mean this not to depreciate it - at such points be called "destructive", thus meaning the destruction of an experience that has become dear and familiar to the listener, an experience not only of Jazz but of music in general.
Compared with For Adolphe Sax, Wolfgang Dauner's Free Action seems almost conventional. Unlike Brötzmann's music that is monochrome, sustaining a highly emotional level, Dauner's conception could be called "polychrome". His pieces contain formal developments, carefully pre-planned, and concentrated on structural and instrumental variety, where spontaneity and emotion are controlled by rationalism and where technical virtuosity in the traditional meaning maintains an important position.
The Manfred Schoof Sextet-recording of December 1967 has an almost mediating position among Brötzmann's emotionalism and Dauner's constructivism. In many respects, Schoof's and Schlippenbach's music represents a transformation of the experience gained through Globe Unity (the affinity with Sun and Glockenbär is obvious), while consequently pursuing the development introduced by the Hampel Quintet (Heartplants). The ensemble's music is polychrome, too, and there is a manifold choice of expressive patterns and organisational principles. But in contrast to Heartplants, that was recorded three years earlier, the various stylistic levels do not co-exist without relating one to the other, rather they form a convincing synthesis. "Free Bop" linearity (as in Schlippenbach's Grains), percussive sound improvisation, ensemble parts that are packed with energy, modal improvisations and Monk-reminiscences are woven together, interlaced to an original form of expression, one that has overcome the past without ignoring that there has been a past.
The variety of approaches manifested by the record productions of 1967 became somewhat limited during the following years. The Kühn-Brothers disappeared from the Free Jazz Scene and worked in more lucrative fields (one in Rock-Jazz, the other played popular entertainment music); Wolfgang Dauner's musical sense of adventure obviously prevented him from concentrating on just one aspect of a relevant musical spectrum.
The mainstream of West German Free Jazz since 1968 was represented mainly by the Brötzmann und Schlippenbach ensembles. On one hand, there was a growing tendency towards working in large ensembles, on the other hand, an ever increasing internationalization of the scene, including mainly English and Dutch musicians. "In retrospect, the year of 1968", Brötzmann stated in an interview with Didier Pennequin, "was they ear of bigbands, where we met with friends to play like crazy". (see: Jazz Magazine No. 220.) The sound of these "big bands" is documented by a number of record productions with changing leaders, but with partly identical casts: Brötzmann's Machine Gun (March 1968, FMP 0090), Schlippenbach's Living Music (April 1969, FMP 0100), Schoof's European Echoes (June 1969, FMP 0010) and two excerpts of the Brötzmann ensemble's performances at the Holy Hill Festival in Heidelberg (July 1969) and at the Jazz Festival in Frankfurt (March 1970). Apart from certain distinctions in their details, all these recordings have one in common: their intensity in destroying established aesthetic standards. It was - as Peter Kowald said in an interview with Dirk Fröse, in 1972 - the "kaputt-play" time. Kowald: "The main objective was to really and thoroughly tear apart the old values, this meaning: to omit any harmony and melody; and the result wasn't boring only because it was played with such high intensity". He continues: "..In a way, that "kaputt-play" time has made anything "playable", equally playable, that is possible in music..Today, for the first time, it becomes clear that our generation can well do without the musical influence of most Americans.." (see: Jazz Podium, 12/1972). Remains the question: What kind of factual musical results that period of "kaputt-play" came up with, a period which not only Kowald considers to have been a phase of transition? In context with the recordings mentioned above - though not in detail -, some general characteristics can be listed in the following:
(1) Composing is generally limited to a minimum, i.e., by and large, the music is without themes while presenting us with riff-like attacks and interjections, at times only directed in their movement (upward-downward). Moreover, there is a tendency to use distorted thematical quotations, tags, as in Brötzmann's "Lollopalooza", where the national anthems of Germany and Britain are interlaced in a deliberate, chaotic manner.
(2) Definite pitch as the stable element of musical organization is abandoned, now favouring instable sound patterns. A structural distinction is achieved mainly by using collective variation of the parameters sound register, density and loudness.
(3) Development processes are being led, somewhat inevitably, towards a limit where individual musical events cannot be strictly identified as such but combine to become a diffuse, intensive totality. Sometimes, this process is supported by instrumentation, extremely homogeneous and low-pitched as frequently used by the Brötzmann ensembles. (In Frankfurt, for example, Brötzmann played with four trombones and three tenor saxophones.)
(4) In general, the attitude towards time can be called restless. Even
when density and intensity diminish and the structures open up, the basic
time (not necessarily played but felt) remains hectic. - In fact, there
is at that stage of development something like a standard time, probably
due to physiological reasons: a majority of recordings show an identical
rhythmical-metric basis, with 
= 240 to 270. This, however, means that a four-four bar approximately
corresponds to human pulsation. This further means that the kind of Free
Jazz we are dealing with here is body-related to a much higher degree
than generally assumed. (Whoever mistrusts my thesis of pulsation being
a common rhythmical basis should measure again).
(5) One point not immediately touching upon the structural characteristics of this music but upon its reception is the problem of instrumental technique. By talking to friends and acquaintances, l gathered that many listeners - especially those "well-acquainted" with Jazz - wonder, in view of the difficult, dense musical structures characteristic for that period, whether those who make all that noise on-stage just can't play, whether they really do master their instruments or simply just get their rocks off. It seems relatively easy to dub it "kaputt-play" as Kowald did in his interview, yet it isn't that simple. In fact, most musicians working in the ensembles of Brötzmann, Schlippenbach and Schoof, had developed individual techniques enabling them to not only demolish conventions but to develop in a constructive way- new, personal techniques. Someone who argues that Evan Parker's sound nuances, or Brötzmann's overblow sounds, had nothing to do with technique, someone arguing, that Dudek's and Skidmore's almost classical virtuosity is the sole acceptable quintessence of technique, simply reveals his own narrow conception of technique. Contrary to the notion of "technology" in industry, "technique" in music means - at least to me - the ability to do what I want to do. Brötzmann expressed it more pointedly: "I'm not what you would call a 'good technician'. To me, technique as taught by conservatories is bullshit. To make music like ours, you have to develop your own technique first and then make your own music. The objective of our music is not to play fright' or 'wrong', that doesn't mean a thing. What really counts is to know what one's playing". (Translated from the French; Jazz Magazine No. 220, p. 21.)
During the first quarter of the Seventies, the monochrome or "kaputt-play" phase of the large ensembles was nearing its end. In Brötzmann's and Schlippenbach's small ensembles - both with contrary conceptions -, transparency began to dominate over diffuse sounds. The Globe Unity Orchestra resumed their activities and found a new identity. In England and the Netherlands, more and more original - one could even say national - structural patterns developed and came to stay. And all over the West German provinces, musical initiatives began to stir, revolting not only against the dominating influence of the American hegemony but against the predominance of the Wuppertal-Berlin-axis just as well.
An ensemble of vital importance for the further development of European Free Jazz is the Trio Brötzmann-Van Hove-Bennink, founded in the summer of 1970; the trio has disbanded in the meantime. This is an ensemble where the clash of contrasting structural patterns was pre-programmed the three musicians' very distinct tempers.
The Dutch percussionist Han Bennink had already cooperated with a number of prominent American musicians of the Swing and Hardbop-era, before he joined Free Music in 1967. He used his former experience to transform it into a special kind of percussion play, covering both swing and drive, yet questioning them when he presents us with sudden eruptions and happening-like sound-escapades as if to demolish his own swinging. A pronounced awareness of sound is the most distinctive characteristic of his musical conception, expressed only on the surface by the way he uses his giant arsenal of sound instruments; because, the mere quantity of his instruments, we could repeatedly note, does not represent a norm, rather just one of many possibilities. Bennink: "There is a chance that one day I might use only a thousand matchsticks to play". (quoted from W. Panke, Jazz Podium 4/1972).
Compared with Bennink, the extrovert, the Belgian pianist Fred Van Hove is an anti-pole in many respects. He says of himself, the chimes of Antwerp had influenced him more than Cecil Taylor (Jazz Magazine No. 220, p. 24). Van Hove rarely shows eruptive emotion and power-play; instead he has a more contemplative attitude with a strong tendency for crankiness, as when he counters Brötzmann's atonal screams plus Bennink's violent drumming with arpeggios and serene, contemplative major chords. While Van Hove often was pushed aside, also even dominated by the others in the turbulent trio actions, his solo-LP recorded for FMP in 1977 (SAJ-11) is a fantastic introduction to his conception. Unlike many other pianists who - if by themselves - begin to show off with all aspects of technical virtuosity, Van Hove does not go for the splendour; what he wants is surprise, to produce tension, to stimulate reflection or simply to tease. In his Klompenouverture that starts with the clattering sound as of wooden shoes, suggesting Flemish local colour, it seems as if he used dilettante technique consciously and on purpose. It sounds as if somebody is looking for something without ever finding it. This way of playing the piano has little or nothing to do with Afro-American music - and doesn't want to. Unlike the way Schlippenbach plays, there is no rhythmical fluency, rather a sort of cheerful stumbling tinted with despair.
In the course of unpredictable interaction of action and reaction that becomes the trio's dominating structural pattern, there is a gradual change in the way Peter Brötzmann plays the saxphone. Although over-blowing in sounds with an undefined pitch, is still his favourite manner of expression, his improvisations have become less noise oriented; at times, he produces thematical relations, paraphrases Ben Webster's "erotic" ballads, quotes thematic splinters of a polka or a popular song and grinds them through the mill of his fantasy.
In the years to follow, certain characteristics start to show up that become a trade-mark for the trio's music (in 1971, Albert Mangelsdorff joins for a brief period), some of which I will try to sketch in the following:
(1) Unlike the "kaputt-play" phase with its extensive homogeneous formal fluxation, and collective improvisations sometimes lasting for hours on end, there is now a tendency towards the "small" form. Many of the trio's "pieces" are like miniatures, each containing certain emotional characteristics, instrumentation, motion, etc. This is particular significant in Tschüs (FMP 0230) and in Brötzmann's and Bennink's duo recordings Ein halber Hund kann nicht pinkeln (transl.: Half-a-dog can't pis), (FMP 0420) and Schwarzwaldfahr (FMP 0440).
(2) The following years give way to an increasing multi-instrumentalism, extending the range of sounds in general, bringing up new, often very unorthodox instrumental combinations. At the same time, the enlarged range of instruments is one way for a musician to overcome his own clichés.
(3) The theatre-like musical event takes over the entire ensemble, with diverse accentuations. The group begins to move, the inclusion of space as a prime factor for the theatre-effect produces acoustical results of its own. Example: Claptrap from the LP Tschüs, a duo for two clarinets; Brötzmann plays close by the microphone while Bennink walks around, playing. In the same way, space and distance are significant means of formal expression in Schwarzwaldfahrt, an open air recording. It is questionable, though, whether a record is still the proper medium to "mediate"" this kind of musical theatre.
(4) Corollary to the development of such "musical theatre", there is an increasing tendency towards musical "limericks" and use of the human voice, often resulting in practical jokes. Brötzmann in Schwarzwaldfahrt: "But here I feel much too cold - and so do the clarinets".
The Alexander von Schlippenbach Ensemble takes a course that varies in many ways from the music made by Brötzmann-Van Hove-Bennink. For the last few years, Schlippenbach has been playing primarily with Englishman Evan Parker, saxophone, Peter Kowald, bass, and Paul Lovens, percussion. Schlippenbach's music, one could say, has become even "more true" to itself throughout the years. This does not mean, there hadn't been any changes. But the changes concerned more the details, the delicate musical structures than the surface. The Schlippenbach Quartet plays a music that is consequently a-thematical, energetic and without any concessions to fashionable trends - a world of its own. Although Schlippenbach's piano technique in some aspects reminds one of Cecil Taylor (the affinity with Monk is at least as evident), his ensemble conception, however, cannot be compared with Taylor's, it is more "democratic". It is not he "master" dominating and directing the entire musical event in a certain direction; on the contrary, the musical process develops from within the ensemble, the initiators take turns. - Evan Parker holds up an important in this music; in my view, the absolute lack of compromise in his conception makes him one of the most impressive Free Jazz saxophonists ever. In his book on contemporary Jazz in Great Britain ('Music Outside', London 1973), the English trumpet player Jan Carr presents a vivid description of Evan Parker's style, one I consider to be very exact. The following is an excerpt: "..Parker explores the technical range of tenor and soprano saxophone up to their possible limitations; he uses high-register notes of such a high pitch they might become audible to bats; he sustains tension over a long period of time and plays extremely unusual melodic patterns; he splinters individual notes into their components - the tonal elements a saxophone strain normally contains. The result appears as if a musical measure was looked at through a very strong microscope or stethoscope. It is still music we see or feel, but we recognize its fibres, its singular parts, its physical structure in extreme magnification; all which is normally concealed. Yet, the continuity with Jazz tradition is at hand..is present in vigor and intensity of emotion and in the way this emotion is expressed..his style appears to be wild and disorganized, but in reality, it is extremely disciplined and controlled."
The existence of a big Jazz Band has always depended on economic conditions as well as on musical factors. As with the Swing-Bands who often paid for their existence for the price of show-biz-compromises and a life "On The Road"; this is true to an even higher degree for Free Jazz Bands, especially since their musical patterns not necessarily coincide with the preferences of a mass-audience. Free Jazz Orchestras are relatively rare, particularly those existing on the basis of a constant, regular cooperation. Such cooperation, however, is necessary to guarantee a continuous musical development. To my knowledge, the Globe Unity Orchestra is the only one of its kind that has achieved such continuity within the last few years. Neither the "London Jazz Composers Orchestra" nor the French "Celestrial Communication Orchestra" initiated by Alan Silva managed to present more than sporadic performances with changing personnel.
The event initiating a "Comeback" for the Globe Unity Orchestra was a Workshop organized by Peter Kowald and supported by the Wuppertal City Council. The orchestra could rehearse four days in a row and then present the result of their work at a final concert. Already during this Workshop, a certain dualistic conception had surfaced; a conception which on one hand emphasizes a completely free conception of collective improvisation on the other - as if to present a contrasting program - it comprises conventionally composed pieces, at times of an ironic, conventional make; for example, Schlippenbach's adaptation of Jelly Roll Morton's "Wolverine Blues", his composition "Bavarian Calypso", arrangements of Willem Breuker, etc. Such "songs" can be presented without any improvisations, they serve the purpose of offering conveying links to the un-prepared audience, establishing connexions with their musical experience; effecting a relaxation between the freely improvised sets requiring acute attention. (I do not know whether or not this is intended by the Globe Unity people - in any case, these "songs" had an effect similar to the above description on the recipients.)
Unfortunately, there is no record production to-date one could consider to be representative for the Globe Unity Orchestra, in that it would illustrate the ensemble's capacity for filling with tension those long extensive structural developments that only base on the players' imagination, and the interplay of action and reaction. In my view, this capacity for "spontaneous composing" is one of the orchestra's outstanding qualities.
Contrary to the "kaputt-play"-phase of the Sixties, the total improvisation of the Globe Unity Orchestra since 1973 has been marked by a development orienting towards open structures. The experience that a fortissimo is recognized as such only when preceded by a quiet passage, might be no less important than the fact that each player's personal style becomes audible only when the collective ensemble does not kill it by a noisy power-play. The individual means of expression shown by the Globe Unity musicians, who all work in various other ensembles besides the orchestra, is the perhaps most vital cause for their diversity of the musical spectrum created by the orchestra. The kind of uniform aesthetics characterizing the sound ideal of the traditional big-bands with their section work, does not match the Globe Unity view of reality. Instead, they give way to the distinct musical temperaments of each individual musician, yet maintaining the collective purpose of aiming at a joint statement; they create variety, friction, tension. (To fully understand what I mean by that, the reader should remember the diverse expressive means of the saxophonists Brötzmann, Carl, Parker and Dudek, or the trombonists Rutherford, Mangelsdorff and Christmann - or, even better, listen to it!)
The fact that ensembles like those of Brötzmann, Schlippenbach and the Globe Unity Orchestra in this country play at the frontlines of Free Jazz, are well-known to the public and are considered the representatives of contemporary "teutonic" Jazz (Melody Maker) abroad, should not conceal another fact: that there is a wider range of musical activities now and that the variety of individual and ensemble-specific approaches by far exceed any assumptions made so far in this article. One of the ensembles most consistent in their straightforward development, has been, for quite long, the ensemble of the Frankfurt-born trombone player Albert Mangelsdorff. Mangelsdorff is one of the veterans on the German Jazz Scene. His style comprises the imitational era of European Jazz ranging from Dixieland over Cool Jazz to Hardbop; he mastered them without ever becoming an epigone himself. He, who always preferred evolution to revolution, met with free music relatively late, but when he did, he had such an absolute mastery of the new material that many a hothead of the "kaputt-play" period was lacking. In many respects, Mangelsdorff's career and his position on the European Jazz Scene is comparable to that of John Coltrane in the United States. Both of them passed through the various stages of Jazz History without ever fully adjusting to one opportune trend or the other; both of them had their own ways, and both have become a kind of "father figure" for the succeeding generation - not only concerning their music but also their personality. It was not by chance, when Mangelsdorff was elected President of the "German Jazz Musicians Union" in 1973, to choose him was almost "a must".
The quintet Mangelsdorff organized at the beginning of the Seventies - while he was cooperating with Brötzmann-Van Hove-Bennink, played a kind of music that was deeply rooted in the Jazz tradition, swinging in a free, specific way, seldom abandoning its development of melodic and thematic variety in favour of sound and energy. Mangelsdorff's linear style contributed much, but no less did his saxophone players, Heinz Sauer and Gerd Dudek; one blues-like and rough in his improvisations, the latter tending to abide by Coltrane's extended modality.
Since some time, Mangelsdorff has concentrated on working as a soloist. Much has been said and written about his technique of playing chords, so I can spare the details here. However, what Mangelsdorff says about the relation of solo versus ensemble, is interesting: "A musician physically exhausts himself much more in the solo, because this is more demanding than to play with the ensemble. But the fully emotional exhaustion only happens when one is playing with others..Even though the soloist plays freely, everything he lets out is still somehow under his control. It is virtually music completely different than that played in a group; the group provides another sort of outlet, of eruption.." (see: Jazz Podium 2/1977).
Up to the middle of the Seventies, while the un-accompanied solo play flourished under the effective cover-slogan "Solo Now", to become a veritable solo-movement, the duo ensemble representing the smallest possible musical interaction unit, was relatively rare. Though there are quite many record productions, presenting duos of any instrumental combination, these were the results of ad hoc arrangements involving two musicians, rather than revealing a permanent day-to-day cooperation. The most consequent exception to this rule (there are a few more) is the duo founded by trombone/bass player Günter Christmann and percussionist Detlef Schönenberg in 1973, at a time when no one even thought of the duo fashion impoverishing the Jazz festivals of today. The Christmann/Schönenberg Duo had a forerunner in the trio of Rüdiger Carl, a tenor saxophonist. In January of 1972, the trio produced one LP of outstanding quality (King Alcohol, FMP 0060). Certain passages on the LP, however, already suggest the problems that later on led the trio to disband. While Schönenberg consciously tried to overcome the traditional role of the drummer who delivers the rhythmical foundation, and while he tended to play music with open structural patterns, struggling to detach from the time-related rhythm of American Free Jazz, Rüdiger Carl advocated the affinity of a pulsating Jazz rhythm as the essence of his musical conception. Carl: "Pulsation, or whatever you wish to call it, is indispensable to me". (Jazz Podium 471973). - To me, the collision of two diverging conceptions as suggested here, is important inasmuch as it confronts two principles of rhythmical communication, which - roughly - could be classified "occidental" on one hand and "Afro-American" on the other. We will later refer to this problem.
The Christmann-Schönenberg Duo-music has achieved a tight, interactive denseness during five years of intensive cooperation. Their music makes it possible to forget the traditionally diverging instrumental and technical sound characteristics of trombone and percussion. The dialogue principle postulated by their music brings it close to resembling language; just like a verbal dialogue, it includes a number of reaction patterns, dynamic elements for musical progression: to paraphrase (confirm), to counter-play (contradict), to imitate (echo), etc. Even the emotional expressive patterns resemble language: Screaming, stuttering, whining, whispering..The fact that Schönenberg and Christmann are aware of this close relation to language, is evident from some of their LP titles: Topic, Remarks, etc. Yet, to fully understand their music, one cannot simply reduce it to a plain metaphoric identification of verbal and musical levels of communication. Other than our daily language, which, in order to be generally understood, is confined to a limited set of words (material), defined by history and tradition, the music played by the duo is changeable by continuously extending their given material - due not only to a gradual extension i.e. modification of the sound apparatus, but mainly to an intensive process of exploring what range of sound repertoire is possible when using the given instruments. (To illustrate just how consequent this process of enlarging the range of sound-pattern develops, I recommend comparing the early recordings of the duo (e.g. We play of 1973, FMP 0120) with more recent ones (e.g. Live at the Moers Festival '76).
This dualism of pulsation as a basis for rhythmical communication on one hand and a more pointed, accentuated reactive pattern on the other, that formerly caused the Rüdiger Carl Inc. to dissolve, finds its equivalent when we compare the conception of the Irène Schweizer Quartet which Carl joined in 1973 with the concept of the Christmann-Schönenberg Duo. Christmann and Schönenberg emphasize the "practical experience of playing Jazz" (see: Jazz Podium No. 1/1978), yet they gradually move away from this experience as their music develops, as far as this is evident on the surface. Although they might not have reacted so strongly to Karlheinz Stockhausen's naive attack against Jazz (see: Jazz Podium 11 /1977), had they not felt affected in their identity as being "Jazzers"; still, however, as they argue, their defence of the new Jazz (their Jazz!) is based primarily on the assumption that their new Jazz had lost anything it ever had in common with that "old" Jazz Stockhausen had meant. (They're right, of course.) In contrast, there is Rüdiger Carl who emphasizes the continuity of a pulsating rhythmical frame in his music and who therefore might be called a "traditionalist", one of those Stockhausen's criticism - had it not been so arrogant and ethno-centred - would apply to.
In 1973, when Carl met the ensemble of pianist Irène Schweizer, the "kaputt-play" period had almost faded out. The group plays a music that is highly energetic in its basis, yet transparent, giving way to open structures oriented towards a subtile sound make-up. The first LPs produced by the group, Goose Pannée in September, 1974 (FMP 0190) and Messer (knife) in May of 1975, (FMP 0290) allow a preliminary impression of the musical spectrum the two main "actors" Carl and Schweizer stand for. Irène Schweizer has clearly been influenced by Cecil Taylor (who hasn't?); she plays Taylor's hurried cluster-arpeggios with an immense, rhythmical intensity, adding repetitive patterns interwoven with her power-play, with sudden interjections by a kind of stride-piano, ending with dramatic chords (comp. title piece of Goose Pannée). In other pieces - preferably unaccompanied introductions -, she uses piano techniques developed by Cage and the European Avant-garde: finger-plucking of piano strings, knocking with sticks, scratching with scrapers, throwing wooden and metal balls at the piano, etc. Rüdiger Carl demonstrates a similar broad range of expression and structural pattern. Carl takes an almost integrating position among European Free Jazz saxophonists that would, I feel, deserve more attention than it had received thus far. In his play, Carl manages to integrate Brötzmann's, scream-like articulation as well as to decompose melodic phrases into cluster-particles like Parker did, combined with Dudek's dramatic set of melodic modulations. In listing these qualities, I do not intend to denounce Carl to be an intelligent eclecticist; rather, I want to emphasize the fact that he masters, indeed, all these techniques and uses them for his conception. His composition Glücksgäu (on the LP Goose Pannée) is one example to prove that his conception is more than a conglomerate of structural patterns already existing. There, he comes up with an adapted Free version of Coltrane's "Harmonique" of 20 years ago, using systematic, controlled polychrome sounds. In Come On Bert (on the LP Messer), he presents a consistent thematical work-up not in the traditional sense of a melodic phraseology but oriented to creating structural patterns with varying sound structures.- In general, I feel, Carl's attitude concerning a traditional "workmanship" is decisive for the totality of his musical expression, and so is his insisting on rhythmical pulsation. Carl wants to control what he plays, but the criteria of what "control" means should not be merely subjective. I gathered this from a statement he made in an interview with Jazz Podium of April 1973: "Many of the ways to play originated in a feeling of incompetence. I do not mean to put down any of the patterns which later developed, they are very interesting. But I think, there is much left out and sometimes a virtue made of necessity, labelled 'new music'".
A little on the periphery of musical activity (or was it just the periphery of my own scope concentrated on Berlin and Wuppertal?), at the end of the Sixties, two ensembles were formed. Their structural patterns concentrated more on a productive work-up of the American tradition than a destruction of that tradition: the "Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe" and the "Free Jazz Group Wiesbaden"; both ensembles had a cast of musicians who earned their livelihood in so-called "middle-class" professions. It could well be that their "amateur-status" was responsible for the relatively insignificant public response and the way their music was neglected by the media. (It becomes evident at this point, how inadequately the traditional notion of "amateur" that includes that of "dilettante" is applied to these "amateur" ensembles.)
In contrast to the mainly a-thematical music played by FMP-oriented ensembles, thematical material and structural planning have an important standard within the conception of the "Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe" and its successor-ensemble, the "Fourmenonly". Individual pieces are presented in clearly distinct characteristics, diverging in sound pattern, degree of density, rhythmical intensity and - corollary- emotional tint. Power-play is used sparingly or as a means for structural contrast. Altogether, the structures are less flat, rather, to continue the metaphoric description, "hilly", leaving much time for solos played by the individual musicians. The compositions of the flugelhorn player Herbert Joos, who is (to me) one of the most significant composers of contemporary Jazz, are decisive for the variety of music played by the Karlsruhe ensemble. Joos is an inventor with a marked capacity for sound patterns and instrumentation, as his works Eight Science Fiction Stories and The Philosophy of the Flugelhorn he later wrote make evident. Typical for his composing style are his movements with homophonic deep pitch, reminding one at times of a Cool-aesthetics of the Miles Davis-Capitol Orchestra, transposed to contemporary Jazz.
The sound-oriented constructivism of the Karlsruhe-based ensemble is contrasted by a more extrovert "let's go"-mentality with the "Free Jazz Group Wiesbaden". The two main "actors", trumpet player Michael Sell and saxophonist Dieter Scherf, transform their technical experience of playing Hardbop into the context of Free Jazz, with remarkable vigour. Generally, they organized their power collectives in a motivical order (i.e. in a reactive order) and ended in freely-swinging solos. "Technique" in the "traditional" meaning was of considerable significance in their playing. This was neither "European" Free Jazz resembling the "kaputt-play" period nor did it have to do with the detachment from that phase; it was a successful adaptation of American models.
To make a definite statement on Free Music played in the GDR for the last few years, on the basis of three records that I know, seems a rather daring venture. If anything can be said at all, one can only give a judgement of certain tendencies. The ensemble of saxophonist Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky (Just for Fun, April 1973, FMP 0140) and the Gumpert-Sommer-Hering-Trio (The Old Song, July 1973, FMP 0170) come close to resembling the music of FMP-oriented groups. They orient towards distorting sound patterns and power-play, radically questioning the relevance of traditional aesthetic sound patterns, preferring noise patterns to those of linear expression. The basic rhythm is rather hectic, full of tension, less fluent; in the latter recording, the way percussionist Günter Sommer - oriented to Bennink and Lovens - plays his immensely sound-conscious style. A recording produced at a later stage (Auf der Elbe schwimmt ein rosa Krokodil, March 1974, FMP 0240) (transl.: "There is a pink crocodile in River Elbe"), the Petrowsky-Quartet tends more toward playing open structures, at times even re-introducing melodic balance and presenting a thematical work-up. I could not say whether this was due to a development process (both of Petrowsky's recordings were produced with a time interval of six months) or whether another aspect of their musical spectrum simply surfaces in the latter production. I am also not certain as to whether here might have been a direct influence of Brötzmann's and Schlippenbach's music in the clearly audible affinity of Gumpert's and Petrowsky's aesthetics, or whether such an aesthetics had developed independently.
So-called "national styles" are very common in the history of Occidental Art. Even though the 20th Century with its cultural internationalism promoted by the media has levelled most of the distinctions, it is still possible to detect certain national characteristics, in the field of contemporary music. This has nothing in common with nationalism or chauvinism in a political sense but is conditioned by the history of individual peoples (their history comprising their cultural history). During the Sixties, no-one would have bothered to wonder as to whether in Jazz such diverse "national" tendencies prevail. Jazz was considered the world's musical language, sedulously propagated by the Voice of America and the State Department, using the notion "world-language" in an ideologically-tinted way; that term did not only maintain the international, world-wide significance of American Culture but by the same token concealed the cultural deprivation of Afro-American musicians - and it was their 'language', their musical expression, Jazz dealt with primarily. - Meanwhile, sometimes at festivals, it happens that during the sets of their European colleagues black Free Jazz musicians leave the concert hall, shaking their heads, - and they do so not because they think the musicians on-stage are incompetent but because they cannot identify or sympathize with their music. Jazz has lost its quality of being a generally accepted binding force as the "World's Language".
What is a relatively crass suggestion of a break between European and American Jazz aesthetics, is true - if lacking any of the great differences - for certain ways of regional performance in European Jazz. It has become customary for musicians and "insiders" to speak in terms of the Dutch or the English (or the "Wuppertalers"), generally not meaning just the classification of individual musicians or ensembles themselves but a certain approach to music. (The drummer I work with he sometimes says: Let's play English!) Like all clichés and stereotype notions, those used in music are inadequate on one hand (because they are simplifications) on the other, however, conditioned by reality (or a view of reality). I personally do not believe that there is the Dutch, the English or the German Free Jazz, as well as I don't feel there is the Dutch, the Englishman, the German or the worker, the professor (Marx did not even want to believe that there is the capitalist). Still though, I think it is obvious that in the course of the last 10 years, some Free Jazz "languages" have developed that diverge in their characteristics, promoted by the different social conditions, i.e. - even more so - by a distinct reception of these conditions by the various musicians. I do not try to attempt to bring cause and effect of this interaction-frame to a common denominator and by using some sort of vulgar Marxist reflection theory, but I will try to describe the musical results. Certain generalisations are inevitable, owing to the brief form this article allows.
One of the most significant "hothouses" for the English Jazz Avant-garde has been the "Little Theatre Club", initiated by the percussionist John Stevens in the middle of the Sixties; a kind of musical workshop, where - without any consideration for an audience that was rather limited anyway - musicians experimented with an intensity and consequence almost unprecedented in Jazz History, except for the Monroe- and Minton-sessions at the beginning of the Bebop-era. The central point among the ensembles with their continuously changing casts experimenting in the Little Theatre Club was the Spontaneous Music Ensemble founded by John Stevens along with saxophonist Trevor Watts. This is an ensemble where - for time periods more or less extensive - almost any musicians of the London Avant-garde joined to perform at least once. In the following, there are a few names listed, some out of many: trumpet players Kenny Wheeler and Jan Carr, the sax players Trevor Watts and Evan Parker, trombone player Paul Rutherford, guitarist Derek Bailey, bass player Ron Matthewson and his colleagues Dave Holland, Barry Guy and Johnny Dyani, and singers Maggie Nichols and Julie Tippetts..
A growing sense of belonging among the musicians cooperating with the SME on an informal basis finally resulted in a foundation that had strongly social and political accentuations, the Musician's Co-op. The Co-op's most essential function for the musicians is, as Evan Parker says, to run their own business.
During its experimental phase, the music of English Free Jazzers moved toward an abstraction level that not only questioned the relevance of melody and harmonics but that went as far as to make them taboos. Noise patterns did no longer present an alternative but became the vital musical structures of their music. English musicians produced live what the musique concrète had fabricated only via tape-collages. Characteristics of the specific instruments were ignored or even turned to become their contrary: while saxophonists played percussive, noisy rhythm patterns, percussionists developed sound-variety; bass players played a twittering falsetto, guitarists (Derek Bailey) produced sound patterns without electrical or acoustic devices that normally were presented by studios for electronic music with their giant arsenal of devices. A certain and special touch was specific for the English Free Jazz, through a remarkably extensive use of female singers. Possibly, this could be in context with the specific standard of vocal music in the English musical culture; a phenomenon that can be tracked down to early baroque music or even earlier. Even though this delineation of historical roots may appear quite daring, in order to explain why English New Jazz ensembles have such a strong presence of female singers, it is remarkable to note that nowhere else on this globe, is the female vocal potential in Free Jazz as rich as in England: Christine Jeffrey, Maggie Nichols, Julie Tippetts, Norma Winstone..
The English Free Jazz we deal with here has an emotional basic pattern tending to include ecstasy much less than asceticism, showing tendencies orienting toward the Western Avant-garde yet without adjusting to a point where the joy of playing music would become spoilt. Moreover, there are other streams within contemporary English Free Jazz (and this again shows how inadequate clichés really are) which draw their inspiration and emotional power mainly from Afro American music, thus suggesting that the times of imitation in Europe have not yet faded away.
"Any music is political; our improvised music is political, it is a continuation of our political ideas and actions. The fact that we have strictly defined our political position has made our music become stronger than ever, at least as strong as the music played by Afro-American musicians". This statement made by pianist Misha Mengelberg (Jazz Magazine No. 220) contains more than a personal credo; it is symptomatic of the position taken by numerous other musicians of the Dutch Free-Jazz Scene. This does not mean that musicians of other countries notice the political happening around them as if unconsciously; but the musical consequences, the conclusions drawn by the Dutch musicians from their political existence, are more obvious. This is made evident in the work of two ensembles; ensembles whose similarities are much less based in their music (in a "style") than in their artistic-political attitude.
The spontaneous duo-music as presented by Mengelberg and Bennink primarily aims at annulling all valid aesthetic evaluation measurements and standards, to annul all principle patterns a priori, such as concert-like performance technique and the awe of material values, the respect of the character inherent to anything that seems a matter of course: like Bennink's repeated attempt to saw off the legs of Steinway pianos, which is not only a good way to ask for trouble with house-stewards but as well a provocation of an audience for whom the big black thing there onstage still represents a significance of artistic seriousness (like the dress-suits of orchestra musicians.
Collages are essential structural patterns within this conception, using paraphrases of Jazz tradition (Monk!) and decomposing, distorting them, interlaced by rhythmical patterns on the steel-drum or slit-drum, lifting the approach towards combining what seemingly cannot be combined to become a principle of their music. Similar to the Belgian pianist Van Hove, Mengelberg permanently contests the relevance of piano technique (which he certainly masters very well); he stumbles, searches and finds - a cigarette. The duo's music only seems to be easily audible, easy to be listened to just on the surface. Its evident happening-character conceals a high amount of concentration and reflection. Says Mengelberg: "What counts for me more than sound and instrument, is construction. Not the harmonies or the themes, but the fact that I know at which moment I produce this sound and no other". (Jazz Magazine No. 220.)
Even though it is similar in its political ambitions, the concept of Willem Breuker and his "Kollektief" in its external expression seems diametrically different. Abiding to the parole of the dada-ist Marcel Janco who spoke of the ""rebirth of popular Art as a social Art", Breuker integrates his previous musical experience in one of Amsterdam's working-class districts as well as music of Eisler and Weill. This experience for him was marked by the sound of steam whistles, chimes, brass bands and mandolin orchestras. Breuker's Kollektief, even though such outstanding Free Jazz musicians as pianist Leo Cuypers, trombone player Willem van Manen and bassist Arjen Gorter cooperate, is not a Free Jazz orchestra like the Globe Unity, rather a well-organized musical theatre group whose vitalism often balancing at the border of chaos could make one forget that the directing hand of the composer (or director) Breuker is constantly present.
Although there are some record productions of the Breuker-Kollektief-music, and the ensemble can often be heard during concerts, the essential frame of their activity is the musical theatre. (Their concert performances often present a kind of "extract" of previous theatre productions, and their political message inevitably has to remain hidden.)
"Oltre Tomba" is one of the most significant productions of the Breuker-Kollektief, where the present Dutch musical activity is parodied in the parable of an old, Middle-Age gathering of troubadours, "Kain en Abel", dramatising the difficult social situation of Avant-garde musicians, and "Het paard van Troje gaet met vakantie, ofwel de huisvestingsperikelen van de Nederlandse jazz-musicus" (The Trojan horse goes on vacation, or the housing problems of Dutch Jazz musicians). - One could be right in wondering, what all this has to do with new European Jazz. But, firstly, the Free Jazz structural patterns - at times up-lifted to resemble parodies - play a significant, though not dominating part in the Kollektief's music. (Non-Jazzers, for instance, could not play such music.) On the other hand, however, the Breuker-Kollektief's conception signalizes-similar to Mengelberg-Bennink - in a pointed way the consequences of a change in the self-perception of European Jazz musicians: to play music "for the people" without having to submit to the manipulative aesthetics, produced in masses, of the popular hit parades (as a replacement/substitute for folk music), but to prevent such manipulation by parody and irony. The fact that Breuker's music - and more so his musical theatre - are extraordinarily amusing should not make us overlook the fact that humour as a means of revealing socially institutionalized lack of humour is a matter of eminent seriousness.
Is there a conclusion? Does the much-quoted emancipation of European Jazz really exist? And, if so, which are the characteristics that make this specifically European Jazz be different from a Jazz of Afro-American provenance? At least one fact should have surfaced from the preceding reflections: that the European Free Jazz in the sense of a compact totality and strictly defined distinction from other forms of Jazz by its musical characteristics does not exist. Instead, there is a stylistic pluralism prevailing on the scene of contemporary Jazz in Europe which is more evident than ever before, even more pointed than the various techniques and styles of the American Free Jazz centered around New York. But the mere existence of a stylistic variety in itself means at least a fraction of emancipation - and not the emancipation of European musicians en bloc but firstly one of each individual musician. The decision to stop praying "like Coltrane", "like Taylor" or "like Shepp" but to learn how to stand on one's own feet is not primarily a collective but a personal decision for the individual musician. That collective patterns of problem-solving develop is almost inevitable, especially since Jazz is based on an ensemble-music footing in interaction. Here, with the approaches to find collective patterns in solving musical problems, one must start by trying to generalize and define the difference between European and Afro-American Free Jazz aesthetics. (Some of it has already been expressed in this article).
- The isolation of the parameter sound from the melodic or harmonic context is, in principle, a procedure essential for Free Jazz. But while in the United States, consequent sound improvisation without any melodic implications has always remained a secondary structural pattern, numerous ensembles in Europe concentrated on this conscious manipulation of sound. Corollary to that, some basically new instrumental techniques were developed; not only the extension and sensitive treatment of the percussion by musicians such as Schönenberg, Lytton, Lovens, Bennink and others, the atomisation of sound by Evan Parker and the un-orthodox guitar techniques of Derek Bailey and Hans Reichel, but as well the giant steps taken by trombone players such as Christmann, Malfatti, Mangelsdorff, Rutherford and Czelusta, searching for possible material that could come from within their instruments. Indeed, a "liberation" of the trombone from Bebop-aesthetics established by J. J. Johnson can only be understood when brought in context with the above musicians. Neither Grachan Moncur III nor Roswell Rudd had seriously questioned the role of the trombone as a melody-instrument, and George Lewis came only later. - I have treated the specific rhythmical basic pattern of European Free Jazzers in context with the so-called "kaputt-play"-phase. All in all, I think, free rhythm in Europe seems to point less to continuity than to contrast, in slow tempt more nervous than relaxed and in faster tempt more hectic than pushing ahead. But this is a very generalising and even personal statement. It would deserve more exact research.
During the early phases of American Free Jazz, collective improvisation played a significant part; in the course of time, however, this form of improvisation was reduced in favour of the old dualism of soloists and accompanists. In Europe, however, collective improvisation with equal partners remained the dominating structural pattern, a matter which might be caused by aspects not inherent to music but being an "external" factor: while in the U.S., with the exception of relatively few groups, the star system of "leader" and "sidemen" never really disappeared (on posters and in New York newspaper advertisements, one often would search in vain to find the names of the "sidemen" to the announced "acts"), European ensembles predominantly work in cooperative groups - with equal pay and equal publicity for all musicians involved.
- Whiled the American Free Jazz (and not behind its beck), a relatively strong tendency towards retrospect is remarkable and (Freebop?) grows through all musical structures, such tendencies have not yet shown up in Europe.
Not yet..
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