The Avant-Garde Lives

BLACK avant-garde jazz of the 60s has been feared, despised and largely ignored by the American music industry. Avant-garde musicians have found live dates in this country sporadic and recording sessions even less frequent. Artista's release of these four records represents a major commitment to jazz's most daring creative artists that few American record companies have been willing to make. Perhaps 15 years since its creation the music is now "safe" enough to be officially recognized.

Avant-garde jazz grew out of a reaction to the increasing slickness of jazz in its hard bop and cool phases in the late '50s. Musicians who had grown up with the bop revolution could rattle off chordal solos with such facility that there were no longer any challenges left. To restore the music's freshness, another revolution was necessary, but like most revolutions, it brought changes for which few were prepared. Musicians such as Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman sought to move outside the boundaries of traditional musical structure, to ignore the rules of harmony and tonality. Such an innovation also necessitated a change in listening expectations; for those who expected jazz to be tonal and chordal, the new avant-garde style seemed threatening as well as incomprehensible.

At least a temporary suspension of conventional musical expectations is also necessary for an appreciation of these four albums. Given such a suspension, the records present a superb example of both the successes and failures of the music that has been labelled avant-garde jazz. The four featured musicians represent a fair selection of the music's most important figures. Ornette Coleman (alto saxophone) and Cecil Taylor (piano) were among the first of avant-garde's proponents. Albert Ayler (tenor sax) was an influential force in the music throughout the '60s and Marion Brown (tenor sax) is a late-blossomer. The records display the new expressive powers that the music's structural freedom allows: they also show the chaos that can result when inspiration falters and there is no strucural discipline to fall back upon. All four are drawn together by their common commitment to expand the boundaries of jazz, but all do so in highly original ways according to individual sensibilities.

Albert Ayler founds his approach to jazz on a search for simplicity. His music reaches back into the origins of jazz for its most basic, primal elements. He rejects the modern sophistication of chordal structures to construct a new blues form. Ayler digs deep into the tenor saxophone's gutteral voice to produce a sound that is harsh, unsubtle and unpolished. He plays in a strong, brutal manner; he bends, bashes and torments notes until they express what he desires. Usually building around a simple recognizable theme, Ayler relies on a rawness of emotion unfiltered through traditional structure that seems at first grating, but upon extended listening reveals a unique expressiveness. For sheer power of impact, Ayler rivals the loudest of rock bands. When he explodes shrieking into 'Holy Ghost,' the effect is nothing short of terrifying.

On Vibrations Ayler is backed up by a group remarkably sympathetic to his inclinations. All have strong connections with the avant-garde movement: Sonny Murray (drums) had worked extensively with Cecil Taylor, don Cherry (trumpet) with Ornette Coleman and Gary Peacock (bass) with Paul Bley. Each listens to the others to produce an intricately balanced counterpoint. On 'Mothers,' Cherry soars off in clear tones against the gruff, grinding bass of Peacock. When Ayler enters with huge, broad sweeps of melody line, Cherry switches to a jabbing attack of quick phrases.

Ornette Coleman's approach is a more polished one. In 1964, when this live recording was made, he had already won critical acclaim as a major innovator, and despite his continued interest in experimentation, he style had already jelled. Throughout this concert, Coleman displays an impressive ability to play in a wide variety of styles and moods. On 'Sadness' his tone is delicate, almost moaning, while on 'Ballad,' he strains at the melody as if fervently hoping or wishing. In 'The Happy Fool' and the facetiously titled 'Clergyman's Dream,' Coleman lays out a straight improvisational structure and swings through his soloes, throwing out r & b phrases in between experimental thrusts.

Other moments in this concert are less successful Coleman's piece 'Forms and Sounds for Wind Quintet' in ten movements has high theoretic ambitions but in performance is tedious. Coleman states that it is "a combination of diatonic and atonal intervals that creates a form out of a sound and a sound out of a form in which the five instruments blend, not by coming together, but by moving in opposing directions." The theory sounds impressive but after about five minutes (and the piece lasts 25) the lack of rhythmic color or dynamic change sterilizes the composition's impact and renders it lifeless. Later in the concernt however, Coleman reaches great artictic heights, especially in 'Silence,' where he interposes silent passages between fierce blowing. The silences create an atmosphere of tension in which every note played takes on a heightened significance.

Ornette Coleman was one of Marion Brown's major inspirators and Brown's music is fraught with his influence. Brown's sound, however, is distinctly his own. Supported by the rich foundation of Maarten van Regteben Altena on bass and Han Bennik of drums, Brown utilizes an echoey tone that ranges from breathy whispers to frantic squeals. In 'Sound Structures', Brown explores the possibilities of the lower volume range of the saxophone in a quiet stealthy composition that is shiveringly cerie. Brown allows each tone to echo out of his instrument and then lets it fade. Most of Brown's work is at full volume though, which when directed is effective, but when not, seems to circle endlessly. In the first cut on the album (Similar Limits), all three, Brown, Altena and Bennik cut loose from each other and race off in different directions. The result is unfathomable. The density of discord is not in itself expresssve and only masks the individual efforts of each musician. In 'Improvisation' however, Brown opens alone, unaccompanied and gradually builds on a simple theme until at a peak of intensity, drums and bass enter flying. Brown rides on top, climbing all over the tonal scale in his musical fury. Then as suddenly as they began, Altena and Bennik stop. The dichotomy of solo and ensemble work emphasizes the aura of loneliness which Brown evokes in his solo passages. The piece finally ends with a slow restatement of theme and a despairing musical squiggle by Brown into the upper register.

Cecil Taylor's Silent Tongues stands out from the previous three records both because of its format (solo piano) and its recording date (it was recorded at last year's Montreux festival). The album provides a fair sample of what '60s avant-garde music is doing in the '70s as well as how a difference in format necessitates a difference in approach.

Drawing on both classical and jazz traditions, Taylor's music defies classification. Often described as a percussive pianist, Taylor needs no rhythm section to make his compositions swing, they do so inherently. Taylor hits the keyboard hard, stabbing out long strings of single notes, then suddenly plunges into heavy chords. The juxtaposition of the two is so rhythmic that at times it approaches a ragtime beat.

Taylor's classical background comes out in his feeling for structure. Most of the album is divided into one long piece with five movements. Its development is intricate and strung out over the whole length of the piece. Taylor uses his piano like an orchestra to simultaneously build different themes which appear and disappear only to reassert themselves at a later juncture. The music's complexity is stunning; like an intricate web seen from afar, his music seems initially amorphous, but upon closer examination each musical strand and the pattern into which it is woven appears. In many ways Taylor's style is the antithesis of Ayler's in that Taylor is using the new musical freedom to construct a more sophisticated form, rather than a simpler one.

Perhaps what these four records bring out clearest is that avant-garde jazz, far from being a music apart, is one that stems directly out of the jazz tradition. The music makes more radical demands on the listener than earlier forms of jazz, but it also offers proportional rewards. While these records represent an important step towards American recognition of avant-garde jazz, they also ironically underline America's neglect of the music. All four alubms were recorded in Europe and three of the four have been widely available there for several years. Clearly the music deserves better.