Anti-Jazz: The New Thing Revisited

John Coltrane

By Howard Mandel

“Anti-Jazz: The New Thing Revisited” is the provocative title of a four-program series at International House Philadelphia that began in October 2009 with a performance by the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen, and continues through March 6, 2010 with a concert by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Curated by the independent non-profit organization Ars Nova Workshop, the series features ensembles rooted in a musical movement that emerged in the late 1950s, cohered in the ‘60s, and has become recognized as an integral part of the historic jazz narrative.

The series’ name is taken from a Down Beat magazine review of 1961 that described a John Coltrane performance as “a horrifying demonstration of what appears to be a growing anti-jazz trend.” What the review’s author, associate editor John Tynan—and elsewhere, critics Ira Gitler and Leonard Feather—objected to was the length, density, intensity and harmonic content of solo statements by Coltrane and his front-line collaborator, fellow saxophonist Eric Dolphy. Those two men, performing with Coltrane’s rhythm section at the Village Vanguard, were introducing new language that upset the established melodic-harmonic basis of jazz improvisation, and required the modification of other elements of then-standard jazz performance.

Having recently worked closely with composer-pianist Thelonious Monk, Coltrane enfolded unusual, nominally “dissonant” intervals into his note stream, which had already been characterized as relentless arpeggios, without pause—this was what Gitler meant when he described Coltrane’s efforts as “sheets of sound.” Having recently discovered Indian classical music through the recordings of sitarist Ravi Shankar, Coltrane turned away from the ultra-complex chord progressions he had used in recordings such as Giant Steps (of 1959) to a severely stripped down harmonic basis that furthered the “modal jazz” movement his former employer Miles Davis had mined so successfully in his seminal recording Kind of Blue (also of ‘59, on which Coltrane also played).

Simultaneously, Dolphy, who investigated contemporary classical music and studied “Third Stream” classical-jazz hybrid compositions with Gunther Schuller, among others, was expanding the reeds’ vocabulary in other directions. He was interested in 12-tone ideas, practiced wide intervallic leaps (rather than sticking essentially to diatonic and chromatic runs), and explored timbral possibilities, with forays into multiphonics and exploitation of the extreme registers of his instruments, including alto sax, flute and the then little-known bass clarinet.

Eric Dolphy

Together Coltrane and Dolphy produced a saxophone gale, the likes of which had not been much heard in jazz (one precedent was the dueling tenor saxophones of Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray in “The Chase” of 1947, but that is a six-minute blues-based piece incorporating bebop extensions which became commonplace ten years later). The ferocity of the two horn players’ combined sound prompted louder, busier drumming from Elvin Jones, and more aggressive piano accompaniment from McCoy Tyner, than was then conventional. The overall volume, as well as single pieces that lasted ten or even twenty minutes with little or no harmonic movement (rather than standard five to eight minute runs through complicated chord changes), shocked and dismayed both Tynan and Gitler.

In ‘61 Gitler was a staunch bebop advocate, Feather a strident anti-avant-gardist (conceding the sincerity of Coltrane’s efforts, he wrote “Even Hitler was sincere”), and Tynan a more nuanced critic, appreciating the melodic/harmonic re-conceptions that Ornette Coleman had introduced to New York in 1959, albeit in shorter and more immediately “tuneful” settings than what he (Tynan) called “anti-jazz.” Though certainly some listeners at the time preferred the jazz they already knew to Coltrane’s break away from accepted parameters, open-minded fans followed his advances to the limits of their own patience and understanding. The Coltrane Quartet-Quintet recordings live from the Village Vanguard on Impulse! were the basis for the rise of his popularity in the ‘60s. In 1961 Coltrane had not yet entered his most abstract, dissonant, and ostensibly arrhythmic phase; looking back, his sound in the earliest ‘60s seems relatively tame compared to where he went in the six productive years that followed, ending with his death at age 40 from liver cancer in July 1967.

In a Down Beat interview of 1962 conducted by then-associate editor Don DeMichael, Coltrane explained that solos were long because “all the soloists try to explore all the avenues that the tune offers. . . It’s not planned . . . [i]t’s just sort of growing that way.” Dolphy spoke of being inspired by bird songs–”Birds have notes in between our notes . . . Indian music has something of the same quality—different scales and quarter tones. I don’t know how you label it but it’s pretty.” Both men were calm and reasoned in their explanations of what they were doing, and expressed puzzlement, but not anger, that it had been labeled “anti-jazz.”

Their music would soon become so influential that their immediate rivals—widely-acclaimed saxophone improviser-composers including Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, Jimmy Heath, Joe Henderson, and Michael Brecker—adopted aspects of it as coin-of-the-realm. Furthermore, other instrumentalists, composers, bandleaders, and audiences reaching into pop and contemporary compositional spheres also embraced so-called “anti-jazz.”  Folk-rockers such as the Byrds and blues-rockers like Paul Butterfield, minimalists Terry Riley and LaMont Young, San Francisco psychedelic guitarist Carlos Santana, and trumpeter Miles Davis (heading into the next “anti-jazz” uproar over his electrically-charged albums Bitches Brew, Live/Evil and On The Corner) are among those who popularized and expanded upon this direction. By the 1990s, licks that Coltrane labored to produce were appropriated as blandishments by the likes of smooth jazzer Kenny G.

Of course Coltrane and Dolphy had not effected that revolution on their own. Efforts to break away from traditional swing and the bluesy, chordal basis of bebop were in the air already during the ‘50s, an era that was rife with musical re-conception–hear the recordings of Lennie Tristano, George Russell, Stan Kenton, and Cecil Taylor. In jazz as in rock ‘n’ roll, soul, blues, some Latin dance music (such as boogaloo, and later, salsa), protest songs, and other vernacular genres, music was identified with the social ferment of the times. Trane and others associated with the so-called “new thing,” including Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and even Max Roach and Charles Mingus, indulged in long, impassioned performances that threw down a gauntlet to some listeners’ precepts.  They made overt political points with their compositions’ titles and contents, and magnified the notion that “free jazz” was about the civil rights struggle, opposition to the war in Vietnam, and indulgence in a sexually-liberated, drug infused “youth culture” that professed anti-capitalism, distrust of anyone over 30, and solidarity with “radicals” ranging from Martin Luther King, Jr., to Ho Chi Minh.

Some commentators went along with this line, or pushed it. Critic-poet and playwright Leroi Jones changed his name to Amiri Baraka and became more overtly polemical around these issues. Frank Kofsky, a history professor at California State University with Marxist views became editor of Jazz and Pop magazine, relentlessly encouraging such linkages. Some musicians did indeed speak up for what might be construed as extreme positions. Most, however, were more interested in exploring music than fomenting social change. There was a coterie who instigated guerilla protests on nationally televised programs, enraged by their lack of representation on the shows. More typically, musicians with social consciences performed for free in benefits for movements and organizations they supported, and otherwise put their energies toward the very challenging business of getting gigs.

Even as activism around the most divisive social issues of the ‘60s faded in the 1970s with the end of the Vietnam war, the resignation of President Richard Nixon, and some evidence of tangible progress in the struggles of minority populations in the U.S., the possibilities the musicians had opened up, and their determination to deconstruct jazz conventions in order to refresh and personalize their music, remained. New trends swayed the avant-garde. There was a phase of “free funk,” promoted by bands such as Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time, Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society, Oliver Lake’s Jump Up! and Joseph Bowie’s Defunkt in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s; a high-energy “avant-gutbucket” initiative that included instrumental vocalisms and bluesy melodic themes set in established song forms, embodied by saxophonist David Murray’s octets in the later ‘80s; and a noticeable acceleration in the globalization of jazz with the increasingly universal adoption of the internet in the ‘90s.

While the grassroots social movements of the ‘60s became more professionalized and institutionalized in subsequent decades, such developments did not occur within the core communities of jazz experimentalism. In the 1970s the American recording industry profited from acts performing stadium rock, middle-brow jazz-rock “fusion,” and the formulaic dance beats of disco. In the 1980s the introduction of the digital cd format, replacing analog vinyl long-playing records, promoted more segmented preferences among consumers, and a fervor for reissues over newly produced recordings, while a neo-conservative movement spearheaded by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis raised the profile of clean-cut, virtuosic, but largely conventional “young lions.” Latin jazz, propulsive but tightly arranged, gained ground, and swing dancing was revived. Smooth jazz prevailed on radio, and singers became the best-selling jazz artists. In the 1990s, every style of jazz became equally acceptable—and almost equally marginalized in the greater pop-dominated media landscape. This condition continues, essentially unchanged, to this day.

Still, the basic principles of what John Tynan had myopically called “anti-jazz” have remained in place. Most jazz musicians feel free to put jazz’s fundamental swing, blues, bebop, and ballads on a backburner, if they so desire, in order to update rhythmic material, concoct new musical structures, invent vocabulary and modes of composition, mix it up across geographic, ethnic, and aesthetic borders, and project expression that is indelibly their own. All jazz musicians—including Wynton Marsalis—do this, or claim to. Embracing an aesthetic freedom that is supported by knowledge of past practices, if not obvious employment of them, is characteristic of jazz musicians’ rhetoric now.

So back to Ars Nova’s series at International House. Its title “anti-jazz” is clearly meant to be provocative or ironic. If what Coltrane played had continued to be considered “anti-jazz,” it’s doubtful the National Endowment of the Arts would have honored such musicians as Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, and this year Yusef Lateef and Muhal Richard Abrams (co-founder of the AACM/Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, which gave rise to the Art Ensemble) as hallowed Jazz Masters. Thus, has the avant-garde been de-toothed? What contemporary relevance could “anti-jazz” have, such that International House presents it, Ars Nova produces it, and Philadelphia audiences come to listen? If what was avant-garde in the ‘60s is now heard in such bastions of cultural propriety as Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center—albeit infrequently—can it possibly still be cutting-edge enough to excite young audiences? Is it a throwback, a novelty, akin to the Dixieland aficionados scoffed at in the ‘60s? Has it become a novelty rather than an initiative, speaking only to its longtime fans?

First some background: International House Philadelphia is primarily a residence for foreign students at University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and other local schools. Its arts programming goes back 30 years, initially focusing on film and traditional folkloric music. In 2002, a new president directed reconsideration of the presentations in its then- 450 seat theater. After two years of programming efforts Renae Dinerman, director of arts at International House, calls “hit or miss,” she found the stars aligned to work with Mark Christman, founder of Ars Nova Workshop and a devotee of what this year is being called “anti-jazz.”

Mark Christman says that when he started Ars Nova in 2000, it was for selfish reasons. “I had just graduated from college,” he says (he had studied music marketing at Drexel), “and this music was my personal passion. But I was sick of traveling to New York City two or three times a month to hear it. There was a need, I thought, for some organization to be presenting this material right here. Soon after I got the ball rolling, I realized there was only modest demand.

“But Philadelphia is unique. We’re conveniently near New York, not far from Chicago, and being on the eastern seaboard we’re an obvious stop for musicians who are visiting the east coast. So there was a circuit we could be a stop on. It’s a small town as well as a big city, a community in which Ars Nova could develop its own constituency around improvised music interests. That development has been natural, and very satisfying.

“Free jazz, post-free jazz, post-Coltrane continuums—people have responded to that. I’m interested in the history of the music, its role in changing values and perceptions, even changing the meaning of music and what it means to listen to music. I’m interested in the live event, experiencing something that may never happen again, hearing people in front of me experiment, take major risks. I mean musical risks, because they often result in the coolest payoffs.”

Raised in Allentown, now age 33, Christman says “I had no idea of improvisational music beyond Herb Alpert when I was in high school. I was more interested in fringe rock and hip-hop. But going to a lot of live performances and absorbing every piece of rock history I could find, I came to be constantly searching for the next thing that would move me. It wasn’t long before my path led to Miles and Coltrane, and then John Zorn.”

It was at International House in the 1990s that Christman first heard Zorn, a New York-based MacArthur fellow now in his mid 50s who emerged from downtown Manhattan’s genre-defying loft music scene to blow a squalling alto saxophone, and compose intricate musical games and a large portfolio of quirky pieces for an imposing variety of instrumental combinations. He brought Zorn’s rapacious Electric Masada ensemble back to International House in 2008. But he doesn’t only book old favorites. Christman is a true believer in jazz-derived improvisation from the past to the present to the future, by musicians from across the U.S. and also abroad. He’s not content with what he’s heard before, so serves as a powerful agent, introducing what’s new, good, and rare to Philadelphia.

He is not alone in scoffing at reactionary dismissals, or easy categorizations.  The musicians who have been most deeply involved with this music may disdain the term “avant-garde” and even shy away from calling what they do “jazz,” due to what they perceive as a market devaluation of that four-letter word. However, as is natural and also instructive, the people who’ve given their lives to the art believe in its relevance and validity. Their insights into its attractions involve more than faith in their own pursuits; they speak of what they’re doing as compelling investigations.

Roscoe Mitchell and the Art Ensemble of Chicago will perform at International House on March 6, 2010

“I always felt it would take a while to really explore this music, and I’m still feeling like that,” asserts Roscoe Mitchell, saxophonist, composer and mainstay of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, which made its first recordings in 1967. Mitchell currently holds the Darius Milhaud chair in composition at Mills College in Oakland, California.

“For me it’s ongoing, it doesn’t stop. You constantly have to learn, study hard, learn this—and then there’s more. That’s always what has excited me the most, the challenges of constantly working on it, discovering and revealing things. I’m here because there’s so much to learn, every day. That’s not dated. And good music doesn’t go away.”

Frode Gjerstad, a Norwegian saxophonist and clarinetist whose 12-piece Circulasione Totale Orchestra was presented at the Anti-Jazz series on January 30, 2010, first performed with his standing trio at International House in December 2007, and visited Philadelphia again in summer of 2008 to work with Marshall Allen. He wrote in an e-mail, “We are a free improvising ensemble and the sound of the individuals makes the total sound of the ensemble. With people like Bobby Bradford [cornet] and Lasse Marhaug [electronics] you could talk about two different worlds, galaxies apart. But they both improvise, using two different languages which melt together when their sounds mix. I have tried to bring together several generations, as well: almost 50 years between Bradford and guitarist Anders Hana, and also different schools of improvisation. I think at our best we create a very interesting place to be.

“We are very happy to be invited as part of a concert series with some of the names I always looked up to: the Art Ensemble, Sun Ra and Bill Dixon [the trumpeter and electronics musician, who in the ‘60s was a major force in collaboration with Cecil Taylor, among others]. I feel that our music would not have happened unless I have listened to the electric Miles Davis early/mid ‘70s bands, Gil Evans’ later bands with synths, and Sun Ra’s Arkestra. They brought a whole new sound into improvised music by using electronic devices. I loved it! The energy and the sound hooked me.”

Cornetist Bradford, a member of Ornette Coleman’s ‘60s touring group and later a partner with clarinetist John Carter in a series of critically acclaimed, suite-like recordings, expands on Gertstad’s remarks and echoes Roscoe Mitchell’s. “We’re offering people a chance to hear a large ensemble of musicians from all over the world—the drummer Louis Moholo is from South Africa, and there are three Americans plus Swedes, Norwegians, and an Englishman. We come together to share a common interest in music that can’t be categorized by country.

“Actually more than an interest is required to do what it takes. The monetary rewards are negligible, but we’re willing to go with what that implies. I know how much this music means to me, and how eager we all are to share it with others. It seems to me important, especially for a city the size of Philadelphia, to make creative music available to the general public, because this music is consciousness-raising. It asks something from the listener, as well as the musician. It’s music that’s beautiful, and a different experience every time.”

The argument can be made that the tensions which in the ‘50s and ‘60s inspired the new thing, anti-jazz, or call it what you will, have never been resolved. That the spontaneous interplay of skilled and well-informed musicians is timeless, yet always mirrors the moment in which they make it. That there is no other musical format so ambitious, flexible, fertile, and able to communicate full expressive array with immediacy to listeners as well as players. That “anti-jazz” is distinguished by imposing few if any conditions on its participants, and that it allows for enormous amounts of individualism to co-exist with spectacularly particular collectivity.

Among jazz musicians—especially those veterans of the early ‘60s who survived charges they were doing something “anti-jazz”—there seems to be a prevailing sentiment that social movements for justice and equality of all Americans have not come to a successful conclusion. They may not claim their music is in support of today’s hot-button issues, but they stand behind the notion that improvisation unfettered by inflexible conventions has enormous moral force as an expression of freely creative individualism.

The most avant-garde of these musicians, who are not necessarily the youngest of them, have created new music using computers as well as instrumental techniques that they have advanced far beyond what was accomplished in the ‘60s (such as complete mastery of circular breathing, greater control over multiphonics, freer approaches to polyrhythms, more tolerance of personal languages on the piano and guitar). They may depend even less upon pre-determined structure, employ in their ensembles even more unusual juxtapositions of instruments, come up with continually surprising, innovative and unique musical schema. Their musical directions and expressions seem new, even if they’re rooted in experiments half a century old, because those old experiments emphasized immediacy of expression, and inclusion of all reference points currently at hand, as requirements for authentic performances.

This avant-garde is self-motivated, knowing it will not be embraced by enormous general audiences, or well covered by mainstream media. It satisfies itself with devoted niche audiences, which exist world-wide. Certain members of this avant-garde still give voice to their political positions and dedication to social change, such as issues regarding AIDS, same-sex marriage legality, and gender equality; many more have performed in specific response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, out of concern for the people of New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, in support of the election of President Barack Obama, and most recently to benefit the victims of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Marshall Allen

“This is creative music,” says Marshall Allen, who joined Sun Ra’s Arkestra in 1958, moved with Ra from Chicago to New York in the early ‘60s and to the Arkestra’s group house in Philadelphia’s Germantown in 1968. Allen has sustained Ra’s legacy since his visionary leader’s death (or ascension) in 1993. “It represents the vibrations of the day you have to play it. The foundations of what we do concert to concert are basically the same, but there are a lot of variations. You can’t get them all in one day, because one day is so different than the next. The Creator gives us a gift every day, and you’ve got to honor the Creator and the spirit of things by creating the vibrations of that day.

“Now we tell a story about the musicians before us, the older ones, the big bands that were so great from the 1920s to the 1940s. We’ve got a band-book full of charts dedicated to who we heard when we were coming up. They wrote masterpieces, and we honor them, but we have our own style, Sun Ra style. There are so many ways to play a note—boom! And so many ways to play boom!”

There doesn’t seem to be anything anti-jazz about that.

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Howard Mandel, author of Future Jazz and Miles Ornette Cecil—Jazz Beyond Jazz, blogs at www.ArtsJournal.com/JazzBeyondJazz and is president of the Jazz Journalists Association.