I find that European Free Jazz to be a mixed blessing. There are moments where I really like it but there are also times when I think that it masked a lot of really inferior music making. It is a real mixed bag for me. I think that one of the most telling things about the movement is when you listen to a group like Willem Breuker's Kollectief where you are never entirely sure that they are being serious. It comes across as a really outside cabaret. Having seen them perform at Bracknell many years ago, I loved the music but there was so much more to their playing than continually freaking out. Brötzmann is a musician who made a lot of really important connections, often with American musicians , yet it seems to be all sound and fury to me. When the dynamics vary so little and you don't get a contrast to the continuous dissonance, I tend to find this rather boring. Bluesnik made a comment recently about some European jazz being "of it's time" and I feel this sample is case in point. I regret to say that I feel somewhat the same regaring Jazzrook's post of "The Thing" which also struck me a not being as good as it thinks. (Somewhat against the grain as I think my tastes pretty much mirror Jazzrook's.)
Regarding Brotzmann giving the previous generation of German jazz musicians the bird, I am not sure that they were that numerous in the first place. Maybe it is more telling regarding PB's personality which was supposed to be pretty gruff. (There was an instance last week on something like All aboit jazz whuich concerns his reluctant to perform with Tyshawn Sorey as he did not "want to become part of a circus." Then there is also the case of Eberhard Weber's interview in JJ many years ago when he talked about this Free Jazz period in Germany and how it eventually dawned on him that the constant pursuit of dissonance struck him as pointless. It is quite weird how both Garbarek and Weber quickly abandoned the freer forms of jazz by the mid 1970s for something far simpler. I don't realy see this as a culmination of jazz evolution but more like an adolescent throwing a trantrum albeit one that was appropriate for the times. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. For me, the "American" route towards the avant garde typified by the likes of AACM seems to have been more successful. Stuff like AEoC , Roscoe Mitchell and Muhal Richard Abrams now seems more "in the tradition." I think PB is like a more violent version of Albert Ayler and lacks the humility in Ayler's music.
Picking up on the comment about "European traditions", I have been listening to a new CD of orchestral music by the Polish composer Baciewizc who seems to be enjoying alot of popularity at the moment. The music seems to be taking it's cues from Bartok in some of the pieces but I think is indicative of where the better Classical music in the 40s/50s and 60s was headed. It is modern but not modern for the sake of it. I have to say that I think we probably need to move of from championing female composers and just championing good composers of which Baciewizc undountedly is. I get annoyed when the same name get trotted out as examples of great female composers when the likes of Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelsohn, Cheminade, and Ethel Smythe get singled out. Good to see Baciewizc getting deserved credit and to find a composer who is a new name for me. I think she is on a par with Lili Boulanger - another great composer regardless of gender, The CD I bought is terrific.
Regarding Brotzmann giving the previous generation of German jazz musicians the bird, I am not sure that they were that numerous in the first place. Maybe it is more telling regarding PB's personality which was supposed to be pretty gruff. (There was an instance last week on something like All aboit jazz whuich concerns his reluctant to perform with Tyshawn Sorey as he did not "want to become part of a circus." Then there is also the case of Eberhard Weber's interview in JJ many years ago when he talked about this Free Jazz period in Germany and how it eventually dawned on him that the constant pursuit of dissonance struck him as pointless. It is quite weird how both Garbarek and Weber quickly abandoned the freer forms of jazz by the mid 1970s for something far simpler. I don't realy see this as a culmination of jazz evolution but more like an adolescent throwing a trantrum albeit one that was appropriate for the times. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. For me, the "American" route towards the avant garde typified by the likes of AACM seems to have been more successful. Stuff like AEoC , Roscoe Mitchell and Muhal Richard Abrams now seems more "in the tradition." I think PB is like a more violent version of Albert Ayler and lacks the humility in Ayler's music.
Picking up on the comment about "European traditions", I have been listening to a new CD of orchestral music by the Polish composer Baciewizc who seems to be enjoying alot of popularity at the moment. The music seems to be taking it's cues from Bartok in some of the pieces but I think is indicative of where the better Classical music in the 40s/50s and 60s was headed. It is modern but not modern for the sake of it. I have to say that I think we probably need to move of from championing female composers and just championing good composers of which Baciewizc undountedly is. I get annoyed when the same name get trotted out as examples of great female composers when the likes of Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelsohn, Cheminade, and Ethel Smythe get singled out. Good to see Baciewizc getting deserved credit and to find a composer who is a new name for me. I think she is on a par with Lili Boulanger - another great composer regardless of gender, The CD I bought is terrific.
Comment