Negotiating Freedom: Values and Practices in Contemporary Improvised Music

Author(s): David Borgo

Source: Black Music Research Journal , Autumn, 2002, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Autumn, 2002),
pp. 165-188
Published by: Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago and
University of Illinois Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1519955

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 NEGOTIATING FREEDOM: VALUES AND PRACTICES
IN CONTEMPORARY IMPROVISED MUSIC

DAVID BORGO

Free improvisation is not an action resulting from freedom; it is

an action directed towards freedom.
-Davey Williams (1984, 32)

A compromise between order and disorder, improvision is a

negotiation between codes and their pleasurable dismantling.
-John Corbett (1995, 237)

During the last half century, an eclectic group of artists with div
backgrounds in avant-garde jazz, avant-garde classical, electronic, p
lar, and world music traditions have pioneered an approach to imp
sation that borrows freely from a panoply of musical styles and trad
and at times seems unencumbered by any overt idiomatic constrain
Although a definitive history of this often irreverent and iconocla
group would be impossible-or at least potentially misleading-to
pile, this article highlights several values and practices that have b
and continue to be, negotiated within the contemporary improv
community.
Freedom, in the sense of transcending previous social and structural
constraints, has been an important part of jazz music since its inception.
The syncopated rhythms and exploratory improvisations and composi-
tions of jazz have consistently stretched the structures and forms of
American music. The music has also provided a symbol and a culture of

DAVID BORGO recently joined the faculty of the University of California, San Diego, as an
assistant professor in the Critical Studies and Experimental Practices Program. He received
a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1999 and pre-
viously taught at James Madison University in Virginia. Borgo has been a professional sax-
ophonist for more than fifteen years and is currently at work on a book exploring the rela-
tionship between the emerging sciences of complexity and contemporary improvised
music.

165

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 166 BMR Journal

liberation to several
and abroad. But wh
Something Else in 1
continued to inspire
At that time, Cole
explore performanc
models and explicit
cians, critics, and au
cal approaches allow
harmonies, forms, a
a return to the colle
of jazz and pointed
that could draw on
unsympathetic liste
devoid of the swing
music so vital and t
At approximately th
ing point and a mus
sation resurfaced in the Euro-American "classical" tradition-after a cen-
tury and a half of neglect-in the form of indeterminate, intuitive, a
graphically designed pieces.2 Composers not only expanded the amoun
of real-time creative input demanded of performers, but they explored
substantial numbers, the potential of improvisation on their own, in
sense conflating the act of creation and performance by removing th
interpretive step from the accepted musical equation.3
Since these pioneering early years in both North America and Euro
an approach to improvisation drawing on these and other traditions h

1. The arrival of Ornette Coleman's quartet at the Five Spot in New York City in 1959 an
his subsequent albums for Atlantic Records (The Shape of Jazz to Come and Free Jazz) furt
polarized early support and criticism for the music. See David Ake (2002) for a discuss
of the many issues surrounding Coleman's New York arrival.
2. George Lewis (2003) focused on ways in which terms such as interactivity, indetermin
cy, intuition, and even happening or action have frequently been employed to mask t
importance of improvisation in the arts.
3. Composers who have experimented with improvisation include Ugo Amendola, La
Austin, Klarenz Barlow, Richard Barrett, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Alvin Curran, J
Eaton, Robert Erickson, Jose Evangelista, Lukas Foss, Sofia Gubaidulina, Barry Gu
Jonathan Harvey, Charles Ives, Luigi Nono, Per Norgard, Pauline Oliveros, Harry Part
Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Giacinto Scelsi, Stefano Scodanibbio, Karlheinz Stockhau
Morton Subotnik, and Frances-Marie Uitti, as well as the groups FLUXUS, II Grupp
Improvisazione da Nuova Consonanza (GINC), KIVA (at University of California,
Diego), Musica Electronica Viva, New Music Ensemble (at University of California, Dav
and the Scratch Orchestra. Pioneering work by composers in the American "third strea
such as Gunther Schuller, George Russell, Bob Graettinger, John Lewis, and others, coul
mentioned as well.

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 Borgo * Negotiating Freedom 167

emerged in the contemporary music commu

circulated at various times and in various locales to describe this musical
practice, each with its own group of adherents and each with its own
sematic shortcomings.4 The preferred terms tend to highlight the creative
or progressive stance of the performers and the cutting-edge or inclusive
nature of the music itself, for example, free or free-form, avant-garde, out-
side, ecstatic, fire or energy, contemporary or new, creative, collective,
spontaneous, and so on. Stylistic references (jazz, classical, rock, world, or
electronic) are variously included or excluded, as are cultural or national
identity markers (Great Black Music or British Free Improvisation). The
primary musical bond shared among these diverse performers is a fasci-
nation with sonic possibilities and surprising musical occurences and a
desire to improvise, to a signficiant degree, both the content and the form
of the performance. In other words, free improvisation moves beyond
matters of expressive detail to matters of collective structure; it is not
formless music making but form-making music. Musician Ann Farber
explains: "Our aim is to play together with the greatest possible free-
dom-which, far from meaning without constraint, actually means to
play together with sufficient skill and communication to be able to select
proper constraints in the course of the piece, rather than being dependent on
precisely chosen ones" (quoted in Belgrad 1997, 2).
To define free improvisation in strictly musical terms, however, is poten-
tially to miss its most remarkable characteristic-the ability to incorporate
and negotiate disparate perspectives and worldviews. Jason Stanyek (1999,
47) asserts that free improvisation is above all "a fertile space for the enact-
ment and articulation of the divergent narratives of both individuals and cul-
tures." Improvisers have frequently joined together to form artist-run collec-
tives aimed at exploring these divergent narratives and at establishing
creative and financial control over the production and dissemination of their
work.5 Although the lifetime of these various collectives runs the gamut from
4. One treatment of the problems associated with categorizing such diverse musical
approaches under a single, often misleading, heading is found in Such (1993, 15-29).
5. Important artist-run collectives in the United States have included the Association for
the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago (which has continued to the
present date), the Jazz Composer's Guild (organized by Bill Dixon shortly after his famed
October Revolution in Jazz in 1964) and Collective Black Artists (CBA) in New York City,
the Black Artists' Group (BAG) in St. Louis (the birthplace of the World Saxophone Quartet)
and the Underground Musicians' Association (UGMA) in Los Angeles (formed by Horace
Tapscott). Notable European collectives have included the Spontaneous Music Ensemble
(SME), the Music Improvisation Company (MIC), the Association of Meta-Musicians
(AMM), the London Jazz Composers Orchestra (LJCO), the South African-influenced
Brotherhood of Breath, the Jazz Center Society, the Musician's Co-operative, the Musician's
Action Group, and the London Musicians Collective, all in England, as well as the Instant
Composers Pool in Holland, The Globe Unity Orchestra and the Berlin Contemporary Jazz
Orchestra in Germany, and the Instabile Orchestra in Italy.

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 168 BMR Journal

months to decades, t
approaches to creativi

Defining Freedom

Improvisation has
emphasis on in-perf
standard musicologi
methods for evaluat
ested in free impro
subject, producing e
in-depth social, cultu
predominently auto
present the "freedom
liberation from fun
accepted performan
1994; Westendorf 19
improvisation as a s
exploitation of Afri
1970; Wilmer 1977; H
birth of the practice
and on the music's p
world. Still other authors have allied themselves with Marxist or neo-
Marxist critiques of hegemonic culture and have focused on free impr
visation's implied critique of capitalism and its related market- and pro
erty-based economy (e.g., Attali 1985; Prevost 1995).
The diverse and emergent strands of free improvisation have prob-
lematized, for many, issues of identity and idiom. Not only has disse
raged within the jazz community since the early "assault" of Orne
Coleman and others, but the development of a distinctly Europe
approach to free improvisation and the extreme hybridization of t
music-incorporating avant-garde, electronic, non-Western, and popula
music practices-has further strained issues of idiomatic coherence and
cultural aesthetics. John Litweiler (1984, 257) states that "the preceden
of free improvisation ... are in all kinds of music, and no single kind."
For some, one's approach to energy, virtuosity, and stylistic inclusi
or exclusion can define quite clearly one's idiomatic allegiances. Despit
their many differences, the first generation of African-American free-jazz
musicians all seemed to share an intense approach to energy, momentum

6. See Ferand (1961) for work on improvisation in the European classical tradition, Ne
(1998) for a survey of ethnomusicological work on the subject, and Berliner (1994) for a per
spective on jazz improvisation. See also Ake (2002) for a discussion of the debate surroun
ing the role of avant-garde jazz in the music conservatory.

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Borgo * Negotiating Freedom 169

and rhythmic drive; think of Cecil Taylor, Alb

Pharoah Sanders, Henry Grimes, Archie She
among many others. The second generation of
neers along with many European contemporari
ways-both more and less dense and more and l
ing intensity. And for even a later generation of i
range of approaches to energy and aesthetics ca
ground, but it also presents a point of considera
munity. The spectrum of contemporary improv
strongly linked to the traditions of free jazz and,
ingly open to artists with little to no jazz exper
argues that "jazz always contains improvisation
not always contain jazz." Nick Couldry (1995, 7
sation as "a hybrid of both classical and jazz
(1998, 13) elaborates on this often-mentioned co

One of the common links that developed between t

instrumental virtuosity, wherein techniques expa
sonic possibilities of instruments provided the m
The use of atonality, dense textures, asymmetrical
and open forms or forms derived from the music r
it are other examples of developments common to
garde leading up to today's free improvisation.

Despite any sonic similarities between the eme

tions, many contemporary composers have rem
of musical improvisation and reluctant to challe
of composer-performer-listener. For example, L
dismissed improvisation as "a haven of dilettan
on the level of instrumental praxis rather than
musical thought I mean above all the discovery
that unfolds and develops simultaneously on d
This passage and other statements by respe
composers frequently betray a belief that mus
means to inventing complex musical structure
only valid measure of musical creativity (see a
tendency to view all modes of musical expressio
archtectonic perspective of resultant structure i
music academy and derives in great part from
Euro-American composed-notated works. A
American pianist Cecil Taylor, recounted by A.
highlights the issue:

I've had musicologists ask me for a score to see the

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170 BMR Journal

ning of that piece ["No

figure out its structure,
scores out,... and the m
tune one section just fl
that the only structured
Which is the denial of

A pronounced dichot
musical creativity ap
creative music commu
Anderson, Hale Smi
incorporated impro
American improvi
Association for the A
act with and incorpor
Trumpeter, compos
instance, has devised
"Ankhrasmation," th
ideas simultaneously
and composition" (q
Lewis (2002, 128), t
American creative m
simultaneously challe
dialoguing with Af
employing composit
either conventionally
so beloved by jazz his
Eric Porter's (2002)
American musicians h
ics and activists. Thr
Abbey Lincoln, Amir
Smith, and Anthony
the relationship betw
role of improvisation
ical, economic, and sp
other recent authors
and Julie Dawn Smith
studies on this music
inantly masculine pu
to realize these embe
ironic that many of t
1960s could also func
2002, 284).

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Borgo * Negotiating Freedom 171

The frequently touted "openness" or inclus

sation does at times obscure the gender sensi
tural aesthetics represented by its practitio
made a strong case for a clear distinction b
"Eurological" approach to this music. His te
tial but instead refer to historically emerg
tudes.7 Lewis's study focuses on the work o
1950s American experimental music: Charlie
artists continually explored spontaneity an
and Lewis argues that each musician was fu
cations of his art. The essential contrast that he draws between the two
lies in how they arrived at and chose to express the notion of freedom.
Cage, informed by his studies of Zen and the I Ching, denied the utility o
protest. His notion of freedom is devoid of any kind of struggle that
might be required to achieve it. Parker, on the other hand, was a noncon-
formist in 1950s America simply by virtue of his skin color (Jones 1963,
188). Lewis (1996, 94) argues that for African-American musicians, "new
improvisation and compositional styles are often identified with ideas of
race advancement and, more importantly, as resistive ripostes to per-
ceived opposition to black social expression and economic advancement
by the dominant white American culture." An Afrological perspective
implies an emphasis on personal narrative and the harmonization of
one's musical personality with social environments, both actual and pos-
sible. A Eurological perspective, on the other hand, implies either
absolute freedom from personal narrative, culture, and conventions-an
autonomy of the aesthetic object-or the need for a controlling or struc-
turing force in the person and voice of a "composer."
Contemporary free improvisers often struggle with the issues implied
by Lewis's Afrological/Eurological model. English guitarist Derek Bailey
(1992, 83) betrays a Eurological perspective when he describes his prac-
tice of "non-idiomatic improvisation" as a "search for a styleless uncom-
mitted area in which to work." Gavin Bryars, a celebrated English bass
player and early improvising partner of Bailey, "abandoned" improvisa-
tion after 1966 to focus exclusively on the aesthetic autonomy offered by
a Eurological approach to composition. Bryars argued that "in any
improvising position the person creating the music is identified with the
music.... It's like standing a painter next to his picture so that every tim

7. One might also investigate the emerging Asian-American consciousness centered pri
marily on the improvising community in the San Francisco Bay Area, see, for example, Ho
(1985-88, 1995). Tracy McMullen (2003) offers a cogent critique of the Afrological
Eurological dyad presented by Lewis (1996).

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 172 BMR Journal

you see the painting

out him" (quoted in
Not all European im
to the practice. Engl
as part of the Afric

What's important to m
ing out of a particula
would want it to be c
people who continue
John Coltrane, Eric
music that excited me
continues to be the ca
it makes any sense at

Contrasting Bailey'
(1973, 70-71) writes:
habitual side of play
this sense of keepin
ular, agnostic, and
involved with all sor
this without losing
These and other rem
munity of free imp
cultural identity an
art. African-Americ
cisely the issues and
for the sake of art,
that the artist is lik
speak.... My music tr
some way how black
1993, 112).
Roach's comments highlight the fact that African-American jazz and
improvising musicians have frequently sought to celebrate aspects of
black life and culture and, at the same time, cast off the burden of race,
especially when that burden of "racial authenticity" infringes on the mar-
ketability or the creativity of black musicians and their music. This dilem-
ma has played out since the 1960s most clearly in the tension between
black nationalism and universalism evident in the commentary of many
celebrated African-American improvisers. Despite the helpful and often-
illuminating distinctions between Afrological and Eurological perspec-
tives, the continued hybridization in the community of contemporary
free improvisation has made discussions of cultural belonging a very

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Borgo * Negotiating Freedom 173

prickly topic.8 As multi-instrumentalist Ant

ments: "Why is it so natural for Evan Parker,
of Coltrane, but for me to have an appreciat
how out of the order of natural human ex
(quoted in Day 1998, 35). George Lewis (2002)
experimentalism was becoming "creolized." W
stream movement (a proposed fusion of ja
failed, Lewis argues that "independent bla
lenged the centrality of pan-Europeanism to
mental itself" (126).
AACM members, in particular, frequently
tenets of cultural nationalism and questioned
a hermetic field. Yet they presented their wo
black music and as an homage to black peo
Brown poetically states, "I'm like a man walk
wards" (quoted in Porter 2002, 247). Weaving
ism, pan-Africanism, and universalism offere
tive means to negotiate the constraints put u
hegemony of Western economic, discursive,

Performing Freedom

How do individuals and groups negotiate th

dom" in musical performance? In what ways
memory and muscle factor into improvisatio
affect the meanings and economics of perfor
Venues for this music can run the gamut fr
es to well-publicized and well-attended inter
featured ensembles at these venues cover th
time meetings between improvisers (the "all
longer-term associations with essentially
"working group"). The former can provide a
ment, novelty, and risk to participants, wher

8. See Monson (1996, 200-206) for a related discussion

jazz; see also Harris (2000) for a discussion of issues surr
In addition, Atton (1988-89) offers the results of a survey
al and cultural identity in improvised music.
9. Important festivals that feature improvisation an
International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Q
York City, the Guelph Jazz Festival near Toronto, and
Saalfelden (Austria), Willisau (Switzerland), La Batie (Gen
(Germany).

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 174 BMR Journal

intimacy and depth

Nunn (1998, 58) beli

free improvisation, b
(indeed demands) th
improviser accumul
Likewise, as a group
increasingly familiar
style traits), a genera

Free improvisers, in
visational accomplish
opment and experien
"rehearsing" during
the term implies, th
gesture, formal sect
thetics of improvisa
our vocabularies of
you do!
This is not to say that practice techniques are unknown to improvisa-
tion. One common device used in both free and idiom-specific improvi-
sation traditions is handicapping. Handicapping refers to a self-imposed
challenge designed to limit material or techniques available to the impro-
viser. These may be conceptual or even physical handicaps imposed on
the performer. Conceptual handicaps could involve playing only one
note or within a specified range or aiming for a uniform mood to an
improvisation. Bassist Bertram Turetsky (2002) relates that his first
instruction to classical musicians who have no previous experience with
free improvisation is to play a bb continuously for several hours in as
many ways as possible. Physical handicaps might include using only a
particular part of an instrument or only one hand. In a recent clinic, for
example, kotoist Miya Masaoka asked a student drummer to improvise
using only his elbows.
While from one perspective these devices may appear to limit individ-
ual creativity, they can also remind each participant to focus attention on
the collective statement and the musical moment rather than to become
easily overwhelmed with the enormous scope of individual musical pos-
sibilities. Tom Nunn (1998, 70) finds that the biggest mistake made
among first-time improvisers is to focus exclusively on that for which
they, as individuals, are responsible. Or, alternately, participating in sim-

10. The annual Company Week, organized by Derek Bailey since the 1970s, provides an
excellent example of an event that encourages first-time meetings and unusal groupings of
well-known improvisers.

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Borgo * Negotiating Freedom 175

ple call-and-response style interactions does

musical relationships to emerge and be explo
along the same lines:

However much you try, in a group situation wh

and some of what comes out was not your idea,
body else's idea .... The mechanism of what i
response-the music is based on such fast interpla
it is arbitrary to say, "Did you do that because I
because you did that?" And anyway the whole t
at a level that involves . .. certainly intuition, an
paranormal nature. (Quoted in Corbett 1994, 203

Many free improvisers discuss spiritual, ecs

mance states. Total mental involvement is ci
describe a complete annihilation of all cri
Musicians stress performance goals ranging
catharsis to a transcendental feeling of ego l
ness. The sheer energy and density of sound
and collective improvisation can potentially c
lation verging on sensory overload. The id
appears in the improvising community. S
describes a time when "the music got so inten
room, just hovering around, and in one aspec
was almost like we were calling the ancestor
Gershon 2001, 15). Others describe a volun
trance-more akin to shamanic practices-as th
spiritual journey (Borgo 1997). Despite thes
feeling of spirituality and reverence pervade
mances. David Such (1993, 131) quotes celebra
"Free music can be a musical form that is pl
structure, without written music or chord c
music to succeed, it must grow into free spir
a musical form; it should be based off of a lif
picking up an instrument and playing guided
tion. It is emptying oneself and being."
While the spiritual concerns of improvisers
difficult to analyze, the economics of perfor
vised music has been a topic of some concern
scholars of this music. The tendency to form
and is, in great part, a direct response to the
jazz and improvised music most appropriatel
ed club and cabaret. In an article surveyin

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176 BMR Journal

AACM and investiga

Lewis (2002, 121) wr

For the black musician

cert hall, had been he
suited place for their
ized that serious eng
poetry, electronics, a
extensive infrastruct
impossible by the jaz
perform in clubs bega
black creative body.

For a time in the 1

performances of th
scenes began to flou
just as the term jazz
ing and financially
require minimal inf
of extensive finan
quickly became anot
crossing strategies o
121-123). Although
venues and funding
according to racializ

Experiencing Freedom

How do listeners an
and practices of "fr
dow into different
Improvisation, by
moment creativity,
mance, listening, an
on the human and
structure of the mu
Since, on hearing th
performers nor the
open and attentive l
flow of the music a
experience. This of

11. Lewis (2002) highlig

improvising scenes and th

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 Borgo * Negotiating Freedom 177

excitement, involvement and challenge to t

unique, at least in degree, to free improvisat
Free improvisation requires that perfor
actively rather than passively and perceiv
scape as "musical." Barry Truax (1986) has d
of engaging with the acoustic soundscape: b
ing-in-readiness, and listening-in-search. For
is akin to "distracted listening" while the li
another activity. Listening-in-readiness inv
that attention is to familar sound association
be readily identified. With listening-in-se
soundscape for particular sounds, attemptin
ing from their production or the environm
produced.
Mark Bradlyn (1991, 2 5) adopts visual terms to describe further this
soundscape to which listeners may attend.

The first step in learning to listen is stopping still and opening our ears, first
to figure, next to ground, next to field. The field, the aggregate soundscape
is the most difficult to perceive.... [T]here must be a constant flux, a never
fully focused shifting among figure, ground, and field.... One performer's
playing may suddenly emerge as a stark figure against the ground of anoth-
er's only to just as suddenly submerge into the ground or even farther back
into the field as another voice emerges.

Bradlyn's conclusion is that collective free improvisation may falter if

participants and listeners fail "to hear the texture, the field, in pursuit of
the dramatic figure, the gesture" (18). And he further suggests that
improvisation "succeeds as music only to the extent that listening
achieves equal status with playing" (15). Even these active and inclusive
approaches to listening may not take full account of the variety of emo-
tional, spiritual, cultural, and even political dimensions to experiencing
improvised performance.
Stanyek (1999, 47) finds even more at stake in the process of listening
than the "musical" success of the improvisation. He asserts that "if free
improvisation has anything emancipatory or 'anticipatory' about it, then
this kind of proleptic vision is contained within the act of listening, not in
the sounds themselves." For Stanyek, "listening is the way identities are
narrated and negotiated and the way differences are articulated." He
elaborates:

Indeed, the critical nature of free improvisation, its ability to accommodate

the disjunctures which invariably arise out of any intercultural encounter,
(and perhaps the fact that free improvisation resides outside of many of the

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 178 BMR Journal

economic and aesthetic s

a welcome antidote to t
vades many intercultur

The "freedoms" frequ

music are mediated by
Since the 1960s, the r
this music have resona
transcendental spiritu
in the moment of per
sonal, social, and cultu
cultural sensibilities
rupture of improvisat

Documenting Freedom

Can and should imp

with the sounds of "fr
context and replayed
the recording of free
(see Bailey 1992, 103-1
the unknown-about-t
musicians playing tog
moment is impossible
believes that "docume
essentially empty, as t
and give at best an ind
sense of time and pla
same playing, but di
(1977-78, 39) finds th
tion of form and per
kiss of death."

These artists and authors seem to agree on two central points: (1) an
audio recording, no matter its fidelity, necessarily reproduces only a lim-
ited spectrum of the performance experience and (2) the act of listening
to improvised music away from its initial performance context and on
several occasions forever alters its meaning and impact. Their disregard
for the simple utility of recordings or of the sense of tradition that they
can and do engender also seems to betray a certain Eurological perspec-
tive-one focused on the aesthetic autonomy of the artistic/performative
experience. Martin Davidson, of Eminem Records, expresses a rather dif-
ferent viewpoint. He argues that "recordings and improvisation are
entirely symbiotic, as if they were invented for each other.... [T]he act of

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Borgo * Negotiating Freedom 179

improvising is filling time (either a pre

amount) with music-something that could
tion, and something that has more need an
than anything else" (Davidson 1984, 23).
Most free improvisers acknowledge the
offer in actually establishing and dissemin
is a critical means of survival and exposure
alized free-improvising community, and th
helpful means to that end. Many improviser
as important documents or milestones in an
(1992, 104) remarks that all that is usually cl
it should provide evidence of musical identi
Many performers also acknowledge the edu
ings can offer through repeated listening.
Scholars of African-American and improv
engaged in-and struggled with-the issue of
in music performance and analysis (see S
interconnected and technologically sophistic
ture challenges us to view contemporary m
in new oral/aural cultural forms and pr
inscribed into society. Tricia Rose (1994), in
(from Walter Ong) the concept of "post-lite
hop culture. She writes that "the concept of
orally-influenced traditions that are create
erate, technologically sophisticated context"
tion, Daniel Belgrad (1997, 193) states that A
a model of "secondary orality" in a postliter
asserting the values of an oral culture with
tioned by writing." Well before these schola
Wadada Leo Smith (1973) addressed this sam

In ancient times when all people held improvisa

it was said that theirs was an oral tradition....
electronic tradition is being born, and this signif
visation-art-music-form. One only needs to thi
its proper use to understand how any signific
culturally now and particularly of music, can b
where in the world within seconds or minutes
time lapse through satellite techniques: indeed

Improvisers, although often centered on

contribution in performance, are equally a
vidual sound and style and defending a c

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 180 BMR Journal

industry. Yet their

tural norms of mu
copyrighting and ro
not possible to regis
of Congress. And ro
less musicians' care
posers (or to the rec
sound), to the detrim
lenges us to rethink
approaches to music

Evaluating Freedom

Can free improvisa

implied by the word
is by definition a pr
of the audience. Onc
does not match the
2002, 251).
Even among performers, a gulf can surface between divergent inter-
pretations. While some artists freely engage in conversations and critical
reflection immediately following a group improvisation, others are loath
to do so, since each member's immediate impression of the improvisation
may differ considerably, and candid discussion can make subsequent
improvisations by the group too self-conscious. Listening to recorded
playing sessions at a later date, either alone or as a group, is one common
means of self-evaluation and group feedback in free improvisation.
The jazz critical establishment has historically been harshly divided
over the relative merits of freer forms of improvisation. Both journalists
and musicians appeared to take sides almost immediately after the
arrival of Ornette Coleman's quartet in New York, and the subsequent
debate has hardly subsided to this day. Beyond the stylistic quibbling,
however, it may be the apparent critical vacuum that has done more
harm to the reception and recognition of this music. In 1973, Marion
Brown self-published Views and Reviews, meant to accompany his collec-
tively improvised album Afternoon of a Georgia Faun released three years
earlier. In so doing, he set forth his personal aesthetic philosophy and
positioned the artist as the ultimate arbiter of the meaning of his or her
work. And, somewhat paradoxically, he also debated the applicability of
language to represent musical experience. Perhaps most important,

12. An ongoing legal battle over the use of an improvised flute passage by James Newton
in the Beastie Boys song "Pass the Mic" has brought additional attention to this issue.

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 Borgo * Negotiating Freedom 181

though, he challenged the critical status quo o

erence for composed music and who, by virtu
tional positions, can dramatically affect the l
avant-garde artists. Eric Porter (2002, 243), pa

[O]ne is prone to judge a piece of music by its fo

ments. Because this presents a problem when an
music or compositions that include improvisatio
poses that a different set of aesthetic principles
uating such music. "Balance" is achieved in impr
a compositional structure but through musician
the emotional bond they create with their audien

In his discussion of the treatment afforded various "downtown"

musics by the Village Voice in the late 1970s, George Lewis (2002, 1
further highlights the issue of how, where, and by whom this m
should be criticized. The Voice, at that time, separated critical disc
of various musical genres under the headings "Music" (i.e., "revie
work from the high culture West") and "Riffs" ("the low-culture,
tively-imagined Rest"). Lewis concludes that the AACM and other
ative artists with similar ideologies were "destined to run rou
over many conventional assumptions about infrastructure, referen
place" (124).
The practice of so-called jazz musicians and improvisers engaging with
extended notation and graphic scores, electronics and computers, and
multimedia approaches to performance directly challenged the binary
thought-black/white, jazz/classical, high culture/low culture-that
was and is still common in critical discourse. Lewis points out, however,
that even African-American critics and activists were not immune from
attempting to regulate and restrict African-American creativity. Am
Baraka, whose important early work (Jones 1963) strongly supported t
then-emerging "avant-garde," later criticized many black creative mu
cians for being unduly influenced by European modernism (Lewis 200
129).
Several journals and magazines consistently publish reviews of free-
improvisation recordings, performances, and festivals and provide a win-
dow into the critical values espoused by the contemporary print media.13
As with music criticism in more traditional veins, comparisons to previ-
ous recordings or similar well-known groups or players factor promi-
nently in these writings. Malcolm Barry (1985, 173) writes: "[I]nevitably
13. Journals and magazines that regularly provide coverage of this music include Avant,
Bananafish, Cadence, Coda, Contact, Down Beat, Gramophone Explorations, Hurly Burly,
Improjazz, The Improviser, Musicworks, Opprobrium, Resonance, Rubberneck, Signal to Noise, and
The Wire.

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connect improv with open form , and processes
182 BMR Journal

there is difficulty in
that form. ... [T]he an
ular figures just as co
Free-improvisation
music on the perceiv
music congeal in a me
sitions effective? Did
tionships? Reviewer
absence) of reference
electronic, or world)
ments can be helpfu
prior to actually hear
the use of these "styl
tapositions or as unf
established technique
Even if most overt i
performers, free imp
accepted tools of arti
contrast, and so on. P
stant balancing act be
and noncontrol, cons
invite considerable de
noncontrol brings to
idea of virtuosity in
ceptions of virtuosity
visational skills? A fr
this issue. By his own
likes to explore the to
sive approach to ins
ostracized from a 197
improvisers) becaus
"insufficiently seriou
Nick Couldry (1995, 1
subject of virtuosity
conventional notion
notions of so-called ex
ing," or the ability
voice. He also finds an
than virtuosity-impo

14. In Borgo (2002, 16-18),

cal devices and personal dy
Surrealestate provided disc

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Borgo * Negotiating Freedom 183

"Extended techniques"-the exploration

and devices on conventional instruments-have been, and continue to
be, an important part of the vocabulary of many free improvisers (see
Borgo 2003). And critical evaluation is often based on a perceived mas-
tery of these difficult techniques. For example, Tom Johnson (1989, 461)
wrote in a 1980 Village Voice review of an Evan Parker solo performance:
"In short, this was not a hit-and-miss affair the way it is with most wood-
wind players when they turn on their multiphonics. This was a musician
who had transformed these new sounds into a vocabulary that was fami-
lar to him as major scales are to most musicians."
"Intensity of application," however, would seem to imply, if not con-
ventional notions of virtuosity, at least a sense of personal conviction and
performance energy. And this intensity can arguably be heard in the full
spectrum of sounds explored by contemporary improvisers, ranging
from the incredibly dense and loud to the almost unimaginably soft and
sparse.
Perhaps what is most often missed, however, in critical discussion of
freely improvised music is its functional quality. In his Views and Reviews,
Marion Brown seeks to dismantle the Western aesthetic that elevates art
as an object of beauty above and beyond its functional purpose. Brow
argues not only that improvised music is as "valid" as composed musi
but also that, even when "arrived at through mutual cooperation at a f
level, [it] may be as successful as any other kind of music" (quoted in
Porter 2002, 251).
This may, however, beg the question that many of the music's detra
tors are quick to level at it: if this music is as social and as liberating
many profess, then why is it not more popular? This question is by
means new.15 Many politically and socially active black avant-gar
artists have faced this continuing question of why black creativity is
seemingly so removed from African-American communities. Anthon
Braxton, in his Triaxium writings, casts blame on a general lack of reco
nition of artistic creativity in American society and on the market for

15. Porter (2002, 204-206) discusses Archie Shepp's 1965 Impulse release Fire Music an
the saxophonist's desire to create a music that could reach a larger audience without bei
too "commercial." On the album, Shepp moved between political eulogy ("Malco
Malcolm-Semper Malcolm") and songs inspired by a children's television show
("Hambone") to covers of Ellington ("Prelude to a Kiss") and a recent pop hit ("The
from Ipanema," which had reached the charts a year earlier in a version by Stan Getz
Astrud and Joao Gilberto). Fire Music, although containing some inspired playing a
arrangements, demonstrates that the fusion of avant-garde aesthetic goals with a soci
responsible and popular music that would be relevant to a wide range of people was a d
ficult proposition. Three years after the album's release, Shepp expressed displeasure t
he sold more records on college campuses than in black communities.

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 184 BMR Journal

that promote popula

283). George Lewis (
studies have freque
nously black musics
represented as mass
into classical music
accommodation, an
high and low, black

Thus, in the age of gl

tional black musical f
demic theorists, the i
mically defined and s
there is no necessary
(129-130)

Porter (2002, 207), h

nection between cre
music meaningful t
it was to implement e
tion of the Black Ar
living went hand in

Conclusion

Clearly, the diverse personal experiences and opinions of free impro-

visers and the transcultural and hybrid nature of the musical activity
makes generalized discussions of critical values within the community
somewhat problematic. Yet despite the frequently expressed desire
among certain free improvisers for a "styleless" or "nonidiomatic"
approach to music, more than four decades of recorded documents and
live performances attest to a growing tradition and reveal certain shared
traits to the music. Within this dispersed and disparate community, there
does appear to be-at the very least-a shared desire to meet together,
often for the first time in performance, to negotiate understandings and
embark on novel musical and social experiences.
Free improvisation, it appears, is best envisioned as a forum in which
to explore various cooperative and conflicting interactive strategies
rather than as a traditional "artistic form" to be passively admired and
consumed. Improvisation emphasizes process over product creativity, an
engendered sense of freedom and discovery, the dialogical nature of real-
time interaction, the sensual aspects of performance over abstract intel-
lectual concerns, and a participatory aesthetic over passive reception. Its
inherent transience and expressive immediacy even challenge the domi-

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Borgo * Negotiating Freedom 185

nant modes of consumption that have arisen

economies and the sociopolitical and spiritual
According to George Lipsitz (1997, 178), jaz
tural, moral, and intellectual guidance to peo
Gennari (1991, 449) asserts that jazz ha
serve-"as a progenitor of new forms, an inv
creator of new ways to express meaning." Aj
"from its very inception jazz has been abo
process of change," and "that sense of chan
powerfully registered in its cultural forms
contingency, in music making that explores
ditionally outlawed models of practice." But
reminds us that "the movement of jazz ont
that may be judged to hold some dangers." A
tifies "the possibility that jazz may lose bene
closeness between the makers, mediators,
some easy broad consensus about its aesthetic
ing Ornette Coleman's seminal work, Harris
jazz to come may differ from that which ha
The increasingly global participation in fr
seem to preclude the possibility of a "broad
ic direction." But as musical devices and r
within freely improvised performances and
improvisers, musicians offer important rhet
able social organization, the politics of repres
of art, and the possibilities for resistance t
torical constructions. And by paying atte
artists and involved listeners define, docume
evaluate this music, we may gain insight no
artistic and cultural innovation but also int
engage with our natural and social worlds. N
tic communities have an "avant-garde," a
ideas may be expressed and explored. As m
tices continue to work across and between na
boundaries, free improvisation may play a sp
and coping with complexity.

I would like to thank my dissertation (Borgo 1999) adv

Cheryl Keyes, Roger Savage, N. Katherine Hayles, and
able assistance and David Ake and Robert Reigle for th
indebted to the three anonymous BMRJ readers for their

Social aspect

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 186 BMR Journal

DISCOGRAPHY

Brown, Marion. Afternoon of a Georgia faun. ECM 1004 (1970).

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The shape of jazz to come. Atlantic Records 1317 (1959).
Something else. Contemporary Records M3551 (1958).
Shepp, Archie. Fire music. Impulse AS-86 (1965).

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