Forumistas favourite recorded free improv

[Chris P]

A music (I refrain from using that tired & redundant phrase of 'genre') that doesn't appeal to all, but which most music lovers will have enjoyed whether unintentionally or not.

Its element & lifeblood is as a live in-the-moment experience (perhaps even best as a participant). But...there are some recordings which I return too & keep giving something up:
exhibit A and B:
Ovary Lodge (the first of the 2 self-titled albums)
Paul Dunmall 'East West North South'

anyone else got any favourite recorded examples? (or go off-thread about some live music you've heard/made)

[Adam Blake]

Free improv is such a shock the first time you hear it that you are unlikely to ever forget it. If you like it, you are intrigued and fascinated; if you don't, you will probably make some effort to avoid ever hearing it again.

The first time for me was Fred Frith doing a short solo set between sets by Hatfield And The North and Kevin Coyne at a college gig in 1974 on something called the "NME/Virgin Crisis Tour". I was 14 and I liked it and I can still remember the sound of what he played. It still forms a benchmark for me of what is and what is not possible on the guitar.

But recorded free improv - I don't really know too many records. Following the Frith experience I bought "Henry Cow Concerts" and remember being a bit disappointed by how 'normal' the first side sounded. But when I got to sides three and four! Oh yes! I hardly ever listen to them anymore but I wouldn't be without them.

Also, if memory serves, the second side of the first Faust album is a live in the studio free improv, involving pre-recorded tapes and such like, and that still gets played and enjoyed from time to time.

Most of the 'freak-out' jams from the psychedelic days were not really free improv, though, being usually tied to some concept of key and rhythm.

With the jazzers - Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor etc. I find the anger and aggressiveness gets in the way. Or else it's too far up it's own avant-garde arse - Derek Bailey, Evan Parker (forgive me! I know that's terribly harsh.) Sun Ra, though, seems to have had the balance pretty much exactly right throughout most of his career.

Is this the kind of thing you meant, Chris?

[AndyM]

I saw Lol Coxhill performing an hour or so of 'improv' back in the 80s. It was a bit like watching somebody else trying to solve a complicated puzzle. Rather bracing. Kept your ears on their toes! But I didn't go back for more. (Also, how do you *know* it's entirely free/improv - just because you as an audience member don't recognise the melody doesn't mean they haven't been playing them before.)

[Adam Blake]

If it was Lol it was almost certainly free!

It would be pretty much impossible to replicate a free improv. You could replicate the context and the instrumentation but not the actual notes. Anything pre-determined would spoil its purity. Yes, it's wacky stuff, pop pickers!

I once saw Lol Coxhill sitting in with The Skatalites. He played the ensemble parts impeccably but when he was given a solo - which was rare but he got a few - he played exactly like Lol Coxhill! The Jamaicans, most of whom were his contemporaries, would just smile ruefully, as if they had been there with this crazy baldhead many times.

[AndyM]

It would be pretty much impossible to replicate a free improv. You could replicate the context and the instrumentation but not the actual notes. Anything pre-determined would spoil its purity.

I dare say, but I'm still not sure how the listener would conclusively know. Partly a matter of trust, I guess.

[Adam Blake]

I would posit that free improv isn't really a spectator sport, as in it's not really made for the listener's benefit. I mean, it has only ever been recorded and presented to the general public by a combination of strangely mutated market forces. I'm thinking out loud here but can you imagine Richard Branson allowing his money to be used to release Henry Cow records nowadays? One that I remembered last night after I posted here was Hugh Hopper's "1984" album which came out in, I think, 1973. The first track on that is an extraordinary 20 minute exploration of what can be done with a bass guitar. But that came out on CBS! It would have had a promotional budget allocated to it! It would have had a beleaguered press officer working it for reviews and radio play! Somebody in the building must have thought it would make money! Ah.... I get so nostalgic for those days. Not just for the music but for the whole context where something as completely and totally uncommercial as that could get released on a major label.

[Chris P]

Looking forward to responding to these posts, but might not get proper oppurtunity til next week. Thankyou to the 'Adam & Andy Show' so far

[Hugh Weldon]

Yeah it's not really a spectator sport is it? I can't think of any specific examples offhand, just occasional things, usually on Radio 3, where something about what was going on chimed with my mood. If it didn't chime I'd have to turn it off.

When my mate Mark was going through his songwriting splurge in 1978 he often found that a good way to get something together or off the ground was to come up with a title and then total free form improvise with me on a out of tune guitar as a way of getting a first version down. It was fun but of little interest to anyone else I suspect, unless you had a taste for something that sounded like the Everly Bros on bad drugs.

[will vine]

I remember a time my wife and I were pawing through one of those books of "A Million Great Albums You Should Hear" or some such title. Anyway, whatever this one was called, it was divided up into different genres and we noted that my wife's favourites were largely collected together under "bedsitter contemplative favourites" whereas mine featured a lot from the "great unlistenable classics" section and included a lot of Captain Beefheart, Brotherhood of Breath, Elton Dean's Ninesense, Keith Tippet etc. None of which was wholly improvised but which contained a fair degree of free-playing.

For the purposes of this thread I'd nominate as my favourite free-improv record Peter Brotzman's
"Machine Gun." Featuring a number of saxophonists, including Evan Parker, it's a truly terrifying evocation of the white heat of battle.....makes Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun" sound puny by comparison. Everyone should hear it at least once....also everything by The Brotherhood of Breath.

http://youtu.be/mvFJp1WTVFU Machine Gun

[Adam Blake]

Thanks Will. I feel better for that. I got about 8 minutes in and then felt compelled to check out the 'alternate take'.

I must admit I prefer Jimi Hendrix's version (which, despite the pedestrian plodding of Buddy Miles and Billy Cox, does get RIGHT OUT THERE in places).

Free improv doesn't have to be noisy and aggressive. Here's a nice bit of Henry to calm you down:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3To1UnNEQdk

(Amazing how many boys wanted to have bassoon lessons when Lindsay Cooper briefly taught at my school...)

[will vine]

Structured free blowing. Well, I'm never going to get another chance to post The Brotherhood am I ?

http://youtu.be/fjB_APjgFuc

I tried to interest Charlie in this sort of stuff back in the 80's - a mix of South African traditional and colonial sounds, marching bands, Duke Ellington, free-blowing et al....He thought some of it was "really invigorating" and went to see a later incarnation of the band who disappointed him.

[Jamie Renton]

"There's 3 kinds of jazz: hot, cool and 'what time does the tune start?'"
Barbara Flynn's character in The Biederbecke Affair

I like the idea of free improv: cutting edge, daring, big boy's music. It's just that when I listen to it it always sounds as though it's going on somewhere else, a somewhere else I can't find my way into.

I love jazz, where they go off of and then return to the melody, have no problems with discordant rock, but for me there's got to be a hook.

I went to an Evan Parker solo gig once and just thought "What time does the tune start?"

[will vine]

The closest I can ever remember a bit of free(ish) blowing delighting public consciousness - Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick and Papa's Gotta Brand New Pig Bag. It's not for everyone, including me most of the time.

[AndyM]

Yes, it's quite amazing to think what big hits those two tracks were - has anything weirder than that Davy Payne stuff ever been on a Number One single ? But in both cases there is still The Return To The Tune.

[will vine]

Here's Keith Tippet freeing things up just a little bit for King Crimson....(maybe a bit of thread creep here).

http://youtu.be/97Ydq-NU2Iw