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Freeform "Jazz"
and
Politics versus Excellence
 
A Commentary
by
G. F. Mlely
 

   
   
     
Commentary
Part I | Part II| 

  



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Part I 
 
 Jazz discipline has established the parameters for improvisational music in the 20th century.  It effectively replaced and extended the classical impromptu tradition, which continued midway into the last century, by way of the cadenza sections in some otherwise fixed compositions, and which has since faded from practice.  Distinct from classic compositional practice of theme and development, jazz is music of time and development.  Music expressed in the jazz improvisating process is relative to the pre-established metric time limit in which it can be executed.  (See Jas)    
    
There is a jazz movement begun in the 1960s called Freeform which utilizes the techniques of jazz improvisating minus the time discipline.  It is, essentially, nearer in practice to the looser classical impromptu tradition than to jazz.  It was also a reaction against the perceived limitations of the ternary form and well-trod chord patterns relentlessly repeated.  The cry went up for "Freedom," but, unfortunately, it came at a cost.  Form gives music its force, as it does for a couplet or a painting or for water squeezed through a hose.  Freeform resulted in absence of form - formlessness.  And among the first things to go was harmony.  Tone-manipulation and aleatoric improvisating, no matter how extreme, are no substitute for it.    
    
But there was a genuine point.  Jazz was in danger of stultifying.  Bebop, the innovative jazz of its time, even early in the 1960s, was already threatening to become a museum music.  As had occurred with older styles, such as Traditional jazz, it was soon to become an endangered species being overly-protected in countless jam sessions and as sponsored by local jazz societies.  There was little genuine improvisating being evinced.  What was honored were faithful reproductions and similations of famous soloings, by which all excellence was measured.  It continues today, to an even greater extent.  Repeating improvisated phrases from a record - or even one's own phrases - is not itself improvisating.  The gods of music pass away and everyone else to memorize the holy phrases.  An art that cannot bear change is dead.    
    
Unfortunate for harmony has been that single-note instruments have led the major new-directions jazz has taken in the past forty years, in its search for renewal and fresh expression, marginalized innovators notwithstanding.  At the end of the 20th century, jazz has only harmonically begun to enter it. 
    
The problem for jazz is that there is no regular forum, as exists for classical, in the way of grants and institutional sensitivity, where innovation can be introduced and demonstrated.  Still considered to be a popular form of music, jazz innovation is left for its survival to the political-economic vagaries of commercial media exposure.    
   
Educational institutions that include jazz in their curricula respond mainly to what receives the popular play on radio and television.  They provide no place for new thought.?  (See Jas)  Jazz is properly an oral tradition.  But, media have come to replace the master in the student-teacher relationship, generating generations of artistic clones.  When offered an introductory lecture-demonstration of the concept described in Concept..., one university professor characteristically insisted that it first be marketed in retail music stores - a mercantile position, which subordinates learning to commerce.  Innovation is not the stuff of schools or jam sessions.    
    
Not every innovation is good or necessary.  But, some objective assembly independent of commerce, for display, discussion, and opinion needs to be established in several locales across the country, on behalf of America's unique contribution to the higher arts.  The popular music industry exists for purposes having nothing to do with music.  Special funding for innovation in 20th century classical music and dance is well provided, by comparison, as well as institutional consideration.  Why not for innovation in jazz?  After all, those who are satisfied with the tried and true are beneficiaries of innovation.    
    
At least two things should be considered in this matter for jazz: 1) how well does the improvisator or composer satisfy the tradition; and 2) what difference is being made, that is, what is being contributed to the tradition.  The former comprises the largest group.  But, it is the latter which enlivens the tradition, keeping it from entropy, making changes necessary to connect the old with the unexpected.  A musician cannot rest upon convention without endangering the creative process.    
    
Jazz is a part of the extended chromaticism of 20th century music, both as recipient and as influence.  This serious 20th century form for improvisating is a convenient field of theoretic opportunity.  The world has dramatically changed from when jazz at least had its forum in clubs and bars, when apprenticeship training was a natural function of sitting-in on a gig then going home to woodshed.  Now it is the exceptional professional and student who must explore such opportunity on their own, beyond what is necessary for gigs and credit.

   

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Part II

Recently, by way of the Internet, an apparently young man gushed worshipfully over a certain Freeform musician, about how what he was doing was "ahead of its time."  It has long been a claim made by many Freeformers about themselves and others of the genre, merchandising their music as innovative.  The young man contended that the Freeform musician "was way ahead of his time compositionally, piano structure wise, and ensemble wise."  Obviously, technical matters in music were not this young man's forte.  The major point of Freeform to be amorphic, having little or no form, was ignored.  It does not agree with Stravinsky that the greatest creativity is to be found in the narrowest confines.    
    
Assertions such as this young man's usually go unchallenged.  He uses words without their meaning and applies them whimsically.  When existing standards are eliminated, who is to say what is good or bad?  What we are left with is the feel-good standard.  Acquired taste, once the province of eldership, is now entirely the product of peer pressure sired by the media.    
    
I responded to the young man's BBS fan mail, pointing out, first, that nobody or nothing can be ahead of time and, second, that aleatoric improvisation, that is, music by chance, is neither new nor a sufficient basis upon which to develop music.  No serious artist is ever ahead of time.  It is probably good that I did not add that jazz, being a music of time, could never be ahead of it because then that would be rushing.  That would have been a bad joke.    
    
Genuine artists are quite perceptive of their own times, and express it relative to their individual skills.  Rather, it is the public's perception of art that is behind time.  It is, as Marshal McLuhan said, that people drive forward in life by looking in the rearview mirror.    
    
Years earlier, while living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, I was asked by the editor of a leading Dutch jazz journal to write an article.  Freeform in The Netherlands, by virtue of the power of its State funding, was already becoming then a forceful influence in the world of "new" music and, consequently, upon people's perception of jazz and improvisated music.  Following is that article only slightly redacted.    
    
Politics vs Excellence
"It would appear that the Netherlands state, under pressure from certain improvising musicians acting in union, is crumbling to the notion that mere excellence in art is no criteria of value when, if by honoring excellence, the state denies exposure to the work of all artists equally.  This would mean the work, as well, of undeveloped artists.  In doing so, the state would appear to regard egalitarianism in the arts to be above all other considerations.
 
"I am concerned because it has become obvious in the concerts and recordings I  have heard of Dutch improvised music in popular vogue, the so-called 'free form,' that the young Dutch improvising musician is being taught to 'Do your own thing' without regard to form, structure, tradition, or to three hundred years of European harmonic development
 
"I will not take space here to argue that life demands form, and art is an expression of life.  My immediate concern is that teachers in formal Netherlands music institutions are spreading a doctrine of anti-music.  To display an extraordinary amount of technical finesse in art, for example, as I've gathered in conversations with young Dutch musicians, leaves one open to suspicion of musical fakery.  I would say this presents quite a problem, particularly to the truly talented jazz and improvising artist striving through personal practice and study towards excellence in his craft.
 
"It is quite difficult to improvise within structures and forms having any sort of harmonic development and in relation to a thematic line.  Few can do it well.  But, it appears with this advent of egalitarianism in the arts, the student is being taught a new and alien musical message - develop your politics first.  With this as lesson number one, it is becoming a social must that a place be made on the stage for any and all who, by working their politics right, wish to ascend there regardless of qualifications.
 
"Consequently, a growing body-politic of determinedly inexperienced, often mediocre, improvising artists is developing, already with the power to influence the state.  The state, not wishing to offend any group, passes over the unique needs of individual artists of unique excellence, in favor of this musically counter-productive group-enforced political climate.
 
"The question is hastily put by this body-politic - 'Who is to determine what is excellent?', which is a question of aesthetics - what is beautiful?  If that was the question really being asked, asked in the sense of seeking enlightenment, there would then, at least, be the possibility of a dialogue.  But, the question is never put forward in a sincere manner.  Rather, it is asked rhetorically, as a way of precluding argument, by implicitly harboring the questioner's presumptive answer that 'No one can determine excellence.'
 
"If some person, feeling qualified, were to dare answer the question with, 'I can determine what is excellent,' the questioner would only scoff at what he would regard as egotistical arrogance, because implicit in these egalitarian politics is the premise that no one can know more nor be any better at something than anyone else; and that, even if they were, they would still have no more right to be on stage than anyone else.
 
"This is such a strongly held belief among this body-politic, that to assert otherwise is to raise a riot of resistance, and, as this writer has experienced, is enough to get one put on an unofficial blacklist, as regards employment opportunities.
 
"One may want to argue against the position this article takes.  But, how can anyone argue against the premise that it is, finally, the audience itself, id est, all the citizens of any given nation, who have the more basic right to see and to hear the very best.  This can be guaranteed not by new politics, but only through the encouragement and support of individual excellence based solidly on the artistic tradition."
 
In his rejection, the editor of the Dutch jazz journal said it was not the kind of article he had been looking for.    
         
"Envy is the most prominent egalitarian vice," wrote Hannah Arendt.  And the following quote, equally suitable for music when appended with a caveat, should always be kept in mind: "A living language is like a man suffering incessantly from small haemorrhages, and what it needs above all else is constanct transactions of new blood from other tongues.  The day the gates go up, that day it begins to die" (H. L. Mencken, from The American Language, 1919).  The caveat is that care must also be taken to see that it is indeed proper blood.    

          

From the Afterword to
The 8-Tone Quarto-Modes Concept
© 1997 G. F. Mlely
Unauthorized use prohibited by law, but may be quoted whole or in part as long as source and authorship are shown.
 
 
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