Avant-garde jazz

Robert Palmer – Jan. 31, 1986: “They said avant-garde jazz, or ‘free form’ or ‘the new music,’ wouldn’t last -‘they’ always do. But the avant-garde jazz of the 1960’s, that initially chaotic-sounding assault on traditional notions of harmony, rhythm and structure, has stayed the course, gone the distance.This weekend, there will be a practically unprecedented gathering of some of the musicians who turned the jazz world upside down in the early 60’s, with a number of their spiritual descendants. They are assembling to play two star-studded benefit concerts tomorrow night at 8 and 10:30 at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, and weekend performances at other clubs. The list of participants reads like a who’s who of ‘free jazz’ or ‘the avant-garde’ – the music that doesn’t really have a name but has been with us evolving and persevering, often under intense pressure, for close to three decades. Many of the players have been in the vanguard of the music for around 25 years.This ‘new jazz’ has now been with us as long as it took be-bop to develop from the latest black ‘in group’ music being played in the hippest Harlem after-hours clubs to its present form, a classic appreciated primarily by longtime aficionados and European and Japanese record collectors. During a comparable period, the trailblazers of the 60’s have simply kept at it, and their music has not been diluted; in fact, far from outliving the attention span of its initial audience, it has broadened its listener base. The generation of the 60’s and its followers are no longer the Peck’s Bad Boys of jazz. They have become a tradition, an institution. Some examples: In 1961, a young alto saxophonist named Jimmy Lyons, schooled in the intricacies of Charlie Parker’s modern jazz, met a piano-playing iconoclast named Cecil Taylor. He has been principal soloist in Mr. Taylor’s music, and the one constant in his small and large ensembles, ever since. Mr. Lyons has been ill recently, suffering from lung cancer, and tomorrow night’s Public Theater shows were organized by the drummer Andrew Cyrille to help defray Mr. Lyons’s medical bills. Tickets are $10 a show; for more information and reservations, the box-office number is 598-7150. …”
NY Times – AVANT-GARDE JAZZ OF THE 60’S: REBEL TURNED ELDER STATESMAN
W – Avant-garde jazz
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