From: ujwb@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Jeff Beer)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Subject: Re: Sharrock
Date: 31 Dec 92 16:03:44 GMT
Organization: Educational Computing Network

In article <C04p45.HsJ@news.iastate.edu> s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu writes:
>In article <ALLMUSIC%92123108403751@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU>, Leonard Watkins <ISTS024@UABDPO.BITNET> writes:
>>That's a problem i have with it , i was listening to "Ask The Ages" and
>>on some tunes they seem to be in different keys, there was no structure
>>I'm sure i didn't give it enuff of a chance, but i really couldn't take
>>it long. I'm into improvisation, but i'm not sure about that type of
>>"free-form" because there seemed to be no structure, no rules....etc.

Again, there is no music without structure or rules.  Just because there
is the absence of the kind of structure you are use to doesn't mean
there isn't any structure.  You can hear a piece of music more than one
way, and I think that the music with the more open forms such as those
in free jazz are conducive to that.  

>
>What, no structure on *Ask the Ages*?  All the tunes on that recording are
>*rather* structured, not like the blues perhaps, but I think that every
>cut (as I recall) begins and ends, at least, with the statement of a
>definite melody, and what happens in between *relates* to each melody,
>to my ears.  Hmmmm, I suppose that if one is unfamiliar with the jazz of
>the Fifties and Sixties this recording would sound unstructured, but it's
>actually *very* structured in comparison to so-called "free jazz."

Right.  Most the tunes are based on the procedures defined by John
Coltrane's music in the early 60s.  They call it modal, because there
isn't much harmonic movement.  It is based on short forms that might
have most two chords which are closely related in tonality.  If there is
a section that has more harmonic movement, that is usually the bridge or
a transition section of the piece.  I think this description would cover
the tunes on ATA.

It certainly is more open harmonically than what was happening before
Kind Of Blue, but they never abandon tonality and replace it with
atonality or the "harmolodic" style of Ornette Coleman which is not
really atonal, but a way of freely modulating to different keys or groups of
keys.

Similary, Elvin Jones never abandons playing "time" (that is to say,
tempo or pulse) or "meter" (a fixed structure of beats and accent
patterns, such as 3/4 or 4/4) .  In free jazz, you often play "time", 
but it does not have a fixed meter.  In other cases, it can be a 
"free time", in which there is no fixed tempo, and the rhythms function
more as texture and motion.

It is safe to say that many of the stylistic things done in the "free jazz" 
can be done in Coltrane's music of the 60s, albeit they still keep some
reference to the form of the tune.   For that matter, they did the same
thing in Miles Davis Quintet of the 60s.  They did many things that had
much in common with free jazz, in terms of abstraction and fragmentation
of musical elements, but they still were playing My Funny Valentine.

What Leonard might be referring to is the expanded techniques of
instrumentalists.  In this case, it would be saxophone multiphonics and
dissonant guitar chords. All I can say is, that is done in this music.

Jeff
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