Help me make sense of Free Jazz

I thought of something else! We think of free jazz as noisy and skronky, but it doesn't have to be, and Jimmy Giuffre's trio with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow (1961-62) played a quiet, astoundingly free jazz that was far ahead of its time (unfortunately, in its time it was roundly ignored and made no money, and they soon broke up); it's been compared to chamber music, and I think it would make an excellent gateway. The records are Fusion and Thesis (Verve, 1961), reissued in a single set by ECM as 1961, and Free Fall (Columbia, 1962). Highly recommended.

This is indeed a great question. I basically agree with dfan: start with the records where the performers were taking baby steps out from hard bop and they'll carry you with them. I myself had the same problem; I first fell in love with Jelly Roll Morton, then Louis and the Duke, made my way to hard bop, but couldn't cross the barrier to free for a while. Give it time, and you may have to experience something a number of times before it clicks (this happened to me with Cecil Taylor). As always with jazz questions, I highly recommend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Penguin_Guide_to_Jazz; their taste is excellent and their description will give you a good idea of whether you might find something appealing. (Plus these days you can often listen to a thirty-second sample online, which is a great help.) But we all have our limits. I don't expect ever to enjoy Machine Gun.

So, I'm a Jazz Musician, but I'm not YOUR Jazz Musician: Free Jazz isn't structure\pattern free. You just have to work to find them. Maybe, acclimate yourself to them is a better way to put it. Now, I think working your way chronologically makes a lot of sense. These players were creating in the context of what else was going on, and had happened in the music world at the time. Personally, I don't think there's a much better place to start than A Love Supreme. Oh and, the documentary Imagine the Sound is a great way to get an handle on some of the history and context that helped to form free jazz.

Leaping right into free jazz from something like Louis Armstrong or Charlie Parker can be a nightmare – I know this from experience. You may want to start by listening to some of the fringe artists that live between structured and free jazz – Mingus was my "gateway jazz," and other posters may have even better ideas. Years ago, I bought a Coltrane box set (Thehttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000DHZ9/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ set) that did a lot for my appreciation for free jazz, as it starts with fairly standard jazz work, but with each disc becomes more and more experimental. When I started listening to Ornette Coleman (Free Jazz, natch), looking at the cover art was actually pretty helpful -- with Jackson Pollack, you're not asking "what is this a painting of," but (possibly) "how does this make me feel/how did the artist feel when painting this?" I'm still not a huge free jazz fan! But I like it from time to time, especially when I'd like a kind of musical palette-refresher. When I'm really enjoying it, though, is when I'm listening to it for the shape of it rather than the sound of it. If that makes any sense.

Listening to Cecil Taylor's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hearth (1988, with Tristan Honsinger on cello and Evan Parker on tenor sax) and it's blowing me away—in fact, after it ended I put it on again. It starts with Honsinger and Parker twittering at each other; after almost ten minutes Parker enters, and they play off each other, often two at a time, for the rest of the hour. Amazing music. (I'd like to get more from the series of concerts Taylor did in Berlin that summer; they're supposed to be among the peaks of his career.)

I've been stacking CDs up on my desk as I listen to them, and I'd better list them here before the thread closes and/or they get buried beneath the clutter and I can never find them again. I recommend all of them for your purposes; Google will give you more info: Evan Parker, 50th Birthday Concert (Leo, 1994) Roscoe Mitchell, Sound (Delmark, 1966/1996) Misha Mengelberg, The Root of the Problem (hatOLOGY, 1997) Alexander von Schlippenbach Trio, Pakistani Pomade (FMP, 1972) Matthew Shipp, By the Law of Music (hatART, 1997) The Ganelin Trio, Non Troppo (hatART, 1980/1990) This will probably be my last contribution to the thread; enjoy, and you might post an update sometime letting us know what you particularly liked!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ra Start with the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7j-Hm2NgFM which is like an ellignton big-band that is warping and melting at the edges. Wander into more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmgFdPksIvc, once you feel more comfortable with the cosmic vibe. Note from wikipedia: "Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as 'free music': "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct. … If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music—music of the sun." So, that. But I think he might make a fantasic bridge for you.

The Vandermark 5's http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006J3UG/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ are fun.

Sure, it's chaotic, but that chaos has a role. Among other things, it gives the performers experimental space they wouldn't have in more tightly locked in jazz formats. The trombonist for the Glenn Miller band isn't going to pour water into his trombone and blow it out like I once saw a trombonist with the http://www.respectsextet.com/ do. Their albums are not quite as crazy as that anecdote would suggest. (And they have a bunch of music online for free.) I'd recommend them as living in a somewhat choatic but still listenable space. Something like Peter Brötzmann's http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000JONY/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ is just a very different sort of music than most music. It's an incarnated idea... or a cry of pain, or... and the enjoyment you get out of it is totally different than most other music. In that case, it's a matter of adjusting expectations.