‘The next jazz innovator could easily have a white face, and speak with the accent of Paris or Hamburg or the English shires.’ (Charles Fox, The Jazz Scene, 1972). What Fox is saying is that jazz is becoming, and has indeed, already become, a universal/international music. Jazz musicians with integrity and originality are coming into prominence from every country. There is much more happening in the jazz world than people would like to think – particularly those with attitudes that (1) jazz can only be black and )2) jazz can only be American (though not necessarily black). Jazz was always a ‘legitimate’ and extremely creative art form and is slowly being recognized as such; and with this recognition is appreciation of the contributions from musicians all over the world. Not musicians playing ‘pop-jazz’, which, like all pop music centres itself around clichés and watered-down patterns, but musicians playing and living real jazz – whether Dixieland or straight ahead or free. If an artist picks a place on a time line to explore, that is his choice, and if he does it with integrity and honesty it is pure jazz. Free jazz is definitely the extension of the jazz tradition – it is the jazz of now, and as such, is probably the most victimized form of all because it is an art-music form of contemporary earth, and with the way that listening habits are shaped towards the past, it has a hard time exposing itself to people wallowing in the relative safety of yesterday.
The forte of jazz is improvisation. The instrument becomes the immediate and often totally spontaneous vehicle for dialogueing and expressing the ‘feelings/realities of the moment’. This approach and underlying feeling in the music originally came from the early black culture in America – and though it cannot be denied that black culture added certain approaches and concepts into the music that was to be known as jazz, it can be argued that jazz does not have black roots exclusively. When one really means ‘roots’, how far does one wish to go? Back to the inventor of the saxophone, a Belgian named Adolphe Sax? Back to prehistoric times, when man started beating on things? Back to the beginning of the universe?
Would jazz have been created in the same way if the blacks had not been exploited as slaves? In other words, does part of this beautifully expressive art form have American slavery to thank?
The roots of jazz, and the roots of any other art form, for that matter, are far too complex to analyze clearly. Question: Would jazz have been created in the same way if the blacks had not been exploited as slaves? In other words, does part of this beautifully expressive art form have American slavery to thank? Well, this is part of it – slavery happened and jazz is also happening. They are part of one another. But Sax’s invention is also involved in the jazz consciousness. Archie Shepp once called the saxophone the voice of the ghetto – a voice created in Europe and transmitted through the black culture.
Musicians in any field of jazz, coming from whatever country, are paying dues and sharing concepts and approaches with musicians in their field. The language of jazz reaches beyond national interests – for example there was a session which featured American saxophonist Noah Howard with Dutch drummer Han Bennink, or the recording of the meeting of Japanese pianist Masahiko Sato with European trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff and Americans Peter Warren (bass) and Allen Blairman (drums). The music works.
Though jazz does have an international input which allows musicians of all nationalities to work together, there are subtle differences between approaches. Jazz has always insisted on having individual voices, and the musicians that are really playing manifest this prerequisite. But, beyond this, subtle differences can be heard in, for example, certain national approaches to free jazz – one can easily tell the difference between the Art Ensemble Of Chicago (black/American) and the Instant Composer’s Pool (white/European). This subtle difference between the black/American and European schools of free jazz was brought out by Evan Parker, a searing saxophonist whose home base is England, again, from The Jazz Scene: ‘The American approach seems very diffuse, musicians on the Continent have a greater sense of purpose. They’re more rigorous, not so eclectic.’ Avant-garde jazzmen in Europe deal more directly with the music and only indirectly with political and ethnic strata. Groups like the Art Ensemble have a necessary political message of black freedom and pride (or, more broadly, ‘minority’ freedom for America, to try and turn the black movement away from the funky jive of groups like the Spinners, etc. and the total economic drives, and back into jazz and spirituality, and a true linkage to the original philosophies of Africa. But, of course, in America, and in Europe, there are groups who are blending both of these ideas or taking on the concepts opposite to their national stereotype.
Peter Brotzmann’s sax work can sound just as agonizing as that of Albert Ayler. These artists share the feeling of oppression
Perhaps the original blending of Euro/Afro/Asian/American ideas and musics in free jazz can be brought back to pianist Cecil Taylor, who took his inspiration from Duke Ellington. Taylor has so-called classical technique, but fused it with a growing black consciousness to make his music, which could easily be paired with the current European or American schools of free jazz. He was one of the originators of the music that grew to be known as free-form jazz and has retained over the last quarter century the integrity and honesty that makes his music so powerful. In his early years, Taylor did not take a nationalistic viewpoint, but rather, dwelt on the ‘colour question’. In Spellman’s Black Music: Four Lives he said ‘The white idea is valid in that the cats are playing it the way their environment leads them, which is the onlv way they can play. But the Negro idea . . . with the physicality of it, with the filth of it, and the movement in the attack.’ Certainly Taylor has something here; but then again, there is a universal repression that is felt by all creative musicians playing jazz. Peter Brotzmann’s sax work can sound just as agonizing as that of Albert Ayler. These artists share the feeling of oppression. The black artist senses it because he is part of it culturally as well as musically, but his feelings are transmitted and directly experienced by musicians of all cultures, colours and creeds. Saxophonist Byard Lancaster (from the Black Giants, produced by the editors of the now-defunct Jazz And Pops magazine): ‘Well, I think that everybody can play. Just decide what kind of music you are going to play and what kind of instrument and when, and just use sincerity . . . everybody has something to say.’
Though this appears to be valid, many musicians have let their social repression guide (and indeed command) them. Part of the heritage of jazz was (and is) repression and poverty. The poor black in America had spiritual energy and pride. Jazz became the expressive voice for these people. Now that the black movement has become economic (with an acceptance of western materialistic values, and a seeming rejection of African and eastern beliefs), there is a growing ‘colour-unity’ in free jazz. The free-jazz scene in New York in the early and middle 1960s (documented on ESP and Savoy records) was one of unity until the intervention of middle-class black intellectuals who were trying desperately to find their roots in the ghetto. It was these critics, typified in the person of Leroi Jones, who broke up the unity, which has only recently started to heal. These men tore apart friendships and brought situations down to a black (sincere) vs. white (insincere) level. Artists like Burton Greene, whose music was as sincere (and real) as Cecil Taylor’s, were condemned as fakes because of the colour of their skin. No attention was paid to the dues they were paying or the music they were making or to their integrity – Jones and his ilk only concentrated on skin colour. And it was so ironic that middle-class blacks seeking identity should do this – the blacks who lived the ghetto life (artists like Sam Rivers and Marzette Watts) had their identity and judged musicians by their music and their integrity, and not by the colour of their skin.
The feelings of guilt and hate that Jones ignited helped to militarize the free-jazz scene beyond black freedom and pride and break up what had been so natural. Though this situation has been healing in the past few years (and Jones has gone on to other things) – the feelings still do exist and manifest themselves. The Art Ensemble of Chicago participated in the Baden-Baden Free Jazz Meeting in Europe in 1969. Musicians from all over the world are invited to this meeting and for 4 or 5 days; they work from 2 p.m. to midnight every day – playing, composing, working with each other. Yet in the 1972 Downbeat annual, Art Ensemble members Jarman and Mitchell put down the European players because they couldn’t ‘get’ the charts that they (Jarman and Mitchell) had written. Their attitude after the meeting was that they would have to wait with these compositions until they got home to the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago and ‘struggle through’ (these were their words) the charts with the AACM big band. Well, if the big band would have to struggle through them in Chicago, why should a group of international musicians spend that precious little time together just working on those pieces? And furthermore – is reading music the most important discipline for jazz musicians? Certainly not. Each musician is free to define his own discipline which can involve total improvisation and no reading skills. Jarman and Mitchell appeared to be quite unfair in their appraisals. Trumpeter Don Cherry seems to feel differently about the ability and feeling of his European counterparts. More than once he has used European groups as vehicles for his universal jazz concepts.
The black jazz musician has a better chance of getting a grant or funding from an institution than a white jazz musician. Hopefully, time will let all bias even out with the music standing at the forefront
One very important reason as to why these conflicts and racial attitudes continue to exist is that, in the past, the white culture has exploited and made profitable black music forms. This has happened with some forms of jazz, and even rock, which was to a great extent black rhythm and blues. Black artists have reason to be apprehensive unless they take a good look at what is happening and see that artistic foundations and institutions are recognizing the roots and dropping their walls of bias thanks to pressure from musicians and artists. In fact, the black jazz musician has a better chance of getting a grant or funding from an institution than a white jazz musician. Hopefully, time will let all bias even out with the music standing at the forefront – but with a clear recognition as to where the roots of jazz are.
There is a unity for all musicians playing jazz. These artists are crying out for change and love and justice and awareness and peace and hope and freedom. Organizations like England’s Jazz Centre Society, New York’s Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, Holland’s Instant Composer’s Poll, St. Louis’ Committee For Universal Justice, and the growing number of musician-owned record companies are slowly gaining ground, helping artists gain support and independence for their own unique creations. It is vitally important that jazz artists today take a close look at this developing unity – it is the key to survival. Jazz musicians (and indeed, all musicians) are tired of being cheated and exploited and are wary, but given time, a co-operative effort on the part of all jazz musicians could result in improved conditions across the board. Jazz is an international music.
