The Free Musics

by Jack Wright

The Free Musics goes into previously unexplored territory in the study of music-the social reality of musicians categorized as avant-garde, viewing all such musicians as distinct social groups. They are motivated specific to musicology and social/economic realities, which have changed from the postwar period to the present. In terms of status and livelihood support-paying gigs-there is normally a hierarchy: some are representative figures, some are ranked beneath them, and others are unranked and invisible to the media and public. The first part deals with free jazz from its originary period in New York when it was a sixties movement, to today's established form. The study follows the shifting relation of these musicians to the music world of media and institutions and to classic jazz, and the effect these have on what music gets performed and recorded and what is suppressed. Secondly, the book focuses on free improvisation in North America, which is traced from its beginnings in the mid-1970s to today, including its strong links to free jazz and experimental music. The title is often used indiscriminately, but for those who use that title to define their music it refers to a distinct approach, here given the name of free playing. Following some of the British originators of free improvisation, it has often been called "non-idiomatic," which is here critiqued. Socially it has been the practice of a small number of musicians who form a network rather than a hierarchy. For them no defining code is to be learned or imported, and so anyone can potentially benefit from playing with anyone else. Ad hoc groupings are balanced by choices based on individual musical interest and friendship. Instead of aiming to meet performance, music world, and career needs, their playing and relationships directly serve their artistic interest. Free playing puts the artists ahead of the results of their activity and in charge of their collectivity. Lacking a hierarchy, the names of its players are culturally insignificant. Given this configuration, the network, the approach, and the recorded results of playing are unknown outside a very small number of attentive listeners. The author is a saxophonist, exclusively playing free improvisation since the late 70s and continuously organizing, touring, and expanding his musical horizon. For more information see springgardenmusic.com

Genres: Music

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 2017

About the author

Jack Wright (born in 1942) is a saxophonist, pianist and improvisor in the Philadelphia area, one of the originals of American free improvisation, and still actively touring.

Described forty years ago as an "undergrounder by design," Jack Wright is a veteran saxophone improviser based mainly in Philadelphia and living in nearby Easton PA. In 1979, after an academic career teaching at Temple University (European History) and activist politics, he returned to the instrument of his youth. Almost immediately he discovered free improv, virtually unknown at the time and still obscure. He is one of the few who have played this exclusively since then, one of the originals of the 80s era. He plays mostly on tour through the US and Europe in search of interesting partners and playing situations. Now at 80 he is still the "Johnny Appleseed of Free Improvisation," as the late guitarist Davey Williams called him back in the 80s, continuing to inspire musicians, playing and organizing sessions and gigs with visiting and resident players old and new. His Spring Garden Music House has been around since 1977, for the past sixteen years housing only improvisers and providing space for sessions. In the early 00s it was the space for the No Nets he oganized.

He has avoided the standard career aimed at visibility and prestige, seeing it as a hindrance to musical growth. The partners he's preferred over the years have also been mostly unknown to the music press, and too numerous to list here. His current focus is sound-oriented, mostly associated the underground known as electronic noise music. His main partners the past several years have been Zach Darrup, guitar,Ben Bennett, percussion, Evan Lipson, double bass, and Ron Stabinsky. keyboards, the personnel of Wrest, Minimal Disturbance, Roughhousing, and Never.

Jack is what used to be called a "musician's musician," yet unschooled in music, learning through interaction with partners and private discipline. He's said to have the widest vocabulary of any, and still expanding--leaping pitches, punchy, precise timing, the entire range of volume, intrusive and sculptured multiphonics, vocalizations, and obscene animalistic sounds. You'll hear the most conventional jazz sound for a second or two and "post-electronic saxophone" the next. His playing sums up his 40-plus years of improvising, from lyrical, Ornette-style free jazz at first, then hard-blasting and emotive, then the opposite of that--reduced, quiet playing around 2000. The past dozen years he's come back to more physically engaged playing, but with a phrasing and variable sound unique among sax players.

In 2017 he published, The Free Musics , which has sold around 900 copies, mainly to improvisers in the US through direct contact, and often on tour. In 2022 he published another book, Shaky Ground, which combines his self-questioning and life experiences with a historical analysis of the current situation, particularly the left today. His books are available from him, info at Spring Garden Editions.

A reviewer for the Washington Post said, "In the rarefied, underground world of experimental free improvisation, saxophonist Jack Wright is king."

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone who's interested in improvised music, or as Wright calls it "free playing" should read this book, even if everything in here is subjective, and even though it could have used a copy editor (maybe that's antithetical to free improv?). There have been very few books on the subject, and Wright addresses some of the issues he has with the major ones (Bailey and to some extent Prevost). None of us will agree 100% with this, but perhaps that's kind of the point, it's not written in stone...

[Taneli Viitahuhta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five stars, because it is the best book on free improvisation since Bailey's Improvisation. I have some minor criticisms, but Jack's way of putting economics and geographical demarcations back in underground, experimental music is a great tonic for many readers, especially if they are like me seasoned in years of The Wire (an)-aesthetics. In The Wire it's all about the allusion, reference and dictionary, but with Jack it's all about the truth, the truth as he saw it. I look at some things differently, most of all Jack's willingness to separate the "jouissance" of improvised music from all the other musical activities (more latched onto cultural dichotomy of satisfaction/failure) . I think freely improvised and composed musics blend into each other a lot, so much so in fact that in the grey area I wouldn't hazard a conceptual separation. Yet practically free improvisation holds a great proposition for the bold, because it gives the musician opportunity to play with whom ever she wants. For this reason it is to be held at its own, but as music it follows similar rules and conventions as more traditional and conservative ways of playing. Anyhow, I think this is the book everybody interested in the birth and history of free jazz and free improvisation, should read. Its take on the music world borders on cynicism, but I think the author is right to say, that it is not without reason.

[Molly Jones]

I'm 25% of the way through The Free Musics, and I'm conflicted about whether to keep reading. While it refreshingly delves into aspects and eras of improvised musics I haven't seen addressed before, I disagree with some of the basic premises. Wright's concept of freedom in music is ill-defined; as a friend said, the notion of freedom presented in the book is "either outdated, a ghost, or a strawman." He seems unaware of some early 20th century improvisers, which leads me to question the underlying research. I find some of his assertions racially problematic; he presents the idea that Black jazz musicians were creatively and politically self-limiting and only chasing emotion starting in the late '60s, whereas British circles and Lennie Tristano's band actually embodied freedom struggle. I dunno, it's 50/50 whether I want to put more of this book in my brain.

[Djll · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't say much because I'm too close to the subject and the author.

But get a copy and read it!