The two notable organizing principles were the adoption of ‘Fixed Elements’ and the Bass Ostinato.
Fixed Elements was an agreed upon list of parameters applied to individual pieces - it assured musical coherence while still allowing the performer maximum control over the unsubscribed elements. The Bass Ostinato was the organizing principle - its placement, repetition, and contrast ‘to’ provided an aural guide to the ‘form’ of a musical work.
This movement toward freer forms was part of a larger one which considers the world in terms of ‘possibilities, not necessities’. In Fine Art Music it is known as Aleatory Music, Chance Music, or Music of Indeterminacy. In these, compositional choices were based on random selection with many details left to the performers decision. As such, no two musical performances were ever identical in the traditional sense of a composed musical work.
Charles Mingus’ contributions and activities anticipated many of these practices. His choice of ‘Jazz Duke Ellington Workshop’ to identify his ensembles reflected this idea of performer choice and group improvisation.
His work often suggests a suite-like character with sections contrasted by thematic material, mood, instrumentation, tone color, meter, and dynamics.
The 60’s was a decade of change - and the social and cultural upheaval of that period was reflected - as always - in the evolution and revolution within the Jazz Genre. Ekkehard Jost in his book ‘Free Jazz’
[Da Capo Press, New York, 1981] is well aware of this. The stylistic direction - labeled the ‘New Thing’ at the end of the ‘50’s and as ‘Free Jazz’ after Ornette Coleman’s ‘60’s album - showed precisely how tight the links between musical and social/cultural factors are. The music, like the larger cultural environment, was rejecting the ‘old’ directions, assumptions, solutions, and rules and seeking the ‘new’ rules of the game - yes, FREEDOM developed its own methodology.
Through the Hard Bop Era, the conventions of Jazz and Jazz Improvisation could be reduced to a relatively narrow and stable system of ‘agreements’. These ‘agreements’ or set of musical assumptions are necessary in any improvisatory music. It enables the soloist to create an improvisatory line aesthetically and ‘mechanically’ against the expected harmonic and rhythmic background provided by the rhythm section. Free Jazz did not do this in such a universal way.
Basically, the only point of agreement within this Jazz Style was its negation of traditional forms and norms. As such, a large number of divergent styles developed within the larger genre - any classification of common approach would be an oversimplification. This music demands an individual approach by artist or music group - as each had a unique ‘solution’ for the ‘new rules of the game’. But, while termed the ‘new thing’, it also had its pioneers - those associated with the prior tonal idiom while also contributing to the Free Jazz evolution/revolution.
The Jazz Framework had essentially remained unchanged to the end of the ‘50’s - basically a musical ‘universal’ that defined the music as Jazz: Formal simplicity of a theme taken as a basis for improvisation; this Theme served primarily to provide a harmonic and metrical framework for the improviser; Improvisation is the focus of Jazz - not the material; Prerequisites were the laws of Functional Harmony reflected in the Theme, acceptance of strictly applied and relatively easy to handle formal patterns [standard chord progressions], the continuous and accented underlying pulse. The various styles differed in ‘choices’ of these universal agreements - but not in principles.
The emancipation from the traditional musical universals occurred first with Functional Harmony and the development of ‘Modal’ playing. With the advent of this style, whole sections of a tune were built upon a single modal ‘center’ - not vertical chord changes. Because of this horizontal emphasis, melodic development was freed from vertical constraints and the necessity for regular phrase lengths [to fit the harmonic rhythm] became unnecessary. If the traditional elements of form were retained, it was done so out of habit - again, not necessity.
It was Miles Davis who made the first statement in this new music - but he did not do it alone or to completion. His association with John Coltrane during this period was essential to the developments of Modal playing and Coltrane was essential to its mature development.
John Coltrane was born Sept. 23, 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina. He took Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins as models and grew into the ‘modern’ jazz of the ‘40’s under the influence of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. As early a John Coltrane 1947, he worked briefly with Sonny Rollins in one of Miles Davis’ groups but soon left to work with Jimmy Heath, and later the bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, and Johnny Hodges.
He was hired by Davis in 1955. Coltane’s approach was still exploratory - this period would culminate in his ‘sheets of sound’ technique. In mid-1957 he left Miles to work with Thelonious Monk whom he considered a ‘musical architect of the highest order’. Benefiting from Monk’s help in harmonic exploration and his own study of past practices Coltrane’s approach is best summed by his own words: “…I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light”.
In 1958, he rejoined Miles Davis - then in a middle period of stylistic change. A period where Miles was utilizing minimum chord changes and freely flowing horizontal lines. The concepts Miles was working under acted as a catalyst - Coltrane first tried to adapt his ‘sheets of sound’ approach but soon recognized the wider potential of Davis’ interests: ‘I could play three chords on one. But on the other hand, if I wanted to, I could play melodically. Miles’ music gave me plenty of freedom.’
The first phase of modal playing was the Milestones album - a year later, the second phase appeared with the Kind of Blue album of 1959. The tune So What is easily accessible as an example of Modal playing: within the 8 bar sections, there is no harmonic movement at all, improvisational material for the A section is D Dorian and the B Section Eb Dorian - with no functional relationship between the sections, just an abrupt chromatic shift. But it was the Flamenco Sketches cut which was the most consistent modal piece contained within the album: no actual theme in the sense of a ‘composed melody’, the form consists of five sections of different lengths, and each section was based upon a different modal center.
Having the improvisations vary in length [coupled with the varying modal centers] had some important consequences for the development of Free Jazz: with the standardized ‘bar patterns’ of a given form dropped, other means of signaling the end of a solo had to be developed; the change in Modal centers [within the improvisation] was signaled either by the Rhythm Section setting up a series of suspensions or by the soloist ‘leading’ to the new Mode. Both of these required intense listening to each improviser in order to follow the entrance into an new section and accommodate the varying length of the improvisation. While this album was the exception to current practice [the group dissolved soon after], it was indicative of what was to come. With the dissolution of this musical unit, Miles went back to working with Gil Evans and it was left to Coltrane to expand the principle of Modal Playing.
John Coltrane’s first important LP as leader of his own group was Giant Steps in 1959. Here, he reverts to the mult-chord structures of his ‘sheets of sound’ but also moves beyond the harmonic framework of Hard Bop - the changes are not based on ‘circle of fifth’ movement but rather chords a third away. The improvisation is based on arpeggiated chords - impressively played to say the least, but still vertical structures. The recording and the approach it contained led Coltrane to a realization: “I haven’t completely abandoned this approach, but it wasn’t broad enough. I’m trying to play these progressions in a more flexible manner now” [from a Downbeat interview in 1960] A year after Giant Steps and the restrictions of the vertically oriented improvisation, Coltrane returned to Modal playing and a concentration on horizontal melodic development.