Improvised Music Before 1970: An Incomplete Discography

Roy Eldridge was interviewed by Barry Ulanov for his 1952 book History of Jazz In America. Ulanov had lately been advocating for Lennie Tristano's experiments in improvisation, so he asked Eldridge what he thought of the idea. Eldridge described a session with pianist Clyde Hart: 

  

"Clyde Hart and I made a record like that once. We decided in front that there'd be no regular chords, we'd announce no keys, stick to no progressions. Only once I fell into a minor key; the rest was free, just blowing. And, man, it felt good." (p. 239) 

Eldridge's only known recordings with Hart happened between 1938 and 1940. They recorded together in Chu Berry's band in 1938, and with Fred Rich in 1940. And Eldridge hired Hart for a stint at the Arcadia Ballroom in 1939.

Perhaps the recording has been released. But I have not found it listed in any discography. If it was in fact recorded, there's the possibility that it was never released. If that's the case, the master was either discarded or it was put into storage.

I am, rather loosely, defining free improvisation as any music within which, as a matter of principle, the musician has complete freedom to do whatever he/she wishes. This presupposes that there is no composition whose directions are being followed: not a motive, not a graphic score, not a mode or scale, not a riff, and no conduction.

These criteria are probably too strict. But that's what I'm working with here. If you have suggestions for how to make this list better, please post a comment below. 

Additions have been made for the following artists:

The People Band (added Aug 2021)

The Fourth Stream (added Feb 2021)

Art Ensemble Of Chicago (added Sept 2020)

Clare Fischer (added May 2017)

Charlie Nothing
Malachi
Gruppo Romano Free Jazz
Mario Schiano
Chico Hamilton Quintet
Paul Horn

July 2020 - I took out the Paul Horn entry... The title track sounds like it's free, but then the band comes in. Chico is first, with a Charleston figure on brushes - then when Fred (cello) and Gerry (Wiggins, piano) enter, they seem to know exactly what to do harmonically and rhythmically. It's probably a very loosely composed piece or head chart, in sort of the way that Flamenco Sketches is - not exactly a "tune" but also not exactly a free improvisation.

 Improvised Music Before 1970 - An Incomplete Discography

A

AMM, “AMMMusic”, Elektra, 1966

AMM / Musica Elettronica Viva, “Live Electronic Music Improvised”. Mainstream Records, 1970

AMM, “The Crypt – 12^th, June, 1968”. Matchless Recordings, 1978
Amon Düül, "Psychedelic Underground"
Amon Düül, "Collapsing"
Amon Düül, "Disaster"

Art Ensemble of Chicago, "People In Sorrow", Pathé, Nessa, 1969

C

Charles Ives, “Ives Plays Ives – The Complete Recordings of Charles Ives at the Piano, 1933-1943”. Composers Recordings, Inc. [Two, maybe three tracks improvised.]

Charlie Nothing, "The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing". Takoma Records, 1967.
Charlie Nothing, "Outside/Inside". De Stijl Records, 2011 [recorded in 1969]. 

Chico Hamilton Quintet, "s/t". Pacific Jazz, 1955. One track ('Free Form') fully improvised. They get into a i ii(halfdim) iii ii pattern for a while but I'm pretty sure 

Columbia Symphony Orchestra, “Lukas Foss: Time Cycle”. Columbia, 1962 [Featuring improvised interludes by Foss' Improvisation Chamber Ensemble.]
Clare Fischer, "First Time Out". Pacific Jazz, 1962. One track ('Free Too Long') sounds fully improvised.

D

Django Reinhardt, "In Solitaire". Definitive, 2005 [recorded between 1937-1950]

E

Erroll Garner, “Overture to Dawn, vol. 1”. Blue Note, 195? [recorded in 1944]

Erroll Garner, “Overture to Dawn, vol. 2”. Blue Note, 195? [recorded in 1944]

Erroll Garner, “Afternoon of an Elf”, Mercury, 1955. [One track improvised.]

F

The Fourth Stream, "White Field". Pioneer, 1968 [recorded in 1967]

Free Form Improvisation Ensemble, “The Free Form Improvisation Ensemble”. Cadence, 1998 [recorded in 1964]

G

Georges I. Gurdjieff, “Harmonic Development”. Basta, 2005 [recorded in 1948-49]

Group Ongaku, “Music by Group Ongaku” Seer Sound Archive, released in 1996/2011, recorded in 1960.

Gruppo Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, “The Private Sea of Dreams” [US title]. RCA Victor, 1967.

Gruppo Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, “Improvisationen”. Deutsche Grammophon, 1968.

Gruppo Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, “The Feed-back”. RCA Italiana, 1970.

Gruppo Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, “1967-1975”. Edition RZ, 1992.

Gruppo Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, “Azioni”. Die Schachtel, 2006.
Gruppo Romano Free Jazz, "1966-67". Vedette, 1977. [recorded in 1967]

H

Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, "Featuring the Human Host and the Heavy Metal Kids". Liberty, 1967.

J

Jean Dubuffet & Asger Jorn, “Musique Phénoménale”. 4 10''-record set, 50 copies, Edizione del Cavallino, 1961.

Jean Dubuffet, “Experiences Musicales”. Finnadar, 1973.

L

Lennie Tristano, “Crosscurrents”. Capitol Records, 1972. [Contains Intuition and Digression, recorded in 1949]

M

Malachi, "Holy Music". Verve Records, 1966. [Richard Barthelme from the Red Krayola plays on a couple tracks]
Mario Schiano, "Original Sins 1967/70 Unreleased". Splasc(h), 1992. [recorded between 1967 and 1970]

Musica Elettronica Viva, “Friday”. Polydor, 1969.

Musica Elettronica Viva, “The Sound Pool”. Actuel, 1970.

Musica Elettronica Viva, “The Original”. IRML, 1996.

Musica Elettronica Viva, “Rome Cansrt”. IRML, 1999.

Musica Elettronica Viva, “Spacecraft / Unified Patchwork Theory”. Alga Marghen, 2001. [disc 1 recorded in 1967.]

Musica Elettronica Viva, “Pieces”. IRML, 2004. [recorded in 1966/67]

Musica Elettronica Viva, “MEV 40”. New World Records, 2008. [disc 1 recorded in 1967]

N

New Music Ensemble, “Improvisations”. New Music Ensemble, 1963.

New Music Ensemble, “New Music Ensemble II”. New Music Ensemble, 1964.

Nihilist Spasm Band, “The Sweetest Country This Side of Heaven”. Arts Canada, 1967.

Nihilist Spasm Band, “No Record”. Allied Record Corporation, 1968.

P

The People Band, “The People Band". Transatlantic, 1970. [recorded in 1968]

R

The Red Crayola & the Familiar Ugly, “Parable of Arable Land”. International Artists, 1967. [Free-form Freak-out tracks are improvised, also the title track. Mayo Thompson, Fred Barthelme and Steve Cunningham.]

The Red Krayola, “God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It”. International Artists, 1968. (2, maybe 3 tracks improvised)

The Red Crayola, “Live 1967”. Drag City, 1998. [recorded in 1967]

The Red Krayola, “Coconut Hotel”. Drag City, 2005. [recorded in 1967]

Roy Eldridge & Clyde Hart, unknown title, unissued? 1939?

S

Stuff Smith & Robert Crum, “The 1944 Rosenkrantz Apartment Transcriptions”. AB Fable, 2002.

Stuff Smith, “1944–1946 Studio, Broadcast, Concert & Apartment Performances”. AB Fable, 2002.

T

Tangerine Dream, "Electronic Meditation"

Free Improvisation Series: Group Ongaku

Looking back through history, one can find numerous cultural and art movements which consciously reacted against the status quo. All anti-art is also anti-culture, at least to some degree: these are movements have developed in reaction to perceived limits or inconsistencies within art or culture. Such limits are addressed or transgressed transcended with satire (the French Incoherents), reactionary rhetoric (the Italian Futurists), and social action (the Situationists).

Group Ongaku

Listen to more on Ubuweb.

Post-World War II Japanese music was dominated by the influence of American music (rock n' roll, jazz) on one hand, and a fusion of modern Euro-American composition and traditional Japanese music on the other. Group Ongaku can be seen as either a fusion of, or a reaction against both of these approaches.
This group first played together in 1958, as the duo of Takehisa Kosugi and Shuko Mizuno, two musicology students at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. It was not named until 1960 when other members, such as Meiko Shiomi and Yasunao Tone had joined. Only three tracks are known to have been recorded; all are available on UbuWeb Sound and were recently reissued by Seer Sound Archive. The recordings speak for themselves: completely improvised, action-oriented rather than product-oriented (in keeping with the general anti-art aesthetic of the period) and highly experimental.

Takehisa Kosugi, photo by Kiyotoshi Takashima, from The Japan Foundation, London.

To understand what I mean by "action-oriented", we should take a look at what was happening in the visual arts. Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai (Concrete Art Association) was formed in 1954; their 1956 manifesto (written by Jiro Yoshihara) declares that gutai art "does not change the material but brings it to life". They "pursue the possibilities of pure and creative activity with great energy." Some examples are described:

"Kazuo Shirago placed a lump of paint on a huge piece of paper, and started to spread it around violently with his feet."

Atsuko Tanaka's "Clothing". Photo from I like boring things.

"Shozo Shimamoto ... [fired] a small, hand-made cannon filled with paint by means of an acetylene gas explosion."

Murakami Saburo, a Gutai artist, creating "Lacerating Paper", 1955. Image from Outside Japan.

Gutai was a predecessor to and influence on Fluxus, an international and interdisciplinary movement which brought all arts even closer to "life", often with guerilla tactics. The most famous Fluxus artist is probably Yoko Ono; her early work is very interesting. Central to the Gutai concept is the idea of "psychic automatism", the process of "[uniting] abilities of the individual ... with the chosen material." It's worth noting that Group Ongaku named one of their recorded pieces "Automatism", suggesting a direct ideological link to Gutai. Group Ongaku is most well-known for their improvised pieces, but this was just one part of their overall activities. They often accompanied puppet shows, dance pieces, and sometimes even performed compositions. Julian Cope's book "Japrocksampler" tells the story better than I ever could.

"In Gutai art the human spirit and the material reach out their hands to each other, even though they are otherwise opposed to each other."

:References:

Cope, Julian. "Japrocksampler: how the post-war Japanese blew their minds on rock'n'roll." Available online, accessed June 13, 2011.

Stuart, Caleb. "Yasunao Tone's Wounded and Skipping Compact Discs: From Improvisation and Indeterminate Composition to Glitching CDs." Available online, accessed June 13, 2011.

Yoshihara, Jori. "The Gutai Manifesto." Available online, accessed July 2, 2011.