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: Jean Dubuffet & Asger Jorn

Jean Dubuffet & Asger Jorn

“I also have a preference for music without variations, not structured according to a particular system but unchanging, almost formless, as though the pieces had no beginning and no end but were simply extracts taken haphazardly from a ceaseless and ever-flowing score.” - Jean Dubuffet, 1961

In late 1960, Asger Jorn (1914-1973) invited his friend Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) to improvise music with him. They had several sessions between December 1960 and March 1961. Dubuffet recorded these encounters on a portable tape recorder, and made several finished pieces out of the sessions. Some of these finished pieces were released by an obscure Italian label called Edizione del Cavallino; others remained unreleased until the 70's or later.

The well-educated musical ear will likely interpret their formless and radical experiments as the clamors of inexperienced and unschooled hacks. But such judgments crumble upon consideration of their motivations for making music in this way. In 1941, Jorn wrote an article for the journal of Helhesten (“Hellhorse”), an underground art group, (in Nazi-occupied Denmark) in which he derided “the great masterpieces” as “nothing but accomplished banalities”. Describing the art of the non-professional artists, “[t]hese forest lakes on colored paper, hanging in gilded frames in thousands of apartments, are among the most profound artistic inspirations." [1]

Asger Jorn, Visio Geologico, 1969. Photo from NOT BORED!

These statements were not flights of youthful anti-authoritarian fancy, but early expressions of an ideology that would dominate his life and work. A lifelong sympathizer with communism and pacifism, Jorn was highly critical of the capitalist economic order and the ways society (and art) had become structured within it. He was a founding member of COBRA, which lasted from 1949-51. In 1957 he was part of a conference which resulted in the formation of the Situationist International. In May 1968, this collective succeeded in bringing about a general strike in France. Jorn had parted ways with the SI by 1961, although he continued to support them morally and financially.

Dubuffet studied painting at Académie Julian in Paris. In 1924, disillusioned with the value of art in society, dropped out of the art world and sold wine for his father's company. He returned to painting briefly in the 1930's, but there followed another period of silence. In 1942, he returned to art, this time permanently. He found particular inspiration in the work of Jean Fautrier, and became associated with the tachisme movement.

In 1923, he had been given a text of German psychologist Hans Prinzhorn’s “Bildnerei der Geisteskranken” [“Artistry of the Mentally Ill”] (1922), which helped developed his interest in the works of artistically untrained people.

Jean Dubuffet, Personage, 1964. Photo from the Opera Gallery.

In 1949, Dubuffet coined the term art brut (literally “raw art”) which he defined as work of “pure artistic operation, unrefined, thoroughly reinvented, in all its aspects, by the maker, who acts entirely on his own impulses”, brought on by a reliance “entirely on their own resources rather than on the stereotypes of classical or fashionable art”. [2] Dubuffet's ideas about art brut are complex, but in general, it was any art which was made independent of cultural influence. This could include, but was not limited to, art made by mental patients, prisoners, and children.

We thus see that both men specifically valued art which was aesthetically amateur and culturally unaffected. Since both had received formal art education, it is possible that they viewed music as a kind of blank slate for them to experiment with this amateur aesthetic more directly. Dubuffet emphasizes that neither he nor Jorn were “au fait with the output of contemporary composers”. They were not attempting to contribute to the theoretical canon that generated serialism, concrete music, and electronic composition. Both had had some previous musical training, but they deliberately chose instruments which they had no experience playing, many of them found or created by their friend Alain Vian.

The Grundig TK35. Photo by Michael Keller, from Rad-io.de.

Dubuffet recorded his collaborations with Jorn on a Grundig TK35 tape recorder (pictured above), Of the unprofessional nature of their recording methods, Dubuffet comments: “We consider that a good recording provides precise and distinct sound which seems to be coming from a close source; in our daily lives, however our hearing is submitted to all sorts of other sounds which, more often than not, are unclear muddled, far from pure, distant and only partially audible. To ignore them is to give birth to a specious artform, exclusively concerned with a single category of sounds which, when it comes down to it, are pretty uncommon in everyday life. I was aiming to produce music based not on a selection of sounds but on sounds that can be heard anywhere on any day and especially those that one hears without really being aware of them.”

Of music more generally, Dubuffet is acutely aware of the same truths expressed by John Cage (published that same year in Silence, 1961) and Pauline Oliveros (Some Sound Observations, initially published in 1968): the attempt to create music “which expressed people's moods and their drives as well as the sounds, the general hubbub and the sonorous backdrop of our everyday lives, the noises to which we are so closely connected and, although we don't realize it, have probably endeared themselves to us and which we would be hard put to do without.” He refers to this “general hubbub” as “permanent music which carries us along”, as opposed to “the music we ourselves express.” The two go together “to form the specific music which can be considered as a human beings'." [3]

:References:

1. Jorn, Asger. “Détourned Painting.” Translated by Thomas Y. Levin, available at Situationist International Online. Accessed June 15 2011.

2. Dubuffet, Jean. "Art Brut Preferred to the Cultural Arts", 1949 as cited in Krukowski, Jean Dubuffet and the Deculturation of Art, available at jean dubuffet. Accessed June 15 2011.

3. Dubuffet, Jean. “Musical Experiments.” Translated by Matthew Daillie. Available at UbuWeb Sound – Jean Dubuffet. Accessed June 15 2011.