Jazz In Joint Ownership

The different forms of improvised music - still conveniently collected under the label of jazz - were not, of course, the exclusive property of black musicians at this time. Numerous white musicians also appropriated the heritage of jazz: David Liebman and Richard Beirach, more than anyone else, continued to deepen the heritage of John Coltrane and Bill Evans; Keith Jarrett gave new life to old standards and to the traditional rhythm section in the vein of Bill Evans; Pat Metheny fed his super productions, tinged with pop, Brazilian and country music, with inspirations from Ornette Coleman and Wes Montgomery.

David Liebman

Black producers, from Quincy Jones to Marcus Miller, have had an undeniable impact in the last decade. But another force since the sixties has been the white jazz musicians who have changed the direction of the sound as well, thanks to personalities such as Michael Brecker, David Sanborn and the guitarist Larry Carlton. These name are always mentioned in this context.

Richard Beirach

Studio work has allowed jazz-rock to become open to a variety of other influences. Jazz has profited commercially from such borrowings.

Marcus Miller; as Bass Player...

... and as Producer

The popularity of Latin music represented a dual appeal; it fulfilled a public demand for upbeat music - evocative of sun and health- as well as responding to a youthful audience concerned with making the most of the positive aspects of its racial diversity.

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A Certain Need For Space & ECM Aesthetics

Jazz- rock continued to satisfy the youthful public well into the eighties, despite the fact that admirers, the press and even the musicians wearied of it. At the end of seventies, John McLaughlin and several others returned to the virtues of the acoustic guitar.

John McLaughlin on acoustic guitar

Instrumental stereotypes and the somewhat vain virtuosity of jazz-rock guitar players were specifically called into question. The reaction came from the musicians themselves. An airier tone, a more limpid melody, a lighter orchestral context - these qualities were sought after as musicians listened to their elders: Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall and Bill Evans. But they wanted to mix their own culture - pop songs and country music- in with this. Guitar players John Abercrombie and Pat Metheny found the space their aspirations required at the record label ECM.

Wes Montgomery

ECM Aesthetics

'Editions of Contemporary Music' : the identity crisis of jazz at the time was captured in the very name of this label, which did not even dare to name the music it presented. German Manfred Eicher, a former bassist, established ECM in 1969. He was first noticed for seeking to capture a sound reminiscent of the acoustics of a concert hall rather than that of smoky club. The technical enhancements ECM employed - precision of the stereo sound and reconstitution of the echo, and the crystal-clear renderings of instruments such as the piano, the vibraphone, and the electric and acoustic guitars - displeased old discophiles but responded to what young public concerned with a certain ease in listening (even at the expense of authenticity) was waiting for.

John Abercrombie

  

Pat Metheny

Later generations, disappointed by the crumbling of revolutionary ideologies and the exhaustion of the avant-garde, have focused on defending the environment and reviving the classics. ECM  and the innumerable labels that fell in step with it suggested a new 'ecology' of recording and concert giving. The return to the acoustic piano was magnified by the solo formula, until that point still  fairly exceptional in modern jazz. Solos by Keith Jarret or Paul Bley and duets by Chick Corea with Herbie Hancock or Gary Burton publicized a chamber music. The jazz musicians now became a concert artist, and jazz concert benefited by being listened to as seriously as recitals of classical music.

Paul Bley

Gary Burton

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The Endurance Of Miles Davis

Throughout the sixties Miles Davis was haunted by the short time (1958-9) Bill Evans and John Coltrane were both in his group. Twice he replaced his pianist, first with Wynton Kelly, then with Herbie Hancock, who combined the refinements of Bill Evans and the more vigorous statement of the funk pianist. On the other hand, it took him several years before he found the replacement for John Coltrane in the person of Wayne Shorter.

(L-R) Wynton Kelly, Gene Ramey (bass)

When he did, a new era opened up for Miles Davis, marked by recordings that today are considered to be masterpieces of modern jazz for small groups. Thus, from one year to the next, E.S.P, Miles Smiles, Nefertiti and Miles In The Sky, among others, raised and then answered a series of musical questions. Davis' quintet was, at that time, a truly experimental group - each entrance into the studio would bring new development.

  

Herbie Hancock

Wayne Shorter

In this way, the rhythm section exploited the heritage of Bill Evans trio: Herbie Hancock (piano) was suggestive; Ron Carter (bass) no longer stated the tempo systematically but imposed a powerful sense of pulsation; Tony Williams (drums), sophisticated and daring, freed himself from accompanist's role. he took the Elvin Jones' poly rhythm, gave it air, and diversified it by superimposing figures conceived in binary measures. In session after session, the quintet explored a repertoire dependant on Wayne Shorter's innovative ideas. Shorter, a master improviser, showed Davis a way to widen the range of liberties allowed by modal playing even further. On the stage Davis stayed with a more conventional program, but the risks he took in the studio changed the way the public saw the band.

  

Miles Davis Quintet

Ron Carter

Like the innovations of Charlie Parker twenty years earlier, these measures, ground-breaking at the time, have become the conventions of small-group jazz

Tony Williams

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'A Barroom Piano Player'

This is how Bill Evans was appraised when free jazz exploded. Later, the critics realized that circumspectly and without being the leader of any particular current, he had led as profound a revolution as John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman. Without ever systematizing the contributions of modal jazz (which he helped found), he drew deep inspiration from it. His work as a composer surely borrowed from his charms of the old standards, of which he was very fond; but he lightened their often limited harmonic frames and broadened the field of melodic possibilities.

  

Bill Evans

More significantly, due to the quality of his touch, he inaugurated a new approach to the jazz piano, which, until that point, had primarily been used as a percussion instrument. Bill Evans was not a barroom piano player; he was a concert pianist. His trio (piano, double bass, drums), which he used as a chamber orchestra, broke new ground.

  

Scott LaFaro, Bill Evans, Paul Motian

From 1960 to 1961, Scott LaFaro (bass) and Paul Motian (drums) freed themselves from their role as mere accompanists and became soloist on an equal footing with the piano; the three participated in a triangular conversation. Collective and interactive, improvisation became more than ever a question of mutual listening and finding one's own place while treating the others' with respect. The revolution led by John Coltrane with sound and fury was conducted by Bill Evans' trios with a delicacy that evoked the intimacy of Claude Debussy.

(L-R) Steve Swallow, Walter Perkins, Art Farmer, Jim Hall

  

Thus, along with such contemporaries as Jim Hall, who shared his concerns, Bill Evans left his mark on generations of musicians: on pianist, of course (Keith Jarret, Paul Bley and Chick Corea), but also on drummers (Jack DeJohnette), bass players (Gary Peacock), and saxophone players, trumpet players and bandleaders.

Gary Peacock, Keith Jarret, Jack DeJohnette (2012)

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The Road To Freedom

John Coltrane was the master of modern jazz in the early sixties. He was a leader for angry young black musicians who wanted to re-appropriate their music from the dominant white culture. Against a background of the civil right movement, jazz musicians rejected the aesthetic criteria of mainstream American society and invented something new that would be called free jazz.

John Coltrane

The saxophone player John Coltrane was a calm, reserved, contemplative man, completely absorbed by his music and, even more, by the philosophical and mystical problems he sought to solve through his music. Although annoyed by Coltrane's incessant questions, Miles Davis asked him to join his quintet in 1956. Perhaps he understood that one of the great figures of jazz would emerge from these interrogations. From his first steps with Davis until his death, Coltrane never stopped questioning his art.

(L-R) John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis and Bill Evans; Kind Of Blue Recording Session

With Giant Steps

In 1957, during a stint at the Five Spot in New York City with the Thelonious Monk Quartet, Coltrane was inspired by the unusual piano accompaniments. When Monk would leave the stage, Coltrane would take advantage of this time to explore new harmonic processes during long improvisations.

 In 1958 Coltrane joined Miles Davis' new sextet, which recorded his masterpiece, Kind of Blue, a year later. Coltrane's playing had changed: from this point on he produced absolute torrents to sound. He brought his reflections on chord progressions to an end while recording 'Giant Steps', the ultimate outcome of the harmonic system of bebop, with his quartet. Thereafter he pursued his quest in the direction of modal jazz. In the meantime, even side by side with Miles Davis, he became increasingly alienated, and his long solo flights seemed to come from another universe.

Jimmy Garrison

The Ascension

Artistic Retouched Photo of Coltrane's Dream Quartet

After listening to various musicians, Coltrane put his dream quartet together 1961. With the solid double bassist Jimmy Garrison as pivotal figure, the drummer Elvin Jones developed a poly-rhythm that implied, rather than stated, the tempo; and into this tumultuous undertow McCoy Tyner's piano repeated tireless motifs that lured the soloist into a trance. Tyner's intentional harmonic uncertainties invited Coltrane to multiply the melodic phrases. One mode followed another, mixed, ground down, saturated with notes jostling each other until they overlapped, for a 'multiphonic' effect. Occasionally the tempo even disappeared altogether, diluted in long incantatory recitatives, such as the last section of love supreme.
More and more often, Coltrane preferred to omit the piano and double bass and remain alone with the energy flow transmitted by Elvin Jones.

Pharoah Sanders

Some young members of the avant-garde of free jazz, who worshiped Coltrane, were invited to participate in the recording of the influential album Ascension,and one of them, Pharoah Sanders (tenor sax), began to play with him regularly after that. Soon Coltrane rid himself of McCoy Tyner's piano, which he had begun to see as standing in his way.

Rashied Ali and John Coltrane perform

 Elvin Jones left, too, in reaction to the arrival of the drummer Rashied Ali, whose conceptions of free jazz he did not share. Coltrane died on 17 July 1967, finally having attained the end of his quest for the upper limits of both fame and music. Throngs of musicians of every type remain haunted by the influence of his work to this day.

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Peace Piece

The white face of Bill Evans stands out among the players of hard bop. It was under the fingers of this young pianist that some of the hottest preoccupations of the moment were crystallized.
When, on 15 December 1958, he recorded 'Peace Piece' as an accompanied piano solo, he pushed his taste for spareness to the extreme. In it, he improvised on two endlessly repeated chords for almost seven minutes. Concentrating on such minimalism, he explored the scale corresponding to these chords, but not without taking the liberty to wander off into neighboring scales.

Bill Evans

  In doing so,he drew on the teaching of composer George Russell, whose theories, found in his 'Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization', offered a new approach to jazz musicians: rather than contend with the increasingly elaborate chord changes required by fifties jazz, a modal approach (based on the notes in one scale) offered new simplicity. Modal jazz, often inspired by non-European musical forms, became widespread in the sixties. On the one hand, with modal jazz and the blossoming of a new lyricism harmonic language would be reborn; on the other, it would find its own negation in the upcoming explosion of free jazz.

John Coltrane (L) and George Russell (R)

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