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 Hippie Era

In England, the line between jazz and rock was a thin one: both forms verged close to rhythm and blues as well as the blues revival. Various future jazz players and rock stars all received their training in Alexis  Korner's or Graham Bond's groups. 'Progressive rock' and avant-garde jazz ran on parallel tracks at the end of the decade, and such groups as Soft Machine left a mark entire generations of musicians and listeners.

Alexis Korner (standing)

In the United States white rock groups such as Blood, Sweat and Tears and Chicago featured rhythm-and-blues sections.

The Rolling Stones, 1969

  

Many jazz musicians were concerned about the rise of rock. Charles Lloyd, accompanied by Keith Jarrett, for one, was successful in adapting a Coltranian feeling to the melodic ingenuity of the 'folk revival' and Beatles songs - all against the background of a light show. With Cannonball Adderley, in a context oriented more toward the black roots of rhythm and blues, others experimented with the electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes and Leo Fender.

Fender Rhodes Electric Piano

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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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Hard Bop: A Return To Blues And Gospel

Having invaded the market during the first half of the fifties, cool jazz tempted certain black artists with its sophistication and restraint. It spurred the next new wave-hard bop, which featured loud, full-voices instrumental sound and emotional performances. It was opportunity for musicians to return to the root Africans-Americans music, blues and gospel, but it was also their opportunity to renew their ties with black audiences, baffled by the avant-gardist  aspects of modern jazz.

Benny Golson

The craze of rhythm and blues was as its peak, and suddenly everyone was talking about soul. Through this music the black community proudly displayed its cultural and spiritual differences, distinguishing itself from American puritanism by reconciling body and soul, dance and religious trances, sexual ecstasy and mystical heights. soul music of the black churches: it addressed the dancer and spoke of love.

Art Blakey

Blues March

In coming back to the forms of the blues or the spiritual, jazz became 'churchy'. Certain titles were entirely unambiguous: The Sermon, The Preacher, Prayers Meeting. But there was also funk (a word derived from slang allusions to bodily odours). Close to physical pleasures, simple, direct, peremptory and blatantly joyous, hard bop, feeding off both these currents, was the expression of a proud black community, sure of the outcome of its struggles. To be convinced all you have to do is listen to Benny Golson's compositions for Art Blakey - such as 'Blues March', 'Moanin' or 'Along Came Betty' - or Horace Silvers's themes - 'Song for My Father' or 'Nica's Dream'.

The Jazz Messengers

 Endowed with a vital energy, the drummer Art Blakey led the Jazz Messengers, the beacon group of hard bop. Blakey discovered many talents: Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett and dozens of others- and, in effect, conducted their apprenticeships in hard bop.

[left to right] Freddie Hubbard, Curtis Fuller, and Wayne Shorter during Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers' Mosaic Sessions' Englewood Cliffs NJ, October 2 1961 (photo by Francis Wolff)

  The indelible message was about the importance of the rhythm section. In early bop the rhythm section simply stated the chords and maintained the tempo., offering a stimulating contrast to the soloist.
In hard bop, however, its task wash to establish the atmosphere, according to repetitive formulas inspired by gospel and soul music. Rhythmic arrangements provoked dancers into swaying. As in rhythm and blues music, the hard bop beat relied strongly on syncopation in traditional four-beat measures. But even four-beat measures no longer had the exclusivity they had had since the twenties, as the three-part division became more and more frequently used: in fact, it is related to the very definition of swing, the essence of Africa-American music.

Keith Jarret

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