Improvisational/Avant Garde

Are any of you good folks aware of the improvisational music scene?

Picked up a recording yesterday that is 100% worthwhile. "The Beat Suite" from composer Steve Lacy. A sort of tribute to the "Beat" poets of the 1950's many of whom Lacy knew personally.

 

Most really decent performers of popular music do a lot of improvisation. I do it myself. Well, maybe I'm not all that good at it, but I try to.

 

listening to quite a bit of avant-folk improv at the moment.
one of my favourite labels producing some extremely good releases in that genre along with some fine albums of experimental psychedelia, drone and field recordings is Foxglove http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxglove.html

 

Lacy goes back decades and has recorded on some two hundred recordings in Italy/France/USA, you name it!

He passed away several months ago and will be missed by many who have listened to his soprano saxophone/improvisations/compositions throughout the years.

He was and forever will be one of the absolute best!

Mainstream popularity I would assume was the last thing he craved yet the guy survived and recorded more music than most any instantly recognizable name "performer" ever will.

One of a kind!

 

try Don Cherry, he recorded a lot more than that!

 

Don Cherry, one of the best! As a matter of fact he recorded on many of the same labels as Lacy over the years.

I'm aware of the guy! The two recordings from the French label BYG in the late 60's are the best.

Ornetter Coleman/Roswell Rudd/Archie Shepp/Derek Bailey. Thats the sort of music I have in mind!

Hey Relayer, who's the guy next to the photo of Don Cherry?

 

listen indian stuff to find real improvisation...there are unbelievable works...

 

Ravi Shankar man! And his daughter's pretty good too.

 

yeah ravi shankar really good; but in the inside of indian tradition there are some crazy works which you never heard...

 

Thats Steve Howe from YES. Best guitar player the world will ever know!

 

Check out "Tabla Beat Science". Man oh man!

Ravi Shankar, Great!

One of my favorites being the recording from several years ago with Phillip Glass and another from before that with symphony orchestra conducted by Andre Previn.

I hear ya Sweet Smoke!

 

Most of my favorite music is either completely improvised or has a very heavy improvisational bent...

European free music: Lê Quan Ninh, Günter Müller, Morphogenesis, AMM, Sven-Åke Johansson, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, etc.
Jazz: Peter Brötzmann, Don Cherry, Circle, Miles Davis 1968-75, lots of '70s ECM stuff (Terje Rypdal, Garbarek, Gateway Trio, et al)
Krautrock/spacerock: Guru Guru, Ash Ra Tempel, Can, Amon Düül II, Escapade, Surface of Eceyon, Bardo Pond
Ambient: Robert Rich, early Tangerine Dream, Terry Riley
RIO: Henry Cow, Univers Zero

I also really dig Stockhausen's aleatory music (a la Aus Den Sieben Tagen), where the composition consists of instructions to the performers. An example is "It", from that cycle:
Think Nothing
wait until it is absolutely still within you
when you have attained this
begin to play
as soon as you start to think, stop
and try to reattain
the state of Non-Thinking
then continue playing

 

"tabla beat science" is really good!!
and gnombient very nice work...it's good to see sb knows the "music"...

 

It is good that quality music is recognized. Christ I feel as if I'm part of an underground subculture.

The mainstream offerings that recieve so much attention (In my opinion) 99% of the time is nothing more than mindless garbage geared towards people who are being dumbed down by it all.

Several weeks ago at a museum in Tampa Florida Han Bennink performed. I was going to go but didn't have the time.

Yeah, I read you guys and agree with your musical preferences.

"Low Life" (Peter Brotzmann/Bill Laswell) is another exceptional recording!

 

just listen to the blood music!

 

Speaking of blood music, a personal favorite of mine would be the soundtrack recording from the film "Maniac" (1979) by composer Jay Chattaway.


I have been listening to the music for a long long time.

With so much garbage and trash popularized by the mainstream here in the USA to hear something so exceptional that it sails above all the lesser offerings so common in this country is truly a worthy experience.

The American music industry for the most part is nothing more than a con game perpertrated by sheisters seeking their 10%.

Hey look, unless you have been here and understand the adverse consequences of having junk and more junk piled in your face everywhere a person turns you cannot realize the mind numbing effect such American made ignorance can sometimes have on a persons sensibilities.

I don't know how it is in your country my friend but believe me, in the USA freedom of speech is not what the propagandists would have people believe it to be.

 

most of people know how USA and Europe (which means WEST!) popularize bad things...But this strategy cover everywhere...in turkey the stiuation is the worst...but there are some clever men over here...this means there is a hope....

 

In cities such as Los Angeles/New York/San Francisco a person can locate films and music of a higher quality. Music stores in major cities are more likely to stock a wider variety than music stores middle America. Not just common everyday big label junk.

A good number of theatres in Los Angeles specialize in showing films that would never play in middle America.

Most cities in the USA have the standard same old same old going on. The mega millions blockbuster movies that more often than not are not worth the time of those of us who think beyond common dumbness.

Thanks to the internet people are able to reach beyond their circumstances. I purchase recordings from time to time from places in LA, NY and Chicago that I would never find in the part of Florida where I'm located at present.

I mean, it amazes me to think I'm communicating with a person in Istanbul with the simple touch of a keyboard!

So how goes it in your country?

 

me too my friend...it's very good to talk somebody from miles away....
istanbul is a strange place...half european and half asian...there are many different social groups...but "generally" you can see a little USA or a center European country in here...one step you'll hear a traditional turkish folk song; one step after you'll hear a traditional turkish folk song with techno rhtyhms and another step you'll hear britney, beyonce or something like that (esp. youth prefer second and third one; older ones choose first). as i said that; istanbul is a strange place...

 

Unfortunately my town is very much like what you described-- theaters and cd shops peddling safe, easily-digestible pabulum. I'm lucky to live fairly close to San Francisco and can get over there to check out art exhibits, concerts, record/cd shops, etc. I find that most of the recordings I buy nowadays are through Ebay or various online retailers:
http://www.squidco.com
http://www.forcedexposure.com
http://www.epitonic.com (lots of nice downloads here, too)
http://www.gemm.com
and others...

Here are a couple of my favorite improv sites on the web:
http://freejazz.org
http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi/
http://www.bayimproviser.com