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The September 2010 issue of DownBeat highlights bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding, who continues her upward trajectory with a modern chamber music project that combines the spontaneity of improvisation with sophisticated string trio arrangements. Other artists featured in this issue include pianists Danilo Pérez and Billy Childs and guitarist Al Di Meola.
Perhaps the most controversial movement in the history of jazz came with
the advent of free jazz, or "New Thing" as it was later to be called.
While elements of free jazz existed within the structure of the music
for many years, most notably in the "experiments" of such innovators as
Coleman Hawkins, Pee Wee Russell and Lennie Tristano, it wasn't until
the mid to late '50s that it emerged as a bona fide style, coming as it
did from such pioneers as saxophonist Ornette Coleman and pianist Cecil
Taylor.
What these two musicians and others such as John Coltrane, Albert Ayler
and aggregates such as the Sun Ra Arkestra and a group called the
Revolutionary Ensemble did amounted to a variety of changes in the
structure and feel of the music. Among the innovations, when performed
with imagination and great musicianship, was dispensing with chord
progressions, allowing the music to go in any of a number of directions.
Another primary change could be found with rhythm, where "swing" was
either redefined or ignored altogether. In other words, pulse, meter and
groove were not an essential element anymore. Another key ingredient was
atonality, where musical pitch was no longer relegated to the
conventional tonal system. Shrieks, barks, split tones were all part of
this new sonic world.
Free jazz continues to emerge as a viable form of expression, and is
actually less controversial.
