What is Music?

What is music? It is a question that seems, to me, rather rhetorical. Music is...music. It's something with a beat, a rhythm, a sound that gets your toes tapping, or your heart racing, and transports you beyond the realm of reality and natural thought to a place perpetrated by emotions and feelings that are as illusive as trying to catch sunlight. That, is what music is. But, that is just one man's opinion. And while I would like to feel that I have some basis to back it up, from my knowledge of various songs and symphonies, to a moderate history of being taught musical theory, but in reality, I am no more qualified to say what is or isn't art than the next man. It is all something that is subjective...yet it is still fun to debate.

Friday in class, we were introduced to a new form of Jazz. It's called a form, but that in itself is a misnomer. Form would be implying structure, and the very existence of this form is to prove that statement wrong. So while it may be called Free Form Jazz, it should just be called Free Jazz. Or Free. Or cacophony of sound and noise put together to illicit an emotional response synonymous with nails being scraped across a chalkboard. However, I am willing to admit that my judgement of this style is pre-mature, I have not fully explored this medium yet. Up to this point, from what little Free Form Jazz I had heard before Friday, I could have heard the same thing standing in front of a street construction site in New York City while an angry woman yelled in my ear that I was standing in the middle of the sidewalk. And to be perfectly honest, considering the first piece we heard on Friday, I was fully to have to deal with the same experience for the rest of this section.

But I was pleasantly surprised by the piece. It was something that was supposed to invoke an emotion of fear and uncertainty. I enjoyed it more than I expected. Though I feel that part of this was a result of the drum beat underneath, which gave it slightly more structure. I am more excited for next class now, wondering what the next piece will be. Still, it has me wondering what exactly free form jazz is.

From my research, there really seems to be no set definition of Free Form, as it has so many different facets to it. It has been created most notably by musicians Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor. But other Jazz musicians as composed some, such as John Coltrane and Charles Mingus. It is a form that split the jazz community right in two, with the some claiming it was a magnificent break from tradition, while others claiming it was a groundless concept that had no place among what they considered to be 'music.'

Yet, it you cannot refute the impact that Free Form had on the world of music. Here was something so blatantly different, that everyone took notice of it. You were either in, or out. And it was something that  people outside of the Jazz Community noticed. Joseph Campbell, noted author of 'Hero of a Thousand Faces,' is quoted with saying that Orette Coleman was following his bliss. Which is a good example of how this new style was reaching to other mediums of art.

So I suppose consider this blog post to be part 1 of 2, as this next week will shed more light on this style, and I will be following this up, but in the mean time, I will sum up my current opinion on Free Form as of Friday: I don't get it.

Abstract art must serve a purpose. It needs a higher calling other than just trying to be abstract. There must be an ideal, a goal behind it. If it is just created to be radically different without another goal in mind, that it personally does not interest me. It will be interesting to see where this all goes.

Sources:
1) http://www.jazz.com/jazz-blog/2008/2/25/where-did-our-revolution-go-free-jazz-turns-fifty-years-old