Tales (8 Whisps)

Cecil Taylor (piano, bells), Henry Grimes and Alan Silva (bass) and Andrew Cyrille (drums). From the album Unit Structures (1966).

The free jazz appeared in the late 1950s when the musicians began to modify, expand or break the conventions of jazz unsatisfied with the restrictions of bebop, hard bop and modal jazz. The main exponents of this style are Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler, although John Coltrane also played it in his last stage, as did Eric Dolphy, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and Sun Ra. Its most important characteristics are the following: the standards, chord progressions and musical modes are abandoned, giving more importance to improvisation.

Other forms of jazz use regular meters and pronounced pulsed rhythms normally in 4/4 or less often in 3/4; free jazz keeps a general pulse and swings, but without a regular meter, giving an impression of the rhythm flowing in waves, although the metric doesn’t disappear completely. Free jazz refuses bebop and is inspired by previous styles, such as Dixieland with its collective improvisation and African music. It’s usually perfomed in small groups, except in the two masterpieces Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation by Ornette Coleman, in which eight members participated, and Ascension by John Coltrane, in which eleven participated. Finally, musicians use overblowing and other techniques to get unusual sounds from their instruments.

In this tune only the quartet of the rhythm section participates. At first only Taylor and Cerille intervene. Taylor plays broken phrases while Cerille accompanies him in the same manner creating a disturbing climate. Then Taylor offers alone a brief passage and Grimes enters playing the double bass with the bow. Now the speech softens, but all of a sudden the two become frantic and then the calm comes back again. Next Taylor is left alone presenting a continuous melodic line. Afterwards Silva joins in playing with pizzicato and Cerille. Between the three of them they cause chaos, but at some point Silva withdraws leaving Taylor and Cerille involved in total cacophony. At the end Taylor concludes the composition with his last sentences.