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Free Music, Improvisation and the Avant-Garde London 1965 to 1990

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Free Music, Improvisation and the Avant-Garde London 1965 to 1990 NOISES: FREE MUSIC, IMPROVISATION AND THE AVANT-GARDE LONDON 1965 TO 1990. RICHARD PATRICK SCOTT PHD. London School of Economics. UMI Number: U047969 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U047969 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 F 6&ic1 THESIS ABSTRACT A study of free, improvised music in London and its practitioners. The dissertation is divided into a discussion of different conceptions of the avant-garde with particular reference to critical theory and post-modernism, and transcribed interviews with musicians, making up an oral history of free music. It includes material on the historical development of the avant-garde and the histories of jazz and contemporary composition. There are also considerations of the specific problems of music and language and the problem of methodology and elaborations of the musical/cultural concepts of noise, listening and silence, and also the idea of music as a form of prophecy. The theoretical section outlines the pessimistic cultural/musical theory of Theodor W. Adorno and also discusses the work of Renato Poggioli, Peter Burger, Jacques Attali, Ernst Bloch, Mikhail Bakhtin and Roland Barthes, considering ways in which it is possible to go beyond Adorno. It is proposed that the avant-garde be regarded not as an element of elite or institutionalised culture but of contemporary popular culture and that culture be understood as a source of a polyphonic, dialogic diversity. Contra Adorno, jazz is considered as one form which has historically produced an avant garde and a multiplicity of form. The prehistory and path of development of free music are briefly considered an ideal-theoretical model of its character as an avant-garde cultural activity proposed. The open-ended oral histories and discussions with musicians in the extensive appendices help reflect the multiplistic character of the avant-garde and provide many perspectives and discourses which support, conflict, and counterpoint the arguments developed by the author. Two cassette tapes of recorded musical examples are included. 2 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION TO THE THESIS, 6 9. A Note on the Interviews 11. The Structure of the Thesis CHAPTER ONE: THE AVANT-GARDE: HISTORICAL LINES AND CURRENTS 13. Introduction 13. Dada 18. Surrealism 21. Rationality, Modernism and the Avant-Garde in Contemporary Composition 22. Schoenberg's Modernism 23. Stravinsky's Post-Modernism 25. Webern 25. Serialism 1 26. Varese, Cage etc. 29. Serialism 2: Institutionalisation and Disintegration 32. Musique Concrete, Electronic Music 33. The Composer and Improvisation 38. The Avant-Garde in Jazz 45. Black Music, White People 48. May 1968 CHAPTER TWO: FREE MUSIC IN LONDON 1965-1990, 46 CHAPTER THREE: ADORNO AND THE DEATH OF MUSIC 71. Adorno's Typology of Listeners 77. Rationalism, Reification and LukAcs 79. The Frankfurt School 80. Adorno and the Culture Industry 84. The Authoritarian Personality 85. Adorno's Concept of the Avant-Garde 87. Adorno's Philosophy of Music 87. Schoenberg 88. The Concept of Material 90. Stravinsky 93. Serialism 94. ...and The Dialectic of Enlightenment 96. Death of Music 99. Criticism: Adorno and the Art-Institution 100. The Conditions of Music 102. The Institutionalisation of European Concert Music 106. Conclusion 3 CHAPTER FOUR: THEORIES OF THE AVANT-GARDE 107. Poggioli's Theory 113. Burger's Theory 120. Problems with Poggioli 121. Problems with Burger 122. Burger and the Death of the Avant-Garde 123. Burger's Concept of the Avant-Garde 128. Burger's 'Institutionalised' Perspective 130. Burger's Concept of Praxis 131. Towards a Contemporary Avant-Garde Theory: ...Autonomy 133. ...Popular Culture 138. ... Praxis 140. Conclusion CHAPTER FIVE: MUSIC, LISTENING, PROPHECY, NOISE 142. Introduction 142. Listening 146. Listening and Liberation 150. Listening as a Problem 152. Fear of Listening 154. Music as Prophecy 159. Modern Sufi Mysticism 160. Ernst Bloch's Utopia 163. The Avant-Garde: Noise as Prophecy 165. Silence 166. Silence and Repetition 171. Noise 174. Cage and Noise 175. 'Composition' 176. Noise and the Grotesque 179. Conclusion CHAPTER SIX: A THEORY OF FREE MUSIC 180. Introduction. 183. A Theory of Free Music 197. Conclusion FOOTNOTES, 199 APPENDIX ONE: THE INTERVIEWS AND THE THESIS 213. The Problem of Improvisation 216. Musicians 217. The Interviews: Introductions and Conclusions 219. The Interviews and the Thesis 224. Conclusion 4 APPENDIX TWO: METHODOLOGICAL NOTES, 225 233. Life History, Oral History APPENDIX THREE: THE INTERVIEWS, 237 238. John Stevens, drummer/percussionist 254. Evan Parker, saxophonist 271. Paul Rutherford, trombonist 281. Derek Bailey, guitarist 291. Eddie Prevost, drummer/percussionist 305. Keith Rowe, guitarist 307. Maggie Nicols, singer 316. Phil Minton, singer 320. John Russell, guitarist 326. Fred Frith, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist 335. Steve Beresford, pianist/multi-instrumentalist 346. Paul Shearsmith, trumpeter 352. Roberto Bellatalla, bassist 360. Annie Whitehead, trombonist 368. Steve Noble, drummer/percussionist 373. Mick Beck, saxophonist 378. Steve Done, guitarist 383. Rohan de Saram, cellist 395. Roger Sutherland, percussionist/author 404. Marcio Mattos, bassist/cellist 411. Pete McPhail, saxophonist, flautist 416. Francine Luce, singer 423. Phil Wachsmann, violinist 433. Alex Ward, clarinettist, saxophonist, pianist 438. Louis Moholo, drummer. APPENDIX FOUR: THE AUDIO-MATERIAL, 452 BIBLIOGRAPHY, 458 • k ' k ' k l t ' k 5 INTRODUCTION TO THE THESIS 'A tree is a new thing at every instant; we affirm the form because we do not sieze the subtlety of an absolute moment.' (Fredrich Nietzche, quoted Barthes 1976: 61) 'The matters of true philosophical interest at this point in history are those which Hegel, agreeing with tradition, expressed his disinterest. They are non-conceptuality, individuality, and particularity - things which ever since Plato used to be dismissed as transitory and insignificant.' (Theodore W. Adorno 1973: 8) 'Music becomes the superfluous, the unfinished, the relational. It even ceases to be a product separable from its author.' (Jacques Attali: 141) This dissertation has two basic aims, which are, on the face of it, quite straightforward. The first is to provide a general theory of Free music (or free musical improvisation), and the second is to provide a historical account of a specific community or network of musicians who practice that activity, namely those in London between 1965, when the music first emerged, and 1990, the time of writing. These two problems are, for the most part, considered separately and form two distinct parts of what I nevertheless take to be a single piece of research. The theory of free music researched and outlined below is based on the notion that Free music is one part of a critical contemporary avant-garde, whose character can to some extent be described with reference to aspects of the work of Roland Barthes, Mikhail Bakhtin and Jacques Attali. My perspective contradicts Theodore W. Adorno's pessimistic conclusion that critical avant-garde culture, and music, are finished, and that history has defeated them and drained them of any critical power and significance; and also Peter 6 Introduction Burger's more recent argument that the avant-garde is today dead. As my thesis directly contradicts these pessimistic forecasts of culture's health and critical potential I will consider them in some detail. Criticism and appraisal ofAdorno's view is particularly important, as it must form the basis for virtually any contemporary cultural understanding of music's situation, power and worth. Adorno is in all essential respects the Father of the sociology of music, transforming the intuitive recognition of music's fundamental sociality into a brilliantly rich tangle of ideas which has become a central pillar of C.20th European critical social philosophy. Like all Fathers, Adorno must be overcome. We need to find theoretical and musical means which extend far beyond Adorno's, if the liberatory, utopian possibilities of music that he so clearly recognized and elucidated, are ever to come to pass, or rather, if we are to recognize them for what they are. I shall argue that many cultural forms, and free music in particular, contain the critical elements that Adorno felt had deserted culture. In this respect almost every aspect of the following thesis, including the theory of free music in the final chapter, may be regarded as a dialogue with Adorno, and as an attempt to either refute or extend aspects of his work, and to go beyond his suffocating pessimism. To conclude this introduction, just one of these aspects is outlined in the following condensed form. Adorno's kaleidoscopic studies on music, modernism and mass culture traced the rise of a cultural totalitarianism. Following Georg Luk£cs, Max Weber and George Simmel, Adorno described contemporary societies as stifled by an instrumental and rationalistic ethic and aesthetic, homogeneity replacing heterogeneity, identity replacing
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