Free Form Jazz and a Relation to Modern Art

Much like modern art, to the naked eye free form jazz might seem like random nonsensical drivel passing as something more than it really is. However, free form jazz holds value that, when given the chance, is one of the most exquisite and human artforms. Ornette’s “The Empty Foxhole” encompasses a lot of the qualities that I feel true good free jazz music holds, mainly: a reliance on personal expression.

In Ornette’s song “Zig Zag”, you can hear an exquisitely pure human composition in the same way a lot of classical music holds. It seems to tell a story. It pushes and pulls at whatever time it feels necessary. The difference between this and random sound is that these pushes and pulls resemble something similar to human nature. In Ornette’s music, this is extremely clear. This is why I think it is a good example when dissecting why free form jazz is good and how to critique it. It holds more value than random sounds because it isn’t random. It has intention, something that people can pick up on if they give it a chance. Pure expression relies very little on form, but the form still exists.

For many people, myself included, Ornette’s music strikes similarity to painters like Lain Andrews. Comparing notes to brushstrokes and instruments to colors, Ornette’s style of jazz can be described as controlled chaos. It may seem that the colors in a Lain Andrews painting are random, but in reality, quite a bit of work was put into the feelings, cultural context, and expression of certain colors in relation to composition. In other words, you wouldn’t know an orange was an orange if it were not painted orange. The same principles apply to music. Free form jazz is extremely taxing because an artist has to account for the feelings and cultural context that certain sounds evoke, while still adhering to the most important aspects of jazz like expression and form. We can see this in some examples of Soviet jazz. This style is distinctive as jazz because a form does exist, however it sounds much different than American free form jazz because the cultural context is extremely different.

The fact of the matter is that although free form jazz might sound formless, it isn’t. And, although it might sound to the untrained ear like nonsense, it isn’t. Free form jazz brings us new and more complex musical compositions to dissect. It is fun to think of all the possible intentions of free form jazz considering the artist because it is so reliant on the artists expression. Both abstract art and free form jazz are criticized for the same reasons, but their popularity and value are the same as well.

The popularity of free form jazz and modern art are because they are so different. They offer their audience expression on a plate. In most musical and artistic genres, critics have to look behind the subject matter to get to emotion and expression. This is not the case with free form jazz, which is why the people who listen to the genre are obsessed with it.