ï~~Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2009), Montreal, Canada
August 16-21, 2009
ELECTROACOUSTIC, CREATIVE, AND JAZZ: MUSICIANS NEGOTIATING
BOUNDARIES
Robert J. Gluck
Department of Music, University at Albany
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Throughout its history, electroacoustic music has viewed
itself as distinct from what are perceived as popular
musical forms. This is problematic because a parallel
experimental musical universe has existed within jazz and
other African-American musical traditions. This
presentation explores collaborations between
electroacoustic and jazz musicians during the 1960s and
early 1970s, through the lens of the personal experiences
of members of Herbie Hancock's "Mwandishi" band, and
of electroacoustic musicians including Richard Teitelbaum
and Gordon Mumma. The discussion interrelates racial
and musical segregation, and argues for the inclusion of
jazz and "creative music" forms within the domain of
electroacoustic music.
1. INTRODUCTION
The history of electroacoustic music is often described as
an offspring of Euro-American Art music. The present
author's previous writings have sought to recast this
history in a more international, culturally specific manner.
Within the United States, one consequence of the
conventionally drawn line of descent is the separation of
electronic music from other experimentalist traditions,
particularly African-American. George Lewis (Lewis
1996) has observed that electronic music in fact evolved in
parallel with, and at times has been informed by AfricanAmerican musical traditions, jazz in particular. This
should not be surprising since jazz, an inherently
improvisational art form, has historically provided fertile
ground for exploration in response to new social, political
and musical ideas.
I use the term "jazz" advisedly because some have
viewed it as a means of limiting and segregating black
musicians from the breadth of the fullness of all musical
practices. I use it here for its usefulness as a concise term,
albeit with some caution. This paper explores examples
where musicians have crossed boundaries and engaged in
collaborations between the jazz world and electronic
music.
2. ELECTROACOUSTIC MUSIC IN JAZZ
The free jazz, aka creative music aesthetic of the 1960s
and 1970s in particular reflected great openness to new
musical ideas, while remaining grounded in earlier
traditions. That movement "... reflected an AfricanAmerican tendency to enrich artistic expression with the
sonic textures of everyday life... [in this case] through the
arcane language of modernist concert music...In short,
free jazz had achieved a tenuous balance between black
vernacularism and radical change." (Radano, 1994)
Especially worthy of note in this regard is the work of the
Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
(AACM) in Chicago and, after 1980, New York, and most
relevant to a discussion of connections between jazz and
electronic music, pianist and multi-instrumentalist Muhal
Richard Abrams, saxophonist Anthony Braxton, violinist
Leroy Jenkins, and trombonist George Lewis (Lewis 1996,
2002, 2008). Other musicians with related sensibilities
have included Marion Brown, Oliver Lake, Joe McPhee,
and Don Cherry.
All of these people, with the addition of Herbie
Hancock, whose early 1970s "Mwandishi" sextet defies
Hancock's popular image as a more mainstream jazz
musician, have engaged in collaborations with electronic
musicians: Braxton with Richard Teitelbaum, David
Rosenboom, Gordon Mumma and, in the context of MEV,
the anarchic, collectivist live electronic ensemble Music
Electtronica Viva, Alvin Curran; Leroy Jenkins with
Richard Teitelbaum and Joel Chadabe; George Lewis with
Richard Teitelbaum and others; Marion Brown with Elliot
Schwartz; Don Cherry with Jon Appleton; Steve Lacy with
MEV; Joe McPhee with John Snyder and later, Pauline
Oliveros; Oliver Lake with Ivan Pequeno; and Herbie
Hancock with Patrick Gleeson. George Lewis (Lewis
2000) and Muhal Richard Abrams engaged their own
electronics within their work. Teitelbaum has also
collaborated with AACM trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith
and saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, as well as a number of
important jazz musicians including Andrew Cyrille, Lee
Konitz, Joe McPhee, Marilyn Crispell, and Jimmy
Garrison.
The incorporation of electronics in jazz, in the form of
electric or electronic instruments, actually predates the
AACM. Pianist Sun Ra, whose creative work in Chicago
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