Warm-up Routine and Exercises

 This is something that I've been working on for a long time (about a year) and have finally solidified into solid state.  I have gotten a lot of compliments on this warm-up routine and the exercises included, and from what people tell me, it's been showing in my sound and my playing.  So, feel free to check it out and contact me with any questions you have!

Free Jazz vs. Traditional Jazz

                A topic was recently brought to my attention about the disparities between free jazz (or collectively, freely improvised music in general) and the general listening public.  Mainly, why do I specifically enjoy listening to free jazz and free music?  This topic can be explained and analyzed from a multitude of different viewpoints and mediums, however rather than discuss purely why I like this genre of music, I deduced that it would be more beneficial to discuss the differences and similarities between free jazz and what can be considered traditional jazz or non-free jazz.

                I realize that traditional jazz can be applied to a specific time period in jazz history as well as a specific region, that being the 1920’s and artists like Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, and music coming out of New Orleans (and later Chicago and other northern cities).  However, for this essay traditional jazz will refer to anything in the jazz realm outside of free jazz. 

                One of the things that draws many people to free jazz (including myself) is the idea of almost foregoing any presence of harmonic, rhythmic, or melodic parameters.  This is a very refreshing and interesting topic for one who has listened exclusively to traditional jazz or tonal music in which these parameters are very much present and essential to the music.  However, these parameters are not limited to just traditional jazz as a listener with less experience with free jazz may observe.  In many cases they are much more important in free jazz than in traditional jazz.  Observe from this point of view; since one or all of these parameters (harmony, rhythm, melody) may not be present or may not be predetermined in free jazz, it is up to the group or soloist to create them.  These are what separate music from a car horn (not saying a car horn cannot be musical but often times these three parameters are not present in “found” musical items).  If Ornette Coleman didn’t play in a way that created, or gave the impression of creating these musical restrictions, his music would sound like noise.  The way that Ornette plays lends his music a sense of coherency that is present in all music outside of free jazz.  He creates his own form and harmony within his improvisations and addresses the melodicism of the greatest classical composers from a purely improvisational standpoint. 

                This is my advice to listeners and musicians who criticize free music because it sounds like noise.  If any amount of time is spent listening to free music, it would become increasingly apparent that these musical essentials are present in all free music.  Instead, I urge these listeners and musicians to listen without another peer’s impressions and judgments in mind, a listen with an open mind and a blank palette.    


There will definitely be more to come on this topic at a later date.  Let me know if you have any interesting thoughts about this topic!