In this study, I examined musical recordings from the jazz idiom that relate to events or ideas involved in the Civil Rights Movement during the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s. The study focused on the four following musicians' recordings: Charles Mingus, Fables of Faubus; Sonny Rollins, The Freedom Suite; Ornette Coleman, Free Jazz; and John Coltrane, A Love Supreme. The study relies primarily on the aforementioned recordings, critics analysis of those recordings, and events that took place during the Civil Right Movement. The study concludes that these recordings are not only commentary about ideas and events but historically representative of the movement as well.

Woody Shaw is one of the most influential jazz trumpet players of the past fifty years. Despite his importance, very few models exist that contextualize Shaw's improvisatory approach inside modern jazz pedagogy. Writers such as Rex Richardson, Eric O'Donnell, and Gavin Franklin have identified key elements of Shaw's style, and have begun a critical examination of Shaw's music. While extensive, these approaches do not take into consideration the impact free jazz had on Shaw's technique, nor do they provide a model for how to duplicate Shaw's style. This project examines four elements of Shaw's style as seen in three improvised solos on "The Moontrane." These solos are taken from early, middle, and late stages of Shaw's career. By studying scale choice, sequence and the sequential treatment of motifs, pentatonic approaches to harmonic sequence, and atypical rhythmic phrasing, this study is able to show (1) how these elements developed over the totality of Shaw's career, (2) provide a better understanding of Shaw's improvisational style, and (3) provide a basis for implementing these procedures in modern music.

This paper analyzes composer Aaron Cassidy’s 2014-2016 ensemble work The wreck of former boundaries, focusing on Cassidy’s compositional approach to sonically simulating interactive modes and sonic ideals featured prominently in mid-20th century recordings of free jazz artists such as Albert Ayler (Bells [1965]) and John Coltrane (Ascension [1965]). Because these musical conventions can be heard as socio-political simulacra in and of themselves, I argue that Wreck’s sonic simulations dissimulate the anti-hegemonic implications of the sound of free jazz, depicting spontaneous, hetero-original confrontations with socio-political constraint as symbolic and insubstantial. In my conclusion I argue that while an apparitional circulation of free jazz simulacra seems to de-politicize free jazz musical conventions, Wreck can be understood more precisely as critically analyzing the history of revolution. Heard through the interpretive lens of a broader history of hegemonic improvisations that absorb and displace open expressions of political defiance, Wreck appears to pessimistically reimagine free jazz as a novel form of symbolic, musical constraint.

Cette thèse propose une investigation musicologique du troisième album pour Blue Note Records du pianiste étatsunien Herbie Hancock: Inventions and Dimensions (1964). Si, d’une part, l’analyse de cet enregistrement permet d’envisager le processus d’expansion du langage musical qui agite le jazz au début des années 1960, de l’autre, cette entreprise jette un éclairage sur l’évolution de la poétique hancockienne. Négligé par les études sur le jazz, Inventions and Dimensions constitue un véritable manifeste de la pensée musicale du pianiste, dont la production reste jusqu’à aujourd’hui peu étudiée, en dépit de son importance dans le développement du jazz moderne. Ainsi, l’examen de Inventions and Dimensions comble-t-il une lacune musicologique sur la production hancockienne, mais en plus, il invite à réfléchir sur des questions de portée plus large, comme la pertinence des catégories historiographiques de « free jazz » et « jazz modal » et l’impact des traditions musicales afro-caribéennes sur le jazz des années 1960. Afin de situer Inventions and Dimensions dans le processus de transformation du langage jazz des années 1960 et d’évaluer son rôle dans le développement de la poétique hancockienne, la thèse s’appuie sur des transcriptions réalisées par son auteur. Cela impose quelques considérations préliminaires sur la pratique de transcription en jazz, sur sa signification corporelle, et sur les limites intrinsèques de son produit scriptural. Ensuite, la thèse se concentre sur l’analyse structurelle, motivique et rythmique du discours pianistique hancockien dans Inventions and Dimensions, en établissant un dialogue constant avec les autres enregistrements du pianiste de la première moitié des années 1960. Ce faisant, les caractéristiques de la poétique musicale de Hancock peuvent être efficacement illustrées, à la fois dans leur évolution au cours des années 1960 et dans la réalisation particulière qu’elles trouvent dans Inventions and Dimensions. Toutefois, pour encadrer l’album du point de vue historico-musical, il faut aussi en examiner le contenu à la lumière des catégories de « jazz modal » et « free jazz ». Cela amène à souligner le caractère fragmentaire et, par conséquent, problématique de ces enveloppes sémantiques. Inventions and Dimensions exploite aussi des rythmes religieux afro-cubains dont les pérégrinations dévoilent une autre dimension de l’album qui, en plus de traverser les significations musicales et extramusicales associées au « jazz modal » et au « free jazz », façonne autant le langage rythmique hancockien que l’imaginaire musical des années 1960. À l’exemple d’autres enregistrements liminaires de l’époque, Inventions and Dimensions démontre en conclusion comment la variété de langages qui fleurissent au début de la décennie peut être repensée comme le paradigme d’une koinè tournée vers l’affranchissement de canons désormais dépassés. / This dissertation proposes a musicological investigation of Herbie Hancock’s third album for Blue Note Records: Inventions and Dimensions (1964). The analysis of the recording allows us to address how jazz language was transformed in the 1960s, while also shedding light on the evolution of Hancock’s personal style. Inventions and Dimensions represents a true manifesto of Hancock’s early production, which has been overlooked by scholars despite its importance for the development of modern jazz. Thus, this dissertation addresses a gap in musicological scholarship on Hancock’s work and encourages the development of broader reflections on issues such as the use of categories such as “free jazz” and “modal jazz”, and the impact of Afro-Caribbean traditions on jazz in the 1960s. In order to situate Inventions and Dimensions in the process of the transformation of the jazz language in the 1960s and to evaluate its role in the development of Hancock’s style, the dissertation relies on the author’s (my own) transcriptions of the album, introduced by some preliminary considerations about the practice of transcription in jazz, its corporal meaning and its intrinsic limitations as a finished written product. The dissertation then focuses on the structural, motivic and rhythmic analysis of Hancock’s piano improvisations in Inventions and Dimensions, drawing a relationship between the musical content of the album and other Hancock recordings from the early 1960s. This allows us to illustrate how the main features of Hancock’s style developed during the 1960s and how they manifest specifically in Inventions and Dimensions. However, in an effort to frame the album from a historical perspective, the dissertation also examines the musical content of the record through the lenses of the categories of “modal” and “free” jazz, underscoring the fragmentary and problematic nature of such semantic envelopes. Finally, this work traces the routes of the Afro-Cuban religious rhythms incorporated into Inventions and Dimensions to determine how they shape both Hancock’s rhythmic language and the musical imaginary of the 1960s, and how do they permeate the musical and extra-musical meanings associated with “modal” and “free” jazz. In conclusion, Inventions and Dimensions, like other liminal recordings of the period, demonstrates how the diversity of idioms that flourished in the early 1960s should be reconsidered as the paradigm of a koinè that breaks away from outdated standards.

When a new type of jazz, later often referred to as free jazz, entered the Swedish jazz scene at the time when the 1950s became the 1960s, an intense debate occurred within the Swedish jazz community. A debate between those in favor of the new style, its expressions and the direction in which jazz was moving towards in general, versus those who disliked this new development, thought that it was too extreme and was not in line with the traditions of jazz. This essay will bring this debate to light and analyze different aspects of it, with a similar controversy in mind which took place at the time of the arrival of bebop, approximately fifteen years earlier. The primary aim is to integrate free jazz into the Swedish jazz narrative, something that has been neglected in earlier research. Through discourse analysis, contemporary thoughts and values are brought to the surface. In part to better understand how and why these different opinions came to be, but above all, if they were part of other contemporary discussions, strives and struggles within the Swedish jazz community. The findings point towards the fact that free jazz played an important role in both the contemporary Swedish jazz discourse and the development of jazz at large. Free jazz expanded the spectrum of expression within the genre and helped jazz in general to reach a status of high culture, a strive that had existed for a long time.

Founded in 1967, the Amsterdam-based improvising collective the Instant Composers Pool is one of the longest consistently performing groups in improvised music. This thesis forms an ethnography and musicological study of the ICP Orchestra, which originated when the "pool" developed a more coherent line-up around 1980. With a background in experimental music as well as free jazz, their performance practice differs in many respects from the practices of American forms of jazz. Whereas most accounts of improvisation emphasise orality and creative interaction in opposition to the performance of composed music, 'instant composition' defines improvisation precisely in terms of compositional thinking. Moreover, founding member and orchestra leader Misha Mengelberg composed a very diverse repertoire for the group which draws on styles from Duke Ellington to John Cage and uses various forms of compositional and notational techniques to explore the different improvisatory possibilities that they afford, thus blurring the distinction between improvisation and composition both in name and in practice. Apart from a detailed historical and ethnographic description of a group that is central to a genre that has been underrepresented in music-historical research, this thesis investigates the repertoire of the ICP and its use as an opportunity to reconsider the relation between musical text and performance. Drawing on my observations and interviews with the musicians, and connecting these to theories of material culture and science and technology studies, it develops a concept of compositions as animated and animating objects in performance, tools and materials that participate in the creative interactive process of improvised performance rather than textual representations of 'the music itself'. I substantiate this theory with detailed descriptions of ICP performances recorded during fieldwork. This contributes to a rethinking of musical notation and simultaneously brings new insights into improvisation as a creative practice.

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