COMPOSITION V. FREEDOM: ANARCHY WINS AGAIN
In Burt #11, TBW! was tagged, along with Crappy Nightmareville, as leaders of the Louisville "free jazz" movement (in an Oval record review, natch). TBW!, as always, runs the dual risk of being taken too seriously and not seriously enough at the same time . . . the whole Jazz Posse concept evolved not only from a shared love of 60's free jazz, but from a (rather silly) hip hop joke that had us wearing Utah Jazz gear and adopting the motto "we have as much to do with jazz as Utah" . . . the joke here was pretty clear, or so we thought.

TBW! is not a "free jazz" unit, whatever that means anymore; though the influence is heavy, and there are moments of free jazz purity which spring up quite often in the music, free jazz was a movement, now deceased, with heavy amounts of intentionality and various accoutrements (including 60's black power trappings) that TBW! can't or won't adopt . . . after all, the whole John Sinclair White Panther thing seems shot through with the suburban angst cliché that would be way too easy for folk like us.

TBW! resists definition as a matter of course: what we do is instantly identifiable, but difficult to file under any given banner. "Free jazz" labels a big chunk of what we do, but probably less than "punk rock", and even less than "folk music" (hard to swallow? Well, sorry, that's a whole ‘nother rant). We certainly aren't insulted by the "free jazz" tag: it's just wrong.

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A much more interesting tension underlying all this is the whole freedom v. composition question, which not only fueled out jazz in the 60's, but shows up everywhere in music. Really, what does freedom mean in relation to music, which has, as its basic definition, the ordering of sound? More specifically, what relevance does freedom have to post-everything out bands in the 90's?

Muck through this mess for a while, and the first aspect of the answer rears its head: "freedom" is a problematic term. The primary definition comes from Ornette & free jazz: the "free" player is one who doesn't allow her/himself to be limited by commonly accepted laws of harmony, rhythm, melody, etc. But, post-Ornette, post-Coltrane, post-Cage, it seems to mean both more and less than that . . . more, because the logic of the allowable has exploded beyond the furthest reaches of even Ayler. Less, because the element of the random seeks, a la Cage, to remove the humanity of music altogether (perhaps therein lies the ultimate freedom: the freedom from ordering sound, the freedom from making music). In fact, as Cage has insisted, the common conception of freedom leads to music of habit, or music of the known . . . music which, more often than not, turns into a banal Grateful Dead orgy.

Cage's music, randomness and all, is among the most rigorous of musics: yet, in spite of (or actually because of) this rigor, his music is also among the most challenging to the ear & head. The Grateful Dead, who probably best represent the common conception of freedom, are a soothing tonic for the masses. There is no fundamental conflict with the concept of freedom here, but one is left to ask: what laws are being broken? Was Cage right to abhor improvisation as the exercise of habit?

Today's out players happily employ the accident in their music: the element of the random becomes essential. Yet, quite often, the methods employed are more in tune with the free jazz masters (esp. Ayler & Coltrane) than with the compositional randomization of Cage. In the quest for music which eaches beyond the mundane, the tension gets accelerated into an existential problem: Coltrane sought to reach other worlds by obliterating the ego, and he chose to obliterate the ego by exploding it (in a sense, maximizing it until it became something beyond ego). Cage sought to reach other worlds by obliterating the ego, and the method he chose was simply to erase the ego. Both would say their methods involved maximum amounts of freedom: for Coltrane, there were no rules. For Cage, there were no decisions. Today's players become mired in the contradiction.

Taking as given the idea that the purpose of music is to go beyond what has been said and done, and taking as given that this purpose requires that true violence be done to tradition, where does this leave the contradictory concept of freedom? It is clear that freedom only has meaning in the context of composition, but here there are serious pitfalls . . . .

First, it is far too easy (and uninteresting) to think that composition defines freedom like black defines white. It is not in the contrast, or even the shades of gray, that freedom finds its importance. Here, freedom functions like a condiment, like mustard on a burger. Many try to handle freedom this way, by writing pockets of improvisation into compositions; this really functions not as freedom, but as another compositional gambit.

Neither is it very informative to think of freedom and composition in yin/yang terms. It is (or should be) cliché by now to think that the one contains the all; true though this may be, it's nothing more than a zen dead end, a calming, mapping influence to smooth over the potentially (r)evolutionary power of art.

Think of music as a marshalling of forces: there is a goal, which can be stated as simply as the urge to move beyond. Insofar as a band contains more than one musician, and each musician represents a force (or collection of  forces), a band producing music is a negotiation of forces: some forces will play dominant roles, while others will be subservient to varying degrees, but all forces remain intact no matter what their roles. Composition, then, is a negotiation, an organizing of forces.

But, how should this "organization of forces" function? What principle will dominate, what force will establish the hierarchy? It is here that the models of freedom discussed above stand to challenge the status quo of compositional law and order. Freedom, even misunderstood or "bad faith" freedom, has at its core the will to subvert the traditional models of structure: here, freedom is not a force itself, but an expression or a characteristic of force . . . and while it is still all too easy to make freedom subservient to composition, freedom still stands as a signpost of the will to subvert.

Perhaps we can go a step further. Freedom and composition, as expressions of distinctly different types of forces, exist in tandem; the one defines the other by difference. In many cases, composition is the expression of the dominant force. The key is not necessarily to do away with the ordering forces (is that truly possible?); but, rather, to give the forces of freedom the dominant role.

Here again, the idea of freedom becomes problematic: for if freedom is nothing more than an expression of the will to subvert, then it will always be a reactive force, a force subservient to the active will to organize. The will to subvert can never be dominant, for if it is, then what would there be to subvert? In this case, freedom must be thought of in a different way: it must be thought of not as an expression of force, but as the relationship between forces in exactly the same way that composition is a relation between forces. Composition and freedom become expressions of forces elevated to a hierarchical level. Stripped of any specific connotations, freedom can simply mean "what will happen, will happen". Freedom is the situation that allows some forces to dominate, and others to serve, all in a completely fluid state that allows any force to change according to its will. Now it is composition that becomes the reactive force, since it acts to contain and stabilize the relationships of the forces . . . composition is a reaction to disorder, to accident, to freedom.

What if, in composing, it is understood that all band members may, at any time, choose to change their parts as they see fit? "Anarchy!" screams the traditionalist, and that is true. "Freedom!" cries the musician, and that also is true. But, don't forget, there are still compositions . . . . "Freedom" here is true freedom: to play or not to play. Yet, there are still compositions, negotiations between forces. The important difference is that the compositions do not function as sets of rules, but rather, as options, or agreements subservient to the forces. "Freedom" becomes important because it can shape outcomes in a full range of possible ways, from Ayleresque indulgence to Cageian austerity . . . the framework exists to exploit or ignore, and the decisions are made moment by moment.

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TBW! is just such an anarchist collective. At this point, the band certainly leans more toward Ayler than Cage . . . yet, there is nothing quite so fun as seeing a simple pop song spin out of control like a Cage composition/game. Against that, there is the band's love of shortwaves, a Cage instrument par exellance, which we insist on playing like they are goddamn saxophones. Ayler may be our patron saint, but Cage is our zen uncle, spinning our every thought.

And really, is there that much difference between HPSCHD and various Cecil Taylor improvs? I think not.
[Bill]