innovation in improvised music.

[jon abbey]

To be innovative in a fruitful and challenging way is something I admire in any musician, but simply to be told that somebody is innovating tells me nothing about the quality of their music.

sure, of course, I don't think anyone would disagree on this. it's more the flipside, to consistently not be innovative is generally pretty boring, at least to me.

I should also say that when I last heard Keith Rowe I heard nothing that surprised me at all. This is not meant as a value judgment (I'm saying nothing of my evaluation of the gig) but just that I did not notice anything freshly innovative, beyond the huge innovations with which I am already familiar. Perhaps this is because I am not so familiar with his music as, say, with Evan's; but if that is the case does it not imply that all this talk of innovation is actually in reference to small-scale adjustments only perceptible to those with a close interest in a particular region of the music?

not really, the guy has changed his primary instrument 3 times in the last 5 years. extrapolating one gig is often pretty meaningless, dunno what the specifics of the show you saw and your previous exposure to him was.

Perhaps we should remember that "most people" without an interest in this area of music would probably struggle to differentiate Peter Brotzmann and John Butcher, let alone Toshimaru Nakamura and Kevin Drumm.

true, but who cares?

[Hal McGee]

'... the attitudes and precepts associated with the avant-garde have very little in common with those held by most improvisors. There are innovations made, as one would expect, through improvisation, but the desire to stay ahead of the field is not common among improvisors. And as regards method, the improvisor employs the oldest in music-making.'

Derek Bailey, Improvisation (1992), p. 83

Bailey says so many other things on the same page of the book that isolating this short segment does a disservice to any meaningful discussion.

At the risk of veering slightly off topic, I have enjoyed reading many of the discussions here on ihatemusic, but this constant hairsplitting and positioning over the differences between EAI and EFI (and whatever terms) seems fruitless and a bit tiresome. I admire improvised music of all kinds. I have no problem with liking The Topography Of The Lungs, The Music Improvisation Company 1968-1971, buda_rom, Weather Sky, Big Deep, Bart, and Rabbit Run (to mention only a few examples) equally as well and considering all of them to be exciting and thrilling records. For me it is about adventure. But there is adventure of many sorts.

For example, I am starting to take an interest in the work of the Koreans such as Choi Joonyong, Hong Chulki, Jin Sangtae, Ryu Hankil, etc. It seems like they are making fresh sounds that grew out of their interactions with Otomo, Sachiko, and Nakamura. And I am convinced that all of the practitioners of improvised musics we discuss here interact and react to each other. As an artist myself I draw inspiration from Bailey, Nakamura, Rowe, and Lehn as a few examples and that gets all mixed in with 30 years of homemade experimental music-making.

For me innovation is just an added bonus. It is not a requirement for enjoyment.

[mudd]

dismissing a discussion as fruitless does the discussion far more disservice than an interesting quotation with or without context.

m

[jon abbey]

I have no problem with liking The Topography Of The Lungs, The Music Improvisation Company 1968-1971, buda_rom, Weather Sky, Big Deep, Bart, and Rabbit Run (to mention only a few examples) equally as well and considering all of them to be exciting and thrilling records. For me it is about adventure. But there is adventure of many sorts.

sure, that's fine, but you're actually strengthening my point. jazz/improvised music has always been a continuum of sorts, from Buddy Bolden through Duke Ellington through Thelonious Monk through John Coltrane through Parker/Bailey/EFI through current worldwide EAI. the two EFI records you cite above are both more than 30 years old, and there's a reason for that, just like when current articles on Ornette Coleman recommend his work from the sixties over his work from now.

I think one major issue is what you look for in music. Evan Parker is clearly a total master of his instrument, but for me this is actually the problem. it's incredible to watch him the first time, the fifth time, maybe even the tenth time (for those who don't know, I was a massive EP fan in the mid-nineties, I had well over 50 CDs and saw him numerous times live in various situations).

but for me, effortless mastery gets old, and this is one of many reasons I have so much respect for someone like Keith Rowe. in 2004, he had totally mastered his then-current setup, delivering supervisceral, intense, draining, thoroughly satisfying shows seemingly every time out (the two solo sets he did in NYC that year, one with Fennesz at Tonic and one at ErstQuake 1, are what I'm primarily thinking of. on record, this was best documented on EL001, the duo with Beins.)

he was 64 years old, and very easily could have just kept in the same vein for the remainder of his life, pleasing audiences and delivering fantastic music. but he's not constitutionally capable of doing that, much like one of his heroes, Mark Rothko, he needs to keep moving onward. so he jettisoned that setup, got a new guitar, a new shortwave radio, added a laptop and it made his music weaker for a year or two while he grew into it (ErstQuake 2 was a good example of this, three solid but not spectacular sets).

[Damon_Smith]

I heard Evan had to change the synthetic reeds he was using, we really don't know the details of how each musicians changes what they are doing, Keith is still working with a version of a guitar, right?
I am excited about any new Keith Rowe release, and I won't for a second dispute he is pushing things forward but it is still a progression that makes sense from his work with AMM.
I am also still interested in virtuosity, but I think the entire Erst catalog is dependent on different forms of virtuosity.

Another discussion is whether Rothko actually kept innovating - I think his career was far more stagnant than either Rowe or Parker!

[bedouin]

I think what is argued here is not so much the form of the music (jazz derived, classical derived, electronic derived, etc), but its essence.

A genre (movement, or individual) can start with any means and vocabulary to explore/innovate/provoke (the first 5 Ornette recordings, or the first 3 Parker/Lytton duo). There is no domain set a priori, There is no narrative. The music is not telling a story.
Most often than not, the vocabulary (see cases above) evolves into a domain, an art form, (capable of telling a story).
Good or bad, it's irrelevant because art is not where eai is. anti-art? anti-music? well, perhaps, until someone decides to write a manifesto.

EAI kind of stands for Electroacoustic Improvisation, but ideally stands for nothing at all except an area of music that it's come to define.

[Damon_Smith]

In some ways, I am finding EAI even more interesting as it ages, and people start to look at how to continue.
I don't know how "new" we can consider that Malfatti/Filip, but it is for sure one of the most beautiful things I have heard all year, and it might not have been made if pushing forward was the primary idea.

I would also say that EAI might even be more concerned with harmony (obviously in very abstract way), than EFI due to layers that develop and slowly shift. An underlying sense of advanced harmony is the key difference between EAI and noise to my ear.

[jon abbey]

imaoto isn't radically 'new', but to me it's a breakthrough for Radu's music. he's spent 15 or so years working in this superminimal style, but to me this is the first time he's broken out past the 'experimental', artificially constricted stage and into actually making music utilizing this new vocabulary, at least in his improvised work. it's unlike anything in his 35 year body of work, in its sound quality, in its density of sound within the superminimal constricts (a few of the recent b-boims are in similar territory), and with a ideally simpatico collaborator in Klaus.

[RFKorp]

Jon. I do agree with you that Radu Malfatti's recent output is definitely a major breakthrough for him.

But do you really think that someone who hasn't been deeply entrenched in his work would hear the difference between imaoto and an older composition for trombone and sinewaves?

I think there is definitely value to Damon's argument that a substantial amount of this perpetual musical development/evolution happens on a scale that is pretty damn subtle. And what constitutes a major change for one musician can be of radically different scale from what constitutes a major change for another - based on the varying degree of constraints each develops in her/his personal idiom.

[J.F.]

Most improvisors develop, refine, keep their individual vocabulary, develop their distinctive "voice" on the instrument... and often are immediately recogniseable after a few notes - I perceive exactly that as being considered a musician's quality, in EFI.
Evan Parker is a brilliant example for that attitude, I think.

My vague impression is that many EAI-improvisors (and listeners) don't care so much for that kind of long-term "post-jazz authencity". And so probably can change their esthetic route more easily, temporarely focus on small ereas of uncovered ground, innovate.

[jon abbey]

Jon. I do agree with you that Radu Malfatti's recent output is definitely a major breakthrough for him.

But do you really think that someone who hasn't been deeply entrenched in his work would hear the difference between imaoto and an older composition for trombone and sinewaves?

I think there is definitely value to Damon's argument that a substantial amount of this perpetual musical development/evolution happens on a scale that is pretty damn subtle. And what constitutes a major change for one musician can be of radically different scale from what constitutes a major change for another - based on the varying degree of constraints each develops in her/his personal idiom.

sure, Radu's kind of an outlier in the EAI world and not a great example in this discussion as his case is particularly unique. he's spent the last 15+ years staking out and refining a very specific and arguably narrow area of music, and presumably has little to no interest in breaking through those self-imposed boundaries at any point. I think 'imaoto' is fantastic, one of my favorite Erst releases in quite some time, but I have no plans to do another release of his.

[Moon]

If an artist can gave you insight into his own philosophy by changing his output only slightly,
then does it really matter if most 'new' listeners can't perceive the change?

To me, a lot of the enjoyment of experimental music, or EAI in this case, is that it inspires active listening. I can't just leave it on in the background (well, maybe sometimes), I have to learn the artists' expression. For example, to find out what the changes to Rowe's style might be, if that was opaque to me.
Had it been immediately obvious how he has changed then I wouldn't have been inspired by Jon's, for example, comments to pay more attention to what he's up to (if I was unawares of his work).
Or think about why it is so important for him to change, then go read about AMM.

I think this is meant to be a comment on how the innovation in EAI is also connected to a community of people taking an active interest.

[Damon_Smith]

The paradox for me here is that one of the primary focuses of EAI is an exploration of subtletites of sound and the advancements of EFI is happening in very subtle ways.
For example the last few Schlippenbach trios have been different than the others and you can argue that the way EAI has taught us to listen allows us to hear those differences.

BTW, I do think it is a breakthrough for Radu, and as I said it is really fine album - it also rises above all this and is just beautiful like a recent Twombly painting. It doesn't need to be defended.
Jon, don't write off releasing more work by Radu, he is still capable of vital and innovative music. Than Canthor release is really something as well, but I am still working through that one.

[negative potential]

and as for my statement about efi changing, it was very specifically about the genre and not individual musicians.

Except that for those of us who don't regard "EAI" as being a separate "genre" from EFI, then the very existence of the cluster of work being done under the former is in fact the very proof that the latter has been changing. The distinction is about as meaningful to me as saying that Swing and Bop are separate "genres".

Geography might have something to do with this compulsive drive to apply fixed categories to a very fluid reality. To those of us who can see Michael Thieke play a duo with Kai Fagaschinski one week, and then listen to him play in a Charles Mingus tribute band the next week, these Internet discussions start to take on the odd character of a very aggressive and territorial form of stamp collecting.

[mudd]

swing and bop are pretty meaningful distinctions, though. you don't have to use the word genre if you don't want to.

there is not actually a fixed category being applied, only a delineation between styles in an attempt to identify a unifying and essential current flowing through music over the past decade or so. we put labels on it so we can talk about it, not so we can win a prize in the end. the fluidity of reality, to borrow your term, makes the process difficult but more interesting to me.

statements like this, however:

these Internet discussions start to take on the odd character of a very aggressive and territorial form of stamp collecting.

make me suspect you don't share my interest at all. why not stay out of the conversation, then?

m

[Joda]

and as for my statement about efi changing, it was very specifically about the genre and not individual musicians.

Geography might have something to do with this compulsive drive to apply fixed categories to a very fluid reality.

Not to beat a dead horse but, what does this mean? Is there some special fluidity to reality in Berlin that we're not aware of other parts of the world? We're all here on the internet, with our own interests and ideas...I mean, there's folks in Toronto who play jazz and then play another kind music, as I assume there are in a lot of cities. I just don't see how this relates to anything?

[negative potential]

there is not actually a fixed category being applied, only a delineation between styles in an attempt to identify a unifying and essential current flowing through music over the past decade or so.

But for me the unifying and essential current flows through both styles that the terms are supposed to be delineating. Miles Davis worked with Gil Evans worked with Steve Lacy worked with Evan Parker worked with Keith Rowe. I see more of a tradition than any abrupt breaks.

If Keith Rowe's vision is so intensely personal that it prohibits him from working anymore with Evan Parker, more power to him in his pursuit of his vision. Hamid Drake and Wynton Marsalis would also probably never work together either. Doesn't change the fact that they are part of a continuum.

make me suspect you don't share my interest at all. why not stay out of the conversation, then?

If the interest is a serious conversation, then I think somebody should address Damon's point above about Evan Parker changing reeds, which I thought was a really good substantive counter to Jon's emphasis on Rowe changing his set-up. Once we even start to talk about "EAI" in terms of being a "genre", then isn't Rowe just making very minor personal changes within an already codified system? Sort of like how Joe Lovano is a very individual voice in a Jazz context?

[negative potential]

Not to beat a dead horse but, what does this mean? Is there some special fluidity to reality in Berlin that we're not aware of other parts of the world?

Nope, that's not my point at all. My point is that this intent to break things down into two rigidly separate "genres" is something I only ever encounter on this board and related forums (Bagatellen, etc.)

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

Geography might have something to do with this compulsive drive to apply fixed categories to a very fluid reality. To those of us who can see Michael Thieke play a duo with Kai Fagaschinski one week, and then listen to him play in a Charles Mingus tribute band the next week, these Internet discussions...

A musician playing in different bands/combo's that play different styles/genres/whatever doesn't prove the genres/styles/whatever don't exist.

Are styles/genres/whatever a continuum? Of course they are, that's a no brainer. The entire cosmos is a collection of intertwined continua. But a stylistic continuum does have "poles", and it's perfectly valid to use these as shorthand in conversations, because let's face it: there is a very big difference between Topography of the Lungs and Imaoto. There's also a big difference between Drudkh's Microcosmos and Iron Maiden's Powerslave.

And yes, a newbie probably won't hear the difference between Parker's EAE and EAI, just as a newbie doesn't hear the difference between Death Metal and Metalcore, and yet nobody in the metal world argues that these genres don't exists.

True, sometimes it's all hairsplitting, but to me, the overall hairsplitting is done by those that are dennying clear differences between EFI and EAI. The fact that there is blur, mutual influences and overlap doesn't prove a thing about them not existing.

[negative potential]

A musician playing in different bands/combo's that play different styles/genres/whatever doesn't prove the genres/styles/whatever don't exist.

Make up your mind. Either these distinctions are a convenient shorthand for getting a grip on a messy reality, or they "exist".

it's perfectly valid to use these as shorthand in conversations.

Sure, in the sense that if somebody says to me, "recommend me some music that sounds like Cannonball Adderley", I can feel fairly confident in recommending an Art Blakey record, whereas I wouldn't dream of telling them to check out Toshimaru Nakamura (in fact, I wouldn't even dream of telling them to check out Fred Anderson).

On the other hand, if somebody is going to say, "EAI (however defined) is more innovative than EFI because I hear more innovation in Keith Rowe than in Evan Parker", then this is question begging. I mean, I think Greg Osby is a totally distinctive voice on alto saxophone within a Jazz context. Even if we arbitrarily apply some parameters, like "Greg Osby plays in a sort of post-bop style reminiscent of sixties Blue Note recordings", I still feel very confident that I would have no problem distinguishing Greg Osby from Jackie McLean in a blindfold test.

So would I now be justified in claiming that Jazz is just as innovative as either "EFI" or "EAI"? Greg Osby is arguably just as personal a voice as either Evan Parker or Keith Rowe. And certainly has undergone considerable change since his M-Base period.

At this point, these semantic distinctions are then no longer a convenient shorthand for distinguishing stuff that sounds different, but just a pretentious way of saying "I like listening to this guy more than that guy".

And let's not forget, the whole premise of the conversation in this thread turns on Jon's comment in the second post that the major difference between "EFI" and "EAI" is that artists in the latter are consciously trying to stay "ahead of the field". But if that were really the case, then wouldn't they no longer be playing a genre called "EAI"?