Matthieu Saladin's Ph.D defense : The Aesthetics of Free Imp

[Jacques Oger]

I am pleased to forward you the message below about the defense of Ph.D in Aesthetics by Matthieu Saladin (at Paris, Sorbonne, 15th june)

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Dear all,
I am glad to inform you that I will defend my Ph.D in Aesthetics, on the 15th June 2010, in Paris (Université Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne). The title of the thesis is:

"The Aesthetics of Free Improvisation. Study of a practice within experimental music at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s in Europe"

Jury composition:
- Jean-Yves Bosseur, Directeur de recherche au CNRS (rapporteur)
- Pierre Albert Castanet, Professeur à l'université de Rouen (rapporteur)
- Olivier Lussac, Professeur à l'université Paul Verlaine - Metz
- Costin Miereanu, Professeur à l'université Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne (directeur de thèse)
- Gérard Pelé, Professeur à l'ENS Louis Lumière

Ph.D defense is on the 15th June 2010 (10 am), Université Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne, 17 rue de la Sorbonne 75005 Paris.

Abstract:
Through the study of the three ensembles AMM, Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Musica Elettronica Viva, this thesis intends to account for the aesthetics of free improvisation at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s in Europe, when this practice emerged within experimental music. The first part of this study provides a portrait of these three groups and of their singular aesthetic, and describes the conditions that brought them to experiment with the radicalization of the improvisational principle in musical creation. By comparing these three ensembles, the second part discusses, on a theoretical level, the essential questions that structure the creative process of improvisation: the relations to freedom and rules, collective creation as well as musical experimentation. The third part concentrates on the relation between the emergence of this practice and its socio-historical context, in order to consider what one could call the “politics” of improvisation, characterised by the democratic a priori that subtends it and the musical emancipation towards which it claims to lead the musicians that engage in it. At the end of this study, we will thus see that the experimentation at work in the practice of free improvisation cannot merely be reduced to abstract musical research, detached from the contingencies of the world, but must be considered as double, answering to a constitutive duality: both musical experimentation and political experimentation.

More informations on my research works : http://www.irma.asso.fr/Matthieu-Saladin

Best regards,
Matthieu Saladin

[jon abbey]

it seems a little odd to leave out Berlin and Brotzmann/Schlippenbach/Schoof, etc, but maybe that's because there wasn't a set group like with the other three. to me, their inclusion would have been more relevant than MEV who may have improvised but were never really improvisers first and foremost, at least as best as I can tell a couple of generations down the road.

[Dan Warburton]

it seems a little odd to leave out Berlin and Brotzmann/Schlippenbach/Schoof, etc, but maybe that's because there wasn't a set group like with the other three.

You've answered your own point there, Jon.
This is a huge tome - 600+ pages, serious footnotes, comprehensive index. A fine piece of work (though I'm only 60 pages in so far).

[jcg]

Any idea if this thesis will be available as a downloadable pdf once it's been defended?

[jon abbey]

You've answered your own point there, Jon.

but not adequately. given the thesis statement as written, the Brötzmann/van Hove/Bennink group would allow one to include not just them, but Machine Gun and the Dutch scene tangentially, and would have been a way better choice for a third group than the MEV, IMO.

[Jacques Oger]

Jon : After having read the introduction (60 pages), I can try to give a very short explanation.
MS wanted to only focus on improvisation not influenced by free jazz.
And he mainly wanted to point out some similarities about concerns between contemporary music (Cage, Cardew, Stockhausen, Tudor) and improvisers.
Jean-Claude : Don't know for the moment if it will be downloadable. Send me a PM.

[jon abbey]

MS wanted to only focus on improvisation not influenced by free jazz.
And he mainly wanted to point out some similarities about concerns between contemporary music (Cage, Cardew, Stockhausen, Tudor) and improvisers.

why isn't that in the thesis statement then, instead of this: "this thesis intends to account for the aesthetics of free improvisation at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s in Europe, when this practice emerged within experimental music. "?

I also don't buy that the SME wasn't influenced by free jazz, Evan Parker came right out of Coltrane.

[Dan Warburton]

Saladin doesn't claim for a moment that the SME wasn't influenced by free jazz, in a 33-page chapter on the subject. Nor does his thesis abstract - which I proofread and helped to translate - make any such claim. You should bear in mind that this is a doctoral thesis submitted to the Sorbonne, not an article in Jazzman.

[jon abbey]

not sure if you're talking to me or Jacques, but I have yet to see a real answer to my point. I hope that Mathieu does a better job defending his thesis than you're doing for him here, Dan.

[Dan Warburton]

not sure if you're talking to me or Jacques, but I have yet to see a real answer to my point. I hope that Mathieu does a better job defending his thesis than you're doing for him here, Dan.

I'm talking to you, and I'm not defending a thesis that I haven't yet read in its entirety (nor am I likely to find the time to do so until the summer holidays). But I have asked Matthieu to reforward me the complete English translation of the passages in question so that I can post it here and we can actually refer to a real document and not somebody else's comments on somebody else's paraphrase.

[Jacques Oger]

MS wanted to only focus on improvisation not influenced by free jazz.
And he mainly wanted to point out some similarities about concerns between contemporary music (Cage, Cardew, Stockhausen, Tudor) and improvisers.

why isn't that in the thesis statement then, instead of this: "this thesis intends to account for the aesthetics of free improvisation at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s in Europe, when this practice emerged within experimental music. "?

I also don't buy that the SME wasn't influenced by free jazz, Evan Parker came right out of Coltrane.

I think that MS is quite clear about that in his introduction.

Of course he also recognizes that SME was influenced by free jazz (as so many improvisers), but he points out that there were other musical directions at work in Stevens' experiments.

I perfectly understand you remark, Jon. I would have made the same. But after having read several chapters of his text, I think it's important to consider the emergence of improv music in a slightly different way : I mean not only through the usual free jazz category.

[William Hutson]

the practice of free improvisation cannot merely be reduced to abstract musical research, detached from the contingencies of the world, but must be considered as double, answering to a constitutive duality: both musical experimentation and political experimentation.

could it be that Brotzmann et al. did not organize around the same radical politics that the other three did? (this is a serious question— i don't know the answer.) It doesn't appear to me that they were excluded because of their jazz influence. but if this document is 600 pages, i'm sure that they're mentioned throughout.

also, the cataloging of every single person involved in a particular art form at a particular moment is more a journalistic project than a scholarly one. in the historical sections of the book, no players of any importance to the music should be ignored. but if saladin cannot work brotzmann into his more theoretical argument, he doesn't owe it to them to force it— unless, of course, they would have made a more fitting case study than MEV for his particular thesis.

[mudd]

definitely agree. an aesthetic assessment is quite different than a history, though i certainly hope that saladin didn't overlook the brotz scene completely.

600 pages, wow. i'm very interested but i can't imagine i'd be able to read all that.

m