Improvisation as liberation: endeavours of resistance in free jazz

Resumen (es)

This investigation seeks to explore connection points between music and societal processes, by linking improvised music to cultural networks and social practices. Exceeding musicological and action-theoretical reflections, the improvisation is regarded from a cultural sociological perspective, which asks how improvisational practices can be integrated into cultural, historical and discursive contexts. Taking free jazz as the scope of the investigation, it is argued that there is a necessity to discuss its characteristic improvisation, in connection to the critical, radical and aesthetical practices of the African-American community. The musical practices of free jazz, therefore, can be seen as social practices, in which a form of resistance is manifested through an intended liberation of the current musical and cultural order. Improvisation processes expressed in free jazz hence reflect an ethnically motivated strategy, in which the ruling system of values is questioned, while simultaneously offering alternative modes of expression.

Resumen (en)

This investigation seeks to explore connection points between music and societal processes, by linking improvised music to cultural networks and social practices. Exceeding musicological and action-theoretical reflections, the improvisation is regarded from a cultural sociological perspective, which asks how improvisational practices can be integrated into cultural, historical and discursive contexts. Taking free jazz as the scope of the investigation, it is argued that there is a necessity to discuss its characteristic improvisation, in connection to the critical, radical and aesthetical practices of the African-American community. The musical practices of free jazz, therefore, can be seen as social practices, in which a form of resistance is manifested through an intended liberation of the current musical and cultural order. Improvisation processes expressed in free jazz hence reflect an ethnically motivated strategy, in which the ruling system of values is questioned, while simultaneously offering alternative modes of expression.

Keywords: Improvisation, free jazz, musical practices, cultural resistance, emancipation.