Reccomend me some avant-garde/free Jazz
 

Going to buy some records tomorrow. I bought Bitches Brew a couple of days ago and want some more music like that. Essentials, please!

If you want more music like Bitches Brew, don't look at free jazz or avant-garde. It has vague elements of them, but it's mostly just early fusion.

But if you do want free jazz:

Cecil Taylor - Unit Structures
Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz
Sun Ra - Space Is The Place (or anything, I guess; it's the only one I have of his)

That's about as essential as it gets. Sonny Sharrock has some good fusion free jazz that's closer to Bitches Brew, but I don't really know him well enough to point out records.

As for good fusion (not easy to come by), a lot of the people that play on Miles' fusion stuff--Herby Hancock, Chick Corea--have stuff of their own that you might like. Also, try Hiromi's Sonic Bloom. Not free jazz at all, but fucking awesome stuff. Here's some of it so you don't get something you don't end up liking. It's kind of different.

Laughing Clowns - maybe not quite avant-garde or free jazz though. They're my favourite band, but their albums are out of print and difficult to find, though you might be able to fing the Cruel But Fair boxset in somewhere like Redeye Records.

God Is My Co-pilot..??
( maybe not so free )

for fusion if you like Bitches brew :
Mahavishnu Orchestra - The inner mounting flame
Nels Cline Singers - The giant pin
Joe McPhee - Nation time

for free jazz,
get first
John Coltrane - Ascension (unsurpassable imo)

some really great classics :
Don Cherry - Eternal rhythm
Eric Dolphy - Out to lunch
Julius Hemphill - Dogon A.D.
Krzysztof Komeda - Astigmatic
Lodon Jazz Composer's Orchestra - Ode
David Murray - Ming
Prince Lasha & Sonny Simmons - Firebirds
Pharoah Sanders - Black unity
Sonny Sharrock - Black woman
Art Ensemble of Chicago - Urban bushmen
Anthony Braxton - Creative orchestra music
Sun Ra - Space is the place
Cecil Taylor - Silent tongues
Ornette Coleman - Free jazz
Tim Berne - Fractured fairy tales
Henry Threadgill - Just the facts and pass the bucket
Peter Brötzmann - Machine gun
John Carter - Castles of Ghana

and some harsher stuff, if you dare :
Jazz Composer's Orchestra - Communications
Dave Burrell - Echo
Alan Silva & the Celestrial Communication Orchestra - Seasons

some more recent but top-notch as well stuff :
Susie Ibarra - Folklorico
Mat Maneri - Sustain
Nicole Mitchell & Black Heart Ensemble - Hope, future and destiny
Matthew Shipp - New orbit
Wadada Leo Smith - Lake Biwa
William Parker - The peach orchard
Bobby Previte - The 23 Constellations of Joan Miró
David S. Ware - Godspelized

When done properly, free jazz is, like, the best thing ever

Ahh yes, Sun Ra, that's one of the one's I was gonna check out. I hear Atlantis is very good, yes?

Yes it is, but more abstract and "out there" than Space is the place

I don't like the way Atlantis was recorded. Sounds like it is really from outer space.
You should definitely start here: John Coltrane - Ascension.

I prefer that kinda music;)

Just buy some Harry Partch. It's not free jazz, but it is essential, avant-garde, and great.

Get some Kaoru Abe.

Looking over everyone's recommendations and the one I'm not seeing that is essential is Albert Ayler - Spiritual Unity

Tod Dockstader - Eight Electronic Pieces

You can find the above also as the soundtrack to Fellini's 'Satyricon'.

The music sounds almost like dub/techno at times.

Probably I got the name of this thread wrong. Is he asking for avantgarde music and free jazz recommendations or just free jazz?

free jazz...check almost any release from these labels:

BYG/Actuel
FMP
Emanem
Silkheart
HatHut
ESP'-Disk

great thread. thanks.

check the other later miles davis cds from the late 60s and early to mid 70s. the funk became much darker and more abstract.

live evil, pangea, big fun.........

Atlantis is amazing, my second favorite album after Bad Moon Rising by anyone. Unlike Moshe, I love the way it was recorded. Perfectly suitable for music about lost continents and sunken worlds.

Space is the Place is incredibly good as well. Parts of it are some of Ra's most accessible space themed music, but there's nothing wrong with that either. June Tyson's vocals are just perfect. This is one of his most lyrical albums. You should really watch the movie as well, which is totally incredible.

Other essential Ra albums: Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy (his most "out" record probably, music like nothing else by nobody else), Heliocentric Worlds (in 3 parts now, all great), My Brother the Wind (in 2 parts), Concert for Comet Kohoutek, Cymbals & Crystal Spears (two separate albums but released on cd by Evidence as "The Lost Albums"), Disco 3000, Astro Black, and on and on and on

The only Ra record I wasn't into was Reflections in Blue which is just straight jazz standards with Ra playing a very digital sounding synth.

Other Free Jazz stuff I love:

John Coltrane - Om (arguably his most out and admittedly a difficult listen even for fans, but worth it), Ascension, Meditations, Inerstellar Space

Alice Coltrane - Lord of Lords, Universal Consciousness, practically everything

Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz, The Shape of Jazz to Come, Forms & Sounds (this one is a mix of free jazz and modern classical composition), At the Golden Circle (Pts. 1 & 2, usually two albums but I think recently packaged together), more (some of his 80s stuff has a fusion influence which you might like if you dug Bitches Brew)

Albert Ayler - Spiritual Unity, Ghosts, At Slugs Saloon, really anything else you find

Since you like Bitches Brew, you should really grab On the Corner by Miles, and the Herbie Hancock album Headhunters. I really like Herbie's '80s electronic funk influence trilogy too Future Shock, Sound System, and Perfect Machine (I've been listening to that one a lot the past few days and my 9 month old son loves dancing to the funky beats).

Live-Evil is fucking amazing. Sivad is probably my favorite Miles track.

Most of the artists mentioned are very unlikely to actually be in stock...

Really?? The artists that have been mentioned so far represent the big name superstars of avant jazz. If your record stores don't carry them, they probably don't have much jazz at all. You can probably find every one of the records mentioned on Amazon then.

Some are better than others, but to be honest it's not a huge difference as long as it's an artist with a reputation. Especially if you can't find the right stuff in stock. I mean, if you find anything by Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, or any of the names here that you can remember, just get a few random records.

And I actually haven't heard Coltrane's Ascension (sorry!), but apparently it's good free jazz, and I'm sure it'll be in stock.

My favorite album by anyone.

I'd say his most radical stuff is the Olatunji concert. Sheer agression.

Note that I don't buy from online stores. (Although I appreciate the effort)

Ok, back. I bought two more by Davis
In a Silent Way
&
Down on the Corner

Those are my two favorite Miles records except for Sketches of Spain. None are considered "Free Jazz", but all good genre stretching records.

In a Silent Way is great. I like it a lot more than On the Corner, but OtC sounds closer to what you're looking for.

Speaking of which, try Dark Magus. It's a live Davis recording (1974), a lot like Bitches Brew, but better in my opinion because it's more thematic and consistent. It's also about as long--which is a good thing, of course, accept that it ups the price. And again, try Evil-Live for sure, but it's rarer.

Start with Free Jayy by Ornette Coleman, work your waz through early Cecil Taylor works, hit on Sun Ra, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis' Second Quintet, and I think you'll find a very listenable form of jazz with a hint of the avant garde.

My personal favorite.

albert ayler-spiritual unity
alexander von schlippenbach-pakistani promade
SME--Challenge
and what everybody else said

mentioning the B Brew, I'd of course recco the Box Set. In a Silent Way is a good fit to the B Brew style as are a couple of Wayne Shorter things, Schizophrenia and Oddyssey of Iska come to mind, also the Johhny McLauglin My Goals Beyond.

check out nels cline-

he balances and sonic youth rock aesthetic with a open free jazz aesthetic. no one like him.......

nels cline singers
-instrumentals
-the giant pin
-draw breath

nels cline trio
-silencer
-chest
-ground
-sad

nels cline/gregg bendian
-interstellar space revisited
coltrane's sax/drums powerhouse redone with guitar and drums

Some great names of the past have been listed already. I'll add Rashied Ali's Duets albums plus his Afro Algonquin album that he made with the Rozie brothers. If you like the soulless Teutonic musical experience, there's von Schlippenbach. And Peter Brötzmann had some really murderous stuff...His Octet's Machine Gun is probably the easiest to recommend to a new curious listener.

Nab that Orange In the Midst of Chaos reissue CD on De Stijl. One of the best reissues of this year!

Of bands/artists that are active at this very moment, check these out...

Evolutionary Jass Band (copious amounts of soulfulness!)
Chad Stockdale (sax assassin from here in Sacto, various groups)
Family Pet (from Maine, scorchin' & freaky)
Little Women (one-sided LP on Gilgongo is ace!)
Weasel Walter Quartet (and other WW groups)
Ettrick (incredibly assaultive bleakness!)
Rust Ionics
Lemon Bear

Most of the Evolutionary Jass Band people play in various projects, and those always sound awfully good to me. The Oregon Artificial Limb Co. and Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! are two such bands. That Bob guy saws some crazy cello. Maybe the single best solo I saw this year was two simultaneous solos by him and Lemon Bear at a semi-impromptu show at Valentine's in Portland. I saw a couple open mics recording...maybe you will all get to hear it someday.

Stockdale was in a band from Sacto that released a 7" and an LP about 3 years back called Antennas Erupt. If you find either of those records, those are brilliant. Free-jazz influenced, but also somewhat compositionally focused.

Another place to find music with this spirit is in the intersection of free/improv music and the broadly-defined psychedelic scene. There's plenty of No Neck hype here, and surely the best 10% of their stuff warrants it. As does Jackie-O Motherfucker's stuff. Overall, those bands are probably far too prolific, though. So, pick from that stuff wisely...get recommendations to corroborate each other. Or, better yet, try some Fushitsusha.

As with a lotta improv music, there's a lotta dreck to wade through, but that effort isn't wasted when you find the magical moments. You gotta listen with patience. It really is a wonder that this music is still finding new fans in an age when most listeners are just clicking downloads and streams one after another, quickly sampling the first few moments before moving on to the next....like skimming a book.

I really dig the second track on In a Silent Way. It's so beautiful.

This may be far-fetched, but Tim Buckley has an album called Lorca that was supposedly recorded during a time when he was listening exclusively to In a Silent Way for a huge period of time. It's a really weird mix of psychedelic-folk-jazz-other(?), with an emphasis on vocals, but I recommend a listen to anyone who likes In a Silent Way. It's similar in a lot of ways.

lot of great free jazz/improv coming out of chicago these days.
Most of the guys play together in groups but look up these titles:
Rempis Percussion Quartet
Festival Quartet
Dragons 76
Vox Arcana
Vandermark 5

All those groups feature either Dave Rempis,Tim Daisy or Ken Vandermark. So basically, search out any stuff done by those guys and you are sure to find high quality new sounds.

Whenever the Community Library label finally gets the new Evolutionary Jass Band cd out, there's going to be a photo I took of them playing at the 2nd Halleluwah fest in the book.

I want to call a band this.