Rabble Without A Cause
Wednesday September 1st, 2010 with Bernard Stepien
America vs Europe, early Free Jazz

Comparing American and European Free Jazz is always a perilous adventure. There are questions: which continent really started it? Europeans claim they did mostly because their classical music collegues were already playing free way back. But the problem is that they were playing among other things American composer Edgar Varese. As many Jazz musician say, the best is to play them and see for yourself what the fuss is all about. Tonight we will see how that works by comparing an early Archie Shepp/Bill Dixon from 1962, Peace to one of German Alexander von Schlippenbach's Enja recordings, Payan from 1972.