Jazz Composer's Orchestra

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The Jazz Composer's Orchestra was an avant-garde jazz formation founded in New York City in 1965 . Carla Bley and Michael Mantler were key organizers of the group. Its origins lie in the Jazz Composers Guild , an organization founded by Bill Dixon and other musicians.

Jazz Composers Guild

The Jazz Composers Guild was founded as a result of a series of concerts that Bill Dixon organized in 1964 under the title October Revolution in Jazz at the Cellar Cafe on New York's Ninety-Sixth Street. a. with Sun Ra , Archie Shepp , Cecil Taylor , Ornette Coleman , Albert Ayler , Milford Graves and Giuseppi Logan . Concerts and discussion events on the topic of “New Thing” took place there for four days. As a consequence of the series of events, Dixon founded the Guild with other musicians , the aim of which was to create better work and income opportunities for free jazz musicians for musicians and composers ; so "the Guild should take over every kind of contract negotiations for the members, and so the individual musician should no longer be at the mercy of the imponderables and the competitive pressure of the market."

The establishment of a record label was also planned, but this was not realized. Bill Dixon addressed both white and black musicians; Founding members were Dixon Roswell Rudd , Jon Winter , Michael Mantler , Burton Greene , Paul and Carla Bley , Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor and John Tchicai . The Guild's first activities were the recording of a series of four concerts in New York's Judson Hall in December 1964 and weekly loft concerts in the Contemporary Center (in Edith Stephen's dance studio above the Village Vanguard ).

"The Guild soon failed under the strain of the highly individualistic and creative egos" of its members. Allegedly the poor management of the Guild moved Archie Shepp to organize his promotion outside the group. The Guild only existed for about a year; in 1965 Dixon left the association. In fact, there is much evidence that the Guild could not cope with the diversity of its members and their different (due to social and ethnic origin as well as gender ) aesthetic approaches, as Benjamin Piekut has pointed out. Cf. Cecil Taylor, who also mentions racial tensions in the group in his memoirs, said in retrospect:

“That's what the Jazz Composers' Guild was all about. We had hoped to get together and to try to make conditions that were more the way we felt would benefit the musicians and, like, not necessarily the gangsters that we usually have to deal with “.

Among the accomplishments of the Guild was to have established new venues with a new aesthetic.

Jazz Composer's Orchestra

A big band formed by Bley and Mantler and whose first record was recorded from December 1964 initially existed under the name of the Jazz Composers Guild Orchestra . After the Guild collapsed , it operated as the Jazz Composer's Orchestra . In 1966 a non-profit organization was set up, the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association Inc. (JCOA), which on the one hand acted as the record label for the latter's recordings, but on the other hand, as the successor to the Jazz Composers Guild, pursued the goal of commissioning new compositions for the orchestra and present. In addition, the first independent record distributor, New Music Distribution Services, was established .

The soloists Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry , Roswell Rudd, Pharoah Sanders , Larry Coryell and Gato Barbieri played on the double album Communications , released in 1968 . Later recordings with the orchestra presented compositions by Carla Bley ( Escalator over the Hill ), Roswell Rudd, Clifford Thornton , Don Cherry, Leroy Jenkins and Grachan Moncur III .

The formation's last appearance was in 1975.

Discography (selection)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b John S. Davis: Historical Dictionary of Jazz , 2012, p. 186
  2. ↑ B. Piekut: Race, community, and Conflict in the Jazz Composers Guild . In: Jazz Perspectives 3 (2009): 191-231 (PDF).
  3. ↑ Mike Mantler (tp), Roswell Rudd (tb), Perry Robinson (cl), Steve Lacy (ss), Ed Curran , played alongside him at Dixon's appearances from April 9 to 11, 1965 at the Contemporary Center (180 7th Avenue) Robin Kenyatta , Jimmy Lyons (as), Ken McIntyre (as, bcl), Bob Carducci (ts), Fred Pirtle (ts), Kent Carter , Steve Swallow (kb) and Barry Altschul (dr). See Dixonia: A Bio-discography of Bill Dixon, edited by Ben Young, p. 81
  4. ↑ a b Amy C. Beal: Carla Bley , p. 29
  5. ^ Todd S. Jenkins: Free Jazz and Free Improvisation: An Encyclopedia, Volume 1 . 2004, p. 192
  6. ↑ New Thing? Gender and Sexuality in the Jazz Composers Guild American Quarterly 62 (2010): 25-48
  7. ^ Four Jazz Lives - Page 25 2004
  8. ↑ Michael Mantler (entry at MICA)
  9. ↑ Okwui Enwezor , Markus Müller (ed.): ECM - a cultural archeology . Munich, Prestel 2012. ISBN 978-3-7913-5284-8 , pp. 58f.
  10. ^ Mantler Music ; Jazz Composer's Orchestra at Allmusic (English)

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