European Free Jazz

69 profiles tagged European Free Jazz, A-Z.

European free jazz developed from the mid-1960s as European musicians, initially inspired by touring American players such as Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, built an independent improvisational tradition of their own, sometimes described locally as a deliberate break from American jazz conventions. It is often more abstract and further removed from blues phrasing and swung rhythm than its American counterpart, and many of its practitioners came to prefer the broader term improvised music over jazz altogether. Key figures include German saxophonist Peter Brotzmann, British saxophonist Evan Parker, and Dutch drummer Han Bennink.