Fin.

“Avant Garde” is mostly a creative excercise that is best when performed by highly skilled creative musicians (improvisers) who agree upon a thematic motif–usually (much) less than two bars in length. The musicians then undertake to serialize the motif without regard to diatonic harmony, through and around all twelve tones, degrees of intensity, using multi-intrumentalism by all players, and allowing the percussion to escape the prison of swing, or beat. Although unison sections arrive (sometimes) according to an agreed upon cue, the ’song’ is mostly performed by musicians deploying ideas independent from one anothers’ but these ideas are relevant in their own minds to an adequate expostion of their view of the motif.

This form has a capability to cause the listeners to hear the ‘other’ music: A simplistic despcription of this ‘other’ music is what happens during a parade when two bands are close enough to each other that the music is mixed together and some hearers can then hear a ‘third’ band.

For the best ever avant garde…can’t beat the 1969 “Paris Sessions” by the Art Ensemble Of Chicago. In “Tutenkhamen” you are there when the opening occurs and also while the world trumpets the event !!! “The Spiritual” puts you inside the pre-Civil War agony and life and events as a slave like no visual medium will ever be able to.

The album is out-of-print but pieces of it are available. The high it has given me for 30 years happens every time. It’s hard to find other ears that get past the ‘kids breaking into a music store when no one’s around” analysis, but give it another 20 years.