I always feel that the free improvisation has to have shadow of the structure in certain extent.
The freedom does not exist by itself in the first place.
It always carries the shadow of structures. The structure can come from
the form of the tune, the harmony, rhythm or even certain style could be a part of structure.
Then we go beyond all those structure to get free.
The funny thing is that we can feel total freedom with being deep within the structure
as well. So, in a way, the freedom and the structure co-exist, or maybe it is the same thing.
Last year, I was asked to do a classical piece during a trio concert. I am a Jazz pianist who loves classical
musica and in no way I am a classical pianist. So, I chose to improvise over a Bach piece.
Then, the strange thing happened that I was in total ease playing free improvisation over Bach, much more so than when
I play a Jazz tune.
After the concert, I realized that normally when I try to play Jazz tune freely, I start with the structure then try to go beyond
by breaking some of the structure, however when I improvised over Bach, since i had no intension of playing Bach music,
I started with Free Improvisation and musically touching a sporadic shadow of the structure that Bach created.
I do not imply that the music of Bach is sporadic. It is amazingly concrete and complete. Since the classical pieces are
not written based on the simple repetition as in Jazz Standard Tunes, when I improvised
over the classical pieces the way I touched the shadow of the Bach naturally becomes sporadic and
to me that gave a perfect balance for the free improvisation. This, too me, was totally a new dimension.
Then came the idea of the new solo album, “Dimensions”.
The whole idea was that not to play any of those classical pieces but start with total freedom and use the shadow of
the structure from the tune as a guide to sail through the music.
And I did enjoy playing through those free music.
I hope you can share some of my feeling as well.