Freedom at Normals

A recent trip East afforded me the opportunity to play Normal's "Red Room" in Baltimore, a near-perfect room to practice free improvisation, on this occassion in duo w/drummer, Toshi Makihara. Whatever made this room feel so "right" got me to thinking about the nature of free improvisation, in general, and about the necessary confluence of events, in particular, that make a venue conducive to that practice.

Free improvisation, when you get right down to it, is about freedom - what you actually do (or fail to do) when a situation implicitly says "you're free to express your freest self." Despite all the palaver about 'freedom' in this country, precious few opportunities avail themselves to express this option fully; fewer still the people who can mine the opportunity properly; and, fewer still, the people who will allow such liberties to be taken, at their expense.

Freedom is a daunting thing, in fact, frightening, and rules and regulations are necessary parts of maintaining "order" and "structure" for the vast majority of human activities. And music, to the degree that it gives voice to deep human needs, generally mirrors this desire for structure and rules. However, Music (with a capital M) and Freedom (with a capital F) are not restricted in and of themselves, as anyone who explores them freely will discover. It is our limitations, not Theirs, we eventually confront.

Long before this eventuality is met (much less dealt with), limitations are imposed from outside forces. In the music world, this usually takes the form of accepting convention, delivering what potentially sells and what keeps the bar tabs running. Most musicians accept these limitations as givens and work within them - occassionally taking whatever liberties the particular genre may offer, though rarely challenging the game itself. Some have even been known to call this confined zone "real music", confusing their acceptance of 'real-world' limitations with the larger realities that music potentially de-codes.

Things began to change when brave black musicians asserted their freedom in the "free jazz" era, and things really changed when the Europeans (particularly the British) took freedom as a given and started developing languages to explore it fully - when the advent of "non-idiomatic free improvisation" took shape. (These cultural differences help explain why some find free jazz more compelling than free improvisation - lifting the yoke of oppression requires considerably more force than expressing the Void which comes in its aftermath.)

Thirty years (or so) hence, this is still an on-going challenge - to take a stage and explore, with conviction, the numerous possibilities free music offers. Although the musician's responsibility is to disipline the forces of sound, imparting shape and meaning, the audience is nonetheless an integral part in what ultimately turns out to be a two-way street. The musician explores, the audience reacts, and a reciprocal relationship develops - one truly needs the other for the experience to transcend the potential narcissicism or hero worship inherent in a free environment.

Engendering an astute audience willing to embark on this "freedom journey" is no mean feat, but the folks at the Red Room have succeeded remarkably in doing just that. The Red Room is adjacent to a large, rambling co-operative bookstore called Normals (where amongst the books, thousands of vinyl-era LP's are for sale) and consists mainly of chairs and an odd array of clown portraits adorning the red walls. That's about it. It's comfortable and non-threatening, inviting in an un-pretentious way.

The bookstore staff is friendly and has obviously accepted the audience for the Red Room's offerings as "good people". ( I mention this because staff at clubs in Seattle where the off night of "weird music" happens are generally condescending to that audience - one reason , among many, that exploratory, unfettered music doesn't "work" in most clubs, cultural 'good-intentions' notwithstanding.)

Additionally, and significantly, the bookstore doesn't depend on the Red Room's revenue for income; consequently, the "door" goes to the musicians, as it should, and financial concerns don't influence and lessen musical ones.

But, most importantly, the audience has come to expect (and, therefore, implicitly demands) the music to go outside the conventions laid down by bars and the recording industry and has been adequately rewarded for that decision. Any audience willing to explore must have its risk-taking compensated, or else it will necessarily settle for the less adventurous, more 'guaranteed' forms which constitute the norm.

The Red Room presents a broad spectrum of musicians, including some Knitting Factory "stars", but I sense the audience doesn't care so much who you "are", but what you have to offer. A distinct feeling that freedom is there for the taking permeates the room, creating an air of heightened expectations. We're willing, they seem to say, what about you?

It is this atmosphere which free improvisation seeks and to which it offers a clear alternative to the norm. Music can, in this environment, take wings and assert its freedom. It is Music, not the musician, which is free. Whenever a setting lays the groundwork for this occurrence, spontaneous pleasures (the best kind?) and epiphanies (the only kind) can be mutually discovered, and at Normal's Red Room, I can personally attest to this phenomenon. The fact that these settings are rare in no way diminishes their value.