Well, it's always pretty easy to pick out Evan Parker's soprano, Doyle's flute, and Cecil's piano. They ain't young, of course.

For kidlings, I think Greg Kelley and Bhob Rainey are both pretty recognizable.

Well, I thought much of the point of certain varieties of free improvisation & e.a.i. was to get away from the model of the jazz soloist with the immediately identifiable "personal" sound. Is the problem Derek's trying to talk about _imitativeness_ or _anonymity_?

Revisted Bloodcount's UNWOUND set over the weekend and need to recant my Berne example. He's easily discernable from Chris Speed in this context and has a sound/approach I'd very much call his own.

I like Walt's example of Bhob and Greg, but they arguably reside in an extreme niche with nmpergin. I agree with Nate' (welcome aboard!) appraisal of certain branches of eai and free improv as striving to move beyond the jazz tradition of soloists with singular sounds. But that underlying rubric doesn't stop musicians in these idioms from adopting them anyway. Just reference Derek Bailey or Walt's example of Evan Parker. Both men have sounds/methods that clearly distinguish them from their peers.

Re: 'imitativeness' versus 'anonymity.' Nate, I'm not sure what you mean by the latter. Taking the word at face value do you mean the sense of a musician being unknown or unacknowledged? Imitativeness obviously comes into play in the context of today's jazz (and past jazz for that matter). Critical comparisons run rampant and are often humorously inadequate. For instance: 'Archie Shepp sounds like a free jazz Ben Webster.' Or my favorite, compliments of Gary Giddins: 'If Ornette Coleman were Jim Hall he'd be Joe Morris.'

I guess it just seems to me taht many players like Eric Alexander, Joshua Redman and Wynton Marsalis aren't as concerned with mapping out fresh territory. Admittedly, these guys are accused ad infinitum of robbing the language of their predecessors, but maybe that's because there isn't any new vernaculars to speak. Even musicians supposedly on the other side of the fence, like Ken Vandermark and Assif Tsahar, fall into the rut of emulation.

When we do talk about a signature sound, can we really isolate all the variables that make that sound what it is? In the visual arts, to talk about height and width immediately raises the question of depth, then outline and planar space, then density, and so on. "Sound", to me, is a matter of tone / timbre, of course, but tone to me can also just be an expression of phrasing, which, as you begin to listen to whole musical statements, involves the player's personal sense of cadence, or internal rhythm. I think this certainly applies to Lockjaw, whose playing rewards even the most careful study, as well as Warne Marsh, Gene Ammons, and, always, Clifford Brown, who can be so hard to hear clearly through the echo of all the players he later influenced.

I think younger / contemporary players may seem to appear to be lacking in this department more as a consequence of musical context than anything else. Sure, you do run across players like Javon Jackson who seem to have wholly appropriated another player's "sound" -- Joe Henderson -- intact. Then again, maybe I'd hear him differently if he broke out of modal hard bop and nu-boogaloo forms, which until you wholly master them, will also be deterministic to some degree. The beat goes here, the blues goes there... But there are also players such as Cuong Vu and Scott Colley, who, by virtue of having played very different kinds of music, have had their character and influences as players challenged, and now sound -- at least to me -- like themselves whenever they surprise me with an appearance. From a slightly older generation, Geri Allen, Herb Robertson, and Marty Ehrlich are players of this class as well.

Taking me roundabout to Nate's comment: I don't think there is any escape into anonymity for any player, not even if they are using the most basic sonic materials, such as Toshimaru Nakamura. I would say, however, that, as more musicians understand "improvisation" as a kind of philosophical principle that has informed many, many varieties of human activity -- including a wide array of music from Indian classical to Delta blues to the AACM -- the field of play has enlarged considerably. A musician has much greater sonic space in which to roam and in which to seem to disappear into the act of making sound, but I do think that, because a sound, any sound, bears some evidence of its origins, some trace of identity inevitably marks it. To put it one way: Axel Dorner can now play an entire "solo" on just his trumpet's mouthpiece and still have it sound nothing like a Clark Terry lark, Terry being something of a pioneer of this technique. Derek Bailey, to parse (?) another example -- there's some Tristano School-like about his eschewing a demonstrative or ripe tone, and there are certain qualities you will almost never find in Bailey's playing; something telss me a heavy vibrato would be one thing... And Bailey does also have a quite recognizable phrasing; I think, in fact, it's rather speech-like (double-back on itself that phrases second-guessed and glossed the moment they are uttered), which probably explains why Bailey can be such a fantastic collaborative artist. The end result is that I feel I can tell Bailey apart from a very similar player such as Steve Done if I pay close enough attention.

But I can certainly understand certain musicians NOT wanting me to pay that much attention to persona / personality. there's something of a moral imperative operating here -- we're encouraged to come to the music with as few preconceptions as possible, to access the work with as little mediating between us and the work as experience as possible. (Though I don't think there's contingent upon this the same elevation of "work" that you find in, say, New Criticism.) But I don't think even Jean / Hans Arp, the great automatist, would agree that the ego can ever fully be conquered in the act of making, and I would consider listening to be a complement to the act of creation, perhaps even the completion of the musical creative act. Arp was in pursuit, after all, of the "organic", which, in this case, means to me those contortions and deformations and explosions of a suppressed ego into arresting and even moving multi-dimensional forms.

Interesting post, Joe.

Thanks for the thoughtful notes guys. I should note that while I don't have much interest in Marsalis, (Joshua) Redman or Eric Alexander, they are quite easily identifiable players. When I was listening to radio a lot (we used to have a great jazz radio station, CJRT-FM, which has turned into the ghastly JAZZ-FM) I could usually pick out Marsalis after a few notes. -- For that matter I could certainly pick out Vandermark without much trouble, though my regard for his powers as an improvisor is not terribly high (he usually seems the weak link in any band he's in, as a soloist at least).

Yes, players like Bailey & so forth have identifiable styles; that wasn't quite what I was getting at, perhaps--I was wondering about why as a _listener_ we might so heavily value "personal style" (& thinking about the possibilities of musics that don't place much emphasis on such a valuation--note that word "emphasis", which is a different matter from trying actively to engage in the self-defeating task of actively _erasing_ a personal style). One of the posts above speaks of "context" & this hits the nail on the head for me: a player's personal style/sound is a _factor_ in the musical performance, but so many other factors are present too that are important that I'm not sure why one need focus on just this one. The poet Peter Riley once described improvisation (in an early article on Derek Bailey in _Great Works_) as "the exploration of occasion", which seems about right.

One example: was recently listening to the Vandermark 5's _Airports for Light_. It's an album I quite like on the whole. & as I said I don't think Vandermark's much of an improvisor--on uptempo numbers for instance he has a very stiff, choppy rhythmic sense, & can do little more than punch out small bitten-off phrases. & Tim Daisy's occasional forays into "straight" jazz drumming don't suggest he really is well-versed in the idiom. -- And yet, and yet....I can voice these criticisms while actually thinking that such flaws really matter very little in the end. It's not a great album, of course, but it has a hardbitten collective sound which is more than the sum of its parts. (To make a comparison that of course can't be sustained for a millisecond: does it matter that on _Blues & the Abstract Truth_ Oliver Nelson's playing is comprehensively outclassed by his extraordinary band?)

OK: I think I've made enough vulnerable out-on-a-limb points for one post. Feel free to shoot'em down.

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Nate -- I think that's a very, very, very worthy question. Partly it must be a matter of taste and inclinations. But also, I think that in a music as self-consciously individualistic as jazz, the musicians themselves have placed a high value on the competitive advantage of having a voice. I think immediatedly of Lester Young resisting the Hakins influence early in his career, and of Red Mitchell re-tuning his bass, or Miles jacking into his wah-wah pedal (Miles also played electric organ like no one else, which seems alittle counter-intutive at first). I think too that certain aspects of this individualism are reinforced by African-American cultural values, too.

But that's kind of a simplistic, exoskeletal answer and I only like it so well. Nor does it really speak to my experiences as a listener, other than to hint that I get some pleasure out of being able to recognize a musician within a few notes. And I do enjoy this connection; I like being able to hear that "Aye Guy" is Nat Cole without being told beforehand, I love hearing a (relatively) minor soloist jack-in-the-box out of the Ellington band for a few bars and watching them bounce back and forth between the solo synonymous with their name, and new variations on this thing they've played almost every night for years on end. The question that I need to explore more for myself is what this connection means. Is it personal? Social? Imaginary / imaginative? Aesthetic? A little of all four and then some? Probably the last... As a phenomena, I think of this recognition as a force released in my mind, the activation of which has many consequences.

BTW -- the question I think is very, very worthy above would be:

"... I was wondering about why as a _listener_ we might so heavily value 'personal style'... "

Joe & Nate, thanks for the comments and insight.

I suppose I'm not as confident in my ability to parse out guys like Marsalis, Redman and Alexander in a strict blindfold situation. But that certainly isn't a function of an absence of individuality on their parts. Moreso my shortcomings and unfamiliarity. Context seems key to me too; as does the notion that what constitutes a personalized 'sound' is next to impossible to pin down.

Part of the reason why I have some trouble picking some of these guys out of the pack is that they seem to largely revisit styles and repertoires of the past (the same complaint could easily be lodged against many free jazz folks as well) without moving too far within or beyond them. Why listen to David S. Ware interpret "The Freedom Suite" when you can hear the Rollins original? Because of the expectation that something new will be said. Old bottles, new wine. Sometimes this works (as in Ware's case, I think), oftentimes it doesn't.

As Nate noted, a player's 'sound' is only a small facet of a musical performance. Maybe that's why it's lost importance. Other elements have eclipsed it. I guess I'm simply wondering the reasons behind this possible shift, several of which have been touched on. There was time in jazz when it seemed to be a prominent currency. Bird sounded like Bird. Prez sounded like Prez. Sweets sounded like Sweets. I just don't hear the same degree of singularity in many of today's players. And as Mingus said "If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger, there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats."

I think this "signature sound" thing is a double-edged sword for musicians. So many people seem to want one so desperately, but--if they succeed--after a while, listeners will start to complain about being bored with them for not moving in new directions.

I'm sure a lot of people have felt this about--to give two extreme examples--Evan Parker and Mat Maneri. They're both, literally, incomparable players. But who is desparate to hear new recordings of theirs--unless it's in a new context or with other powerful players who can move them out of their comfortable shoes?

Of course, all their new releases are, on some level, terrific. I mean, they're beautiful and nobody else could make them. But thing is, THEY'VE already made them. So, unless you're a new listener....

Walt -- exactly. As in any other artisitc endeavor, a highly original individual "style" can still become very limiting -- see Jackson Pollack and Wm. S. Burroughs.