[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

I really hate noodlers' (people who just sort of try to play every note possible without thought.) If you listen to the great jazz musicians, their solos are well thought out. A lot of these free jazz students don't think before they play. If solos are talking, then most free jazz is tourettes' syndrome.

[BluesDuke]

Most free jazzers, but not quite all of them. Albert Ayler was one free jazzer who knew what he was doing, plus if you listened closely enough (especially to his trio recordings) you could hear a root from the old field holler of the blues in there. But even the guys who keep it simple and keep it swinging, if they're playing what they feel and listening to what they're playing, they don't have to think it out. They just feel it out. And it invariably says more when they do. Think of Johnny Hodges, the great alto saxophonist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra - he was as thoughtful a musician as they came, but he knew how to get his brain out of his own way and just feel. So did one of the best improvising accompanists in the Ellington band, trombonist Lawrence Brown. You could set up your group and tell him you're going to play the blues, and he'd lay lines behind you that beat the hell out of most guys' improvised highfalutin' solos - and then, when you handed off to him for a solo, he'd see and raise himself without having to think about it. He played from his damned heart. And that's the way to play the blues...or, really, any improvised music. If you're just looking to shoot the lights out, whether from a chart or improvising, you just shoot yourself in the foot. Which is precisely what killed both free jazz and its bastard offspring fusion...