L’échantillonnage dans l’improvisation : Rencontre de deux instigateurs du free jazz avec un jeune artiste de la scène noise à New York

Abstract

In this paper we report on an experimental study that brought two free jazz instigators, the drummer Todd Capp and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter, to musically meet Mikey Holmes, a young noise artist in New York in May 2014. Throughout an analysis of the improvisation process of these three musicians, our study addresses both the social and artistic continuity between different improvisation genres and generations. The two improvisation meetings have been filmed and recorded to allow musicians’ self-evaluation. We include two videos in the article to share the musical result of these meetings with the readers. We use musicians’ quotes to shed light on issues ranging from performance and recording time, the use of contextual sounds, transmusicality, free improvisation and the links between music and politics in New York between the late fifties’ jazz giants and today’s improvised music. Thanks to the issues tackled, we show how the subversiveness of a particular music and its resistance to time are related, and we suggest there is a link between the sustainability of musical recordings and their conditions of studio production. Our interdisciplinary approach allows us to confront the art of sampling with improvised performance and to question the social and political aspects included in an improvisation.