Improvisation long ago exploded beyond the jazz tradition into noise, turntablism, electronic composition and even pop. But as Ken Vandermark pointed out while writing about fellow saxophonist and composer Joe McPhee some years ago, some improvised music lovers have a tendency to dismiss music that isn’t “free enough.”

“Real ‘free jazz’,” Vandermark wrote, “[is] the freedom to pursue the sounds and rhythms that inspire players to improvise with individual vitality and passion, no matter what different kinds of music are represented. It seems that today it’s been lost to the writers, listeners and musicians who would put freedom in a box, saying that it can’t include a consistent beat or singable melody.”

Vandermark’s statement is a fine starting point from which to appreciate the music of the Sonic Liberation Front, and indeed, the strategy behind the Music Gallery’s X Avant Festival, as both band and festival showcase the diversity of avant-garde music.

Based in Philadelphia, the Front combine free-jazz horn riffage with Cuban batá drumming.
“At the root there are three batá drums, which really operate as one instrument” says SLF shepherd Kevin Diehl. “They operate in a different way than most non-Africans would perceive drums as functioning — they function as melodic instruments. Some songs, they just keep time and groove. Other songs we do, the [batá drums] follow a song form. The melody is played on the drums, in concert with voice and chorus. It’s not improvised, they’re song forms. The challenge is developing melodies that fit in the way one of the folk melodies would.”

Like many of today’s cross-cultural improvising musicians, Diehl was infected by the ideas of the early ’80s Manhattan jazz loft scene. Best-known today for mixing with members of the abrasive no-wave movement that spawned bands like Sonic Youth, the ’80s improvisers also consorted with an experimental Latin-jazz scene. Diehl was heavily inspired by conga player/trumpeter Jerry Gonzalez and his cohorts’ experimentation with improvisation within folkloric forms from all around Latin America.

Diehl had an epiphany while participating in a Cuban Santeria ceremony. “I had a realization that on a compositional side, the music of Sunny Murray and Albert Ayler [consists of] folk songs that are avant-garde. In Santeria music, even though it’s very polyrhythmic and groove oriented, there are lots of parts which are really avant-garde. There’s a lot of synergy there.”

Sonic Liberation Front’s discrete electronic elements introduce different textures to the music as well — the occasional drum loop is far from straightforward when it’s being abused by leapfrogging batá drums. Even in the band’s most groove-oriented performances, such as opening up for DC/Kenyan benga band Extra Golden, freedom within tradition — not watered-down jam-funk — reigns supreme. “There is a repertoire involved with Santeria,” says Diehl. “I don’t think we’re throwing Albert Ayler over a groove, we’re throwing him over highly intricate African classical song forms.”

With improvisation blossoming in all kinds of genres outside the jazz tradition, it’s time to turn the page on the notion of “free jazz” or the more convoluted “non-idiomatic improv” as the highest states of spontaneity. Sonic Liberation Front explore the intersections between freedom and rhythm so satisfyingly that Diehl concludes: “You wonder why they’re still perceived to be so diametrically opposed.”

ALSO SPACING OUT AT X AVANT
The Sun Ra Arkestra (Oct 21, Palais Royale) Never mind that they’re amazing players keeping the legacy of otherworldly jazz icon Sun Ra alive. Please check out these ancient warriors so they can keep up on their medical bills and the payments on their house in Philadelphia.

Keith Fullerton Whitman (Oct 23, Church of St. George The Martyr) To listen to Whitman’s electronic improvisation is to cruise through every manifestation of electronic music, from tape loops to rewired electronic toys. The variety of sounds and techniques he employs in his music is astounding.

The AIMToronto Orchestra (Oct 26, Polish Combatants Hall) Celebrate the CD release of their brain-melting performance with Anthony Braxton at last year’s Guelph Jazz Festival. Kyle Brenders, who studied with Braxton, is in the driver’s seat of one of the city’s most vital musical cooperatives.