See Hear Podcast Episode 92 - Interview with Tom Surgal, director of "Fire Music: The Story of Free Jazz"

Change is difficult. Some embrace it, some resist it. It might seem
obvious, but change is inevitable. Welcome to episode 92 of See
Hear Podcast. Jazz is an art form that never remained stagnant.
Through creativity or financial necessity, post-war jazz moved from
the big swing orchestras to smaller ensembles and bebop became the
dominant form. In the late 50s, some jazz musicians decided that,
as exciting as bebop was, they wanted to take jazz music in a
different direction with band members not having to rely on a
structure – neither rhythmically, melodically, or tonally. Avant
garde jazz had its champions over the years including people like
Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Cecil Taylor,
Carla Bley, Albert Ayler and Sun Ra amongst many others. Bernie and
I speak with drummer and film director Tom Surgal about his great
new documentary “Fire Music: The Story of Free Jazz”. His
documentary tells the story of how this music was developed and
supported over the years. The music had many detractors – music
venue owners, jazz publications, and saddest of all, other jazz
musicians – those who were afraid of the music's evolution. Given
that there appears to be no attempt to put free jazz into its
perspective on film (and we speak about who is possibly responsible
for that). Tom was a fantastic conversationalist and we spoke about
his own performance background, how musicians took on a DIY
attitude when the mainstream rejected them (and probably influenced
punk years later), how free jazz musicians formed collectives,
angry sounding music being full of love, civil rights, and the
music's ongoing legacy. Also, Tom tells a story about Charlie
Parker and Miles Davis that would probably find a happy home on
Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. Our huge thanks to
Tom for being such a wonderful guest and to Lin Culbertson (who
scored the film) for organising the chat. You can go to the website
https://www.firemusic.org/ for all information about screenings and
to keep an eye out for the streaming and physical media release. If
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