Pitch-Class Transformation in Free Jazz

Steven Block

Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 12, No. 2. (Autumn, 1990), pp. 181-202.

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Pitch-Class Transformation in Free Jazz
Steven Block
Free jazz originated with performances at the Five Spot
Cafe by Cecil Taylor in 1957 and by Ornette Coleman in 1959,
both of whom were then in the early stages of their careers.'
Taylor, Coleman, and John Coltrane helped to forge a new era
in jazz, characterized by the introduction of harmonic, rhyth-
mic, and timbral freedoms that affected the nature of jazz in a
manner analogous to the great changes in Western concert mu-
sic at the turn of the twentieth century. But while concert music
of the formative first quarter of the twentieth century has re-
ceived considerable analytical attention, particularly with re-
spect to pitch and compositional design, hardly any analyses of
free jazz compositions have attempted to go beyond merely de-
scriptive ~ o m m e n t a r y . ~
The term "free jazz" comes from Coleman's landmark al-
bum of the same title, issued in 1960. In this work, which fea-
tures the realization of Coleman's ideas about freedom in music
to their fullest extent, two quartets perform a 36-minute im-
provisation using nontonal material without the benefit of a
fixed meter or fixed entries of the ensemble. One can hear this
'Ronald M. Radano, "The Jazz Avant-Garde and the Jazz Community:
Action and Reaction," Annual Review of Jazz Studies 3 (1985), 72.
=GuntherSchuller, who sponsored Coleman's work for a time, is the author
of A Collechon of the Compositions of Ornette Coleman (New York: MJQ Mu-
sic, 1961). which contains transcriptions of and commentaries on Coleman's
music. Ekkehard Jost's Free Jazz (Vienna: Universal. 1974) must be regarded
as the primary work on the subject; ~t consists mostly of commentary on the
music of several artists but also includes a few transcnptions.
music as both a reaction to and an extension of be-bop. The
principal differences between free jazz and be-bop are: (1) the
elevation of the rhythm section from its formerly subsidiary
role to a status equal to that of the melodic instruments; (2) im-
provisations that are no longer based upon chord changes; and
(3) a harmonic language that does not necessarily incorporate
"jazz tonality." The idea of "playing outside7'-that is, of not
basing an improvisation upon chord changes-is the primary
distinction between free jazz and tonal jazz.3
Analysis of free jazz compositions by Coleman, Coltrane,
Taylor, and the younger composer Anthony Braxton-
compositions that are wholly different in style and tonal
emphases-shows that pitch organization in free jazz can be
very sophisticated; even ostensibly tonal compositions in this
style cannot be adequately understood simply by reference to
the harmonic underpinnings of the more tonal sections or to
some surface-generative process of motivic invention. As in the
analysis of early twentieth-century music, set-theoretical tools
prove to be very useful in the analysis of free jazz.
Taylor's music has been labeled atonal by many of his peers.
This label may be appropriate to Taylor's compositional de-
signs, which are often at least superficially similar to those of
Bartok and Stravinsky, but it is misleading in its implication
31t should be understood that functional tonality used in jazz by the be-bop
era had evolved to incorporate implications (both in voice-leading and in root
progression) that were different from those of the common-practice period in
Western music.
182 Music Theory Spectrum
that Taylor's music is not really jazz and in its implication that
Taylor's music has no tonal references. In an article published
in 1965, Taylor describes his music as "constructionistic,"
meaning "based on the conscious working-out of a given mate-
rial. "4 The working-out of material is an additive or subtractive
process in which motives or pitch material are not only reinter-
preted and reworked but also altered slightly from phrase to
phrase in a chain of progression that may span a long period of
time. The final material may not, therefore, necessarily be un-
derstood as related to the original except in the sense that it lies
at the opposite end of a musical process.
An excerpt from Taylor's Air above Mountains (1976) illus-
trates the additive surface transformation that is typical of Tay-
lor's improvisations (see Ex. la).5 The passage has been di-
vided into the three primary gestures which alternate in the
music, each of which represents a different musical lexicon.
The first gesture is chromatic, the second whole tone, and the
third diatonic in that it is the 3-9[0,2,7] trichord arranged as as-
cending fifths.
For the most part, each gesture is distinct and each one, as it
is sounded, is permuted or reiterated in different ways. The first
chromatic gesture remains consistent throughout the music and
almost always occurs as the tetrachord C#-D-D#-E.The Cb
which is added briefly in the opening statement and more
prominently in the third statement (second system) expands
this tetrachord to a chromatic pentachord. The third, diatonic
gesture is always heard as ascending fifths from C#. The second
gesture is the most flexible in that it is first heard as a 3-8[0,2,6]
trichord, D-E-Bb , and is always scored as a whole tone plus a
tritone, even when it appears as a subset of later gestures. In the
second statement of this motive (labeled 2a) this becomes a
4Tom Darter, "Piano Giants of Jazz: Cecil Taylor," Contemporary Key-
board (May 1981), 56.
SThetranscription in Example l a appeared originally in Darter. "Piano Gi-
ants of Jazz," 57. The transcribed passage begins about 4'30 into Side 1 of Air
above Mountains (Buildings Within) (Inner City IC-3021).
four-note whole-tone collection, 4-25[0,2,6,8], arranged as two
tritones surrounding a major second. In m. 3, gesture 2a is re-
peated and further extended into the whole-tone pentachord
(2b). Thus, both whole-tone and chromatic gestures are addi-
tively developed as pc collections.
The relationship between these gestures, however, is more
complex than a threefold alternation and variation scheme.
There is a strong sense of a tonic D since it is the one pitch, in
the first gesture, to which the music constantly returns and since
in gesture 2, which is heard in several registers, D is always in
the lowest octave. The third gesture features the lowest note of
the passage, C # , scored in three octaves and always resolved to
D in each of these registers by the music that follows. The final
notes of the passage are clearly cadential; each gesture has a
cadential formula built into it as well (Ex. lb).
One hears an interpenetration of these collections most
clearly in m. 6, where the gesture of ascending perfect fifths is
briefly transformed (G# mapped into A) into a transposition of
gesture 2. This first appearance of the diatonic gesture con-
cludes with an enunciation of the interval C#-D#(leading tone
and enharmonically respelled b2, respectively) in three regis-
ters. When this gesture is repeated in m. 6 and C# and D # are
paired once more, an Ab, joins them to form a 3-8 whole-tone
trichord one semitone lower than the 3-8 of gesture 2. The dia-
tonic gesture has therefore been transformed into a whole-tone
gesture. One can thus make a case for the most important map-
pings of this passage being the chromatic trichord C#-D-D#,
the diatonic trichord C # - D # - G # ,and the whole-tone trichord
C # - D # - A(see Ex. lc). The relationship between the chromatic
and diatonic trichord here is the T6MI r e l a t i ~ n s h i pThe
. ~ rela-
6Thishas already been shown to have importance in tonal jazz since it maps
a chromatic circle to the circle of fifths and underlies a particularly important
relationship for chord progression in tonal jazz, the tritone substitution. See
Robert Morris. review of John Rahn, Basic Atonal Theory, Music Theory
Spectrum 4 (1982), 152-154: Henry J. Martin, "Jazz Harmony" (Ph.D. disser-
tation. Princeton University, 1980).
 Transformation in Free Jazz 183

Example la. Gestural analysis of an excerpt from Cecil Taylor's

Air above Mountains (Buildings Within). Transcription by Jim
Aikin

Acc~dentalsapply only to the note they precede. (2) 3-8 (1)

184 Music Theory Spectrum
Example l b . Cadential patterns within the gestures of Example
la
Example lc. Mapping of the important trichords from Example
la
tionship between the other two trichords, though, is undefined.
From trichord to trichord, the leading tone and !!b remain in-
variant. It is Dh , the tonic, which can be perceived as mapping
into 4 in moving to the whole-tone trichord and mapping into
#i when the circle of fifths dyad is enunciated. The transforma-
tion is still tonally suggestive, especially in its relation to the
blues.
The passage taken from Air above Mountains shows imme-
diate relationships between differing chord forms in different
languages. Taylor's composition "Tales (8 Whisps)" (1966),
provides an opportunity to study a more sophisticated transfor-
mation over a longer span of time. Here the transformation is
similar to a type that often occurs in Bartbk, in which a passage
previously octatonic is reshaped in the diatonic yet remains rec-
ognizable. In "Tales," an eight-movement work for seven play-
ers, the outer sections are clearly related on the surface by in-
strumentation, texture, and gesture.
The opening measures of "Tales" are shown in Example 2a.
O n one level, this passage is a florid elaboration of an Eb blues
scale with the important notes clearly emphasized. First, the bg
and h3 are emphasized in mm. 1-2, followed by the dominant
which then twice arpeggiates up to the tonic in m. 3 of the ex-
ample. The next pitches to occur are 4 and #i in mm. 4-5; this
phrase ends with the leading tone. The motion from leading
tone to tonic is picked up again in mm. 8-9. As in the previous
Taylor excerpt, the development of material here follows an
additive course.
Despite these tonal emphases, the basis of "chord" changes
to come are evident from a tetrachordal segmentation of the
primary gestures of the opening (Ex. 2b). In this mostly chro-
matic environment, the segmentation of these tetrachords fol-
lows a general pattern whereby semitone dyads and, more
rarely, whole-tone dyads are arranged around some inner in-
terval to form a larger pitch grouping.
At the end of the composition, the gestures are not distinctly
or overtly related to those of the opening because the connec-
tions can only be understood as parts of a developmental proc-
ess. Example 3a shows the conclusion of "Tales" with some
pitch-class and gestural analysis. The first gesture, in all its vari-
ations, is a diatonic 5-20[0,1,5,6,8] pentachord; gesture 2 is a
more general category used for extended "chromatic" ges-
tures; gesture 3 is octatonic; gesture 4 is made up of the Z -
related 6-Z6[0,1,2,5,6,7] and 6-Z38[0,1,2,3,7,8] hexachords;
and gesture 5 represents the cluster passages, both whole-tone
and chromatic, at the conclusion. Using this labeling, one can
follow some of the simultaneously unfolding processes. The
 Transformation in Free Jazz 185

Example 2a. Opening measures of Cecil Taylor's "Tales (8 Whisps)." Transcription by the author from
Unit Structures (Blue Note BST-84237)

Piano

Drum Set

Drum Set u
->
u w
,-. I
I Y - I
- I
I
I
RI I
I1

(may be a fist cluster)

poco accel. > > > >

Piano

Drum Set
1 I ".
- Y t
1
I
La.\
\ I I i:
A
idJl;i r
re - r u g
".r e
>
m ~
LI
-a I

1' 1 ,
' drummer only: b = 264
'

Piano

D N Set
~
186 Music Theory Spectrum
Example 2b. Tetrachordal segmentation of opening measures of "Tales"
ideas of additive and subtractive variation are present, but they
are not always on the level of the musical surface. Here it is
pitch-class metamorphoses which control the structure. Several
pairs of sets, for instance, are related by T2. These sets are out-
lined in gestures 2 and 2a (7-5[0,1,2,3,5,6,7] chromatic sets),
both in m. 2; in gesture 2b (the abstract complement of 7-5) in
m. 7 and in the included pentachord in 2a; in gesture 4 (the 6-26
hexachord) in m. 4 and in gesture 4' in m. 16; and ;q gesture 4a
(6-238) in m. 5 and in 4b in m. 8. Another T2 relation, not
shown in the score, exists between the 6-238 hexachord in 4c
and the 6-238 hexachord outlined in the upper register notes of
the first measure of this transcription.
There are more subtle ways in which these gestures are re-
lated as well. The diatonic 5-20 pentachord is a subset of a hexa-
chord, 6-238, a hexachord which one cannot abstractly hear as
diatonic. Thus, the addition of one pitch class can transform a
smaller octatonic or whole-tone collection into a chromatic
one. In general, a set associated with one superset can be chro-
matically inflected to connect it with a different superset. In this
light, one might conclude that the clusters which are so preva-
lent in Taylor's music, yet are so often dismissed as mere tex-
tural devices, in fact play a real structural role, since these are
the elements from which any of the gestures in the final passage
(or, as shown previously, the openings blues passage) can be
derived.
Example 3b is a reduction of mm. 9-11, which can be
thought of as a gestural summary of this movement. A subtler
transformation emerges from an interpretation of the tetra-
chords within the segmented phrases as divided into semitone
dyads. From this vantage point, one sees a type of pitch-class
condensation taking place in this passage: a 4-9[0,1,6,7] tetra-
chord, or two semitone dyads surrounding a perfect fourth, is
reduced to a 4-8[0,1,5,6] tetrachord (two semitone dyads sur-
rounding a major third), which in turn is transposed up a semi-
tone, and finally is reduced to a 4-3[0,1,3,4] tetrachord (two
semitone dyads surrounding a whole tone). This contraction
may not seem as "natural" as the kinds of extensions or reduc-
tions that occur on the surface pitch level from gesture to ges-
ture; but, since within the process itself two or three pitch
classes are invariant from gesture to gesture, it is quite conceiv-
able that the artist consciously composed these structural
connections.
The concluding cluster passages in Example 3a may be
heard as moving from an overall whole-tone sonority to a more
chromatic gesture centering on chromatic trichords to a mix-
ture of the two. The registral separation in m. 17 segments ges-
ture 5b' into a 4-10[0,2,3,5] tetrachord (two whole-tone dyads
surrounding a semitone), and a 4-3[0,1,3,4] tetrachord which is
the same collection of pitches that concluded the summary pas-
sage just discussed (Ex. 3b). As this cluster gesture becomes
further condensed, the final sound can be heard as a V of G.
This seems puzzling, since if one were to hear this final passage
as tonal, Db would be the tonic since that pitch is segmented
out by register, often in the bass. Moreover, gesture 3 returns
twice in the guise of a dominant ninth of Db . It does seem pref-
erable, on the whole, to hear Taylor's music as nontonal even
 Transformation in Free Jazz 187

Example 3a. Final measures of "Tales" segmented into related gestures and pc sets. Transcription by the author

i
(3') subset
Octatonic ( Ib) 5-20 (4c) 6-238

(inclusion of

previour 5-20 is literal)

188 Music Theory Spectrum

(/ Is (5) Clusters (whole tone)

I

(5a) Clusters (chromatic)

I l I I I
(5b) (5b') (5b) condensation

Example 3b. Reduction of mm. 9-11 from Example 3a

though it often contains tonal jazz references. Nevertheless,
taking the cue from the final five notes of the piece being M-
related to the important 5-20 pentachord in this passage, one
can hear the closing notes as a TsMI chord substitution for the
dominant of D b. Therefore, these final cluster passages can be
understood as summaries of the measures in the entire excerpt,
both in terms of derivational structure and tonal orientation.
Though Coltrane emerged as an important jazz artist before
Taylor and Coleman, he turned to his own free jazz style only
during his last period (1964-67), after Taylor's and Coleman's
music had become widely known. Coltrane's first solo in Ascen-
sion is a good example of his use of two primary generative de-
vices within a quasi-modal framework: interval cycles and tri-
chordal source sets. Coltrane's improvisations have

traditionally been described in terms of modal shifts as the pri-
mary indicators of harmonic movement and the modes them-
selves as the primary generators of pitch material. However,
this kind of description fails to clarify whether Coltrane heard
the modes simply as source collections or whether he exploited
the structural properties of the mode to emphasize, for in-
stance, the modal final and the dominant.'
At the opening of Ascension, Coltrane's tenor sax line is si-
multaneously imitated in the same register by the other players
(see Ex. 4a for a transcription of Coltrane's opening line).
Overall, the rhythmic emphasis marks the opening as a "B b
blues" statement with the scale enunciated from f to 3 and in-
cluding both bg and hg. The ensemble, as a whole, ignores hg;
thus one primarily hears Bb , Db , and Eb, which constitute a
3-7[0,2,5] trichord. The added Dh, which occurs only in Col-
trane's part, forms a 3-2[0,1,3] trichord with the upper portion
of the scale and a 3-3[0,1,4] moving down to the Bb tonic.
When Coltrane later begins his first solo (see Ex. 4b), these
same trichords are fundamental to the pitch progression within
the mode.8 The solo is launched from the 3-7 trichord now
formed by the seventh, tonic, and third of the mode and an al-
ternation between 3-2 and 3-3 trichords is the subject of the
next 15 bars. The pitches explored here are not those from the
opening but, instead, the lowest third of the Bb scale with the
leading tone.
The second part of the Bb Aeolian solo features a longer
play on the first trichord of the solo, 3-7; the entire passage, in
fact, can be segmented into 3-7 trichords. One interesting rela-
tionship is that of the tetrachord formed in the first part by the
'Such a problem arises, for examp];, when Jost (Free Jazz, 92-93) catego-
rizes the first part of the solo as being in Bb Aeolian with an added ~h as a
leading tone. Considering the generality of this description, Bb minor seems
equally suitable as a classification; but in either case, no real insight is gained
into Coltrane's choice of specific pitch structures.
8The transcription in Example 4b is taken from Jost, Free Jazz, 92-93; the
analytic summary alongside is my own.
Transformation in Free Jazz 189
alternation of 3-2 and 3-3 trichords (4-3) and its T,M-related set
(4-26[0,3,5,8]formed by the overlapping of two 3-7 trichords in
mm. 16-20. This is a result of the transformation that maps the
chromatic semitone of leading tone-to-tonic in the first tetra-
chord into the perfect fifth dominant-to-tonic in the second
tetrachord.
In the final run of the first section, the first whole-tone struc-
ture is enunciated in mm. 23-24 when the 3-6[0,2,4] trichord,
F-Eb-Db, is sounded, a harbinger of the subsequent structural
importance of the whole-tone cycle. The accumulation of
whole-tone structures in the second section proceeds in a way
that is analogous to the use of the 3-7 trichord (as major second
followed by minor third) at the end of the first section. At the
opening of the second section, Coltrane sounds a 3-8[0,2,6]
whole-tone trichord and follows in upward scalar motion with a
5-30[0,1,4,6,8] chord (which embeds two 3-8 trichords). This
5-30 is then altered to the whole-tone pentachord 5-33
[0,2,4,6,8], which appears in ascending scalar form in m. 27.
Measures 27-30 mark the beginning of a section which paral-
lels the opening of the solo. Here, instead of alternating be-
tween trichords, Coltrane primarily reiterates the pitch classes
of one whole-tone tetrachord while varying them rhythmically.
The tetrachord is scored as a descending whole-tone trichord
followed by a downward tritone leap. The repetition and re-
working of the chord clearly connect to the opening passage of
the solo in section 1. The aural association of the two is
made obvious through the use of the leap, which preserves con-
tour. Coltrane's scoring ensures that one hears the last three
notes in the second motive, which form the interval succession
of whole tone and tritone, as a 2:l expansion of the 3-3 trichord
at the opening (semitone and minor third). Proceeding from
section 1 to section 2, then, the listener notices: (1) the increase
in cardinality of the chordal generator--or, at least, of the em-
phasized chord; (2) the contour expansion; (3) the intervallic
expansion, with the chromatic generators 3-2 and 3-3 being re-
placed by whole-tone generators.
190 Music Theory Spectrum
Example 4a. Opening of John Coltrane, Ascension (Impulse version). Transcription by the author from Impulse A-95
(Coltrane playing)
In section 2, the nature of the whole-tone trichord and tetra-
chord as generators of pitch structure becomes quite evident. A
brief allusion to chromaticism is heard in mm. 31-32 (see analy-
sis in Ex. 4b), after which the same whole-tone tetrachord as
scored previously is repeated twice. Following is a five-note as-
cending pattern from F4 to Bb5 in the highest register. This is
5-13[0,1,2,4,8], which is T8M-relatedto the second 5-30 rising
pentachord of this second section (see Ex. 5c), in this case, D#4
in the first chord mapped onto Bt)4in the second.
From the point where two whole-tone trichords a semitone
apart are enunciated in m. 31, the primary sonority for some
ten measures is a 6-22[0,1,2,4,6,8] hexachord; most of the em-
phasis is on the whole-tone pentachord embedded within it. Bb
appears twice in this passage (once as a chromatic passing
tone), but it is the overlapping whole-tone structures that form
the primary sonic component, further emphasizing the rework-
ing of the A-B-C#-D#whole-tone tetrachord.
When the improvisation starts moving away from this tetra-
chord at the end of this transcribed portion, several allied
sonorities are formed, the last of which is 6-34[0,1,3,5,7,9].
This hexachord is T8M-related to the 6-2[0,1,2,3,4,6] formed
by the upbeat Cb tom. 32 and the whole-tone pentachord in the
next three measures (see Ex. 4c). Thus, in each section of the
solo, some of the larger pc sets are related by T8M. Further-
more, both the literally included whole-tone pentachord and
the 6-22 hexachord which comprise much of the pitch material
of section 2 are invariant under that operation. Thus the T8M
operation is a clue to the generative nature of Coltrane's im-
provisation. The idea of a structure based upon related pitch-
class sets already goes considerably beyond any account based
upon modes. From the foregoing analysis, it is clear that a spe-
cific series of operations can describe the relations between the
pitch-classsets in an improvisation. Like composers of Western
concert music in the twentieth century, jazz figures such as Col-
trane had begun to discover the transformations that connect
different kinds of pitch-class materiakg
As a composer, Anthony Braxton has transcended the com-
monly opposed categories of composed music and improvised
music; many of his works fit into both. His education and his
association with other new music performers, notably Frederic
Rzewski and the ensemble Musica Elettronica Viva. also have
9 0 n e further relationship in the Coltrane unifies the two sections of this im-
provisation: in the endings of both, at the smallest level, the whole-tone and3-2
trichords can be interpreted as generators of the improvisation. In addition,
both sections embed 4-22, a set which can be segmented into overlapping 3-6
and 3-7 trichords, C# (Db)-D# (Eb)-F-G (Ab). However, since the operation
T6MIis so endemic to jazz,the discovery that M relations are part of Coltrane's
improvisational method should perhaps not be considered surprising.
 Transformation in Free Jazz 191

Example 4b. First solo by Coltrane in Ascension (HMV version). Transcription by Ekkehard Jost. Starred sets are Ts-M related

Section I

transcription

analysis
-
3-7

- - I
3-3
- - ,
a
1-
L
-
3.2
inc.

-
&I
*

--
*4.3
a
-
a
--

etc.
3
192 Music Theory Spectrum

4b (wnt.)

Section 2

 Transformation in Free Jazz 193

had some influence on his work. Example 5a displays the head Braxton's nontonal works. The last note, E, is saved for the
of a 1975 composition, "489M.. ."I0 It is not a head tune in the very end of the composition, essentially signaling the return to
usual sense, however, since it is repeated twice and makes up B by way of the lower fifth.
the first half of the composition, the second half being an im- A number of significant relations can be found within this
provisation freely based upon this material. A certain tonal short head tune; especially interesting is the pattern of related
character, including an emphasis on the tonic B, is evident; so, sets revealed by an examination of the hexachords formed at
however, is aggregate completion, a feature often exhibited in the opening and closing of phrases. Nine hexachords identified
in Example 5a are strongly related. 6-244[0,1,2,5,6,9] is the
' T h e full title is:
opening hexachord of the piece and is included in the phrase
489 M
(upper register pitches) in the fifth system. One could think of
7-2+TH-B)
this piece as divided on the basis of texture into sections in
M. which motion is varied as opposed to those in which the motion
The transcription in Example 5a is modeled upon Braxton's own manuscript,
which is reproduced in Ronald Radano, "Anthony Braxton and His Two Musi-
occurs in ascending or descending scalar runs. The fact that the
cal Traditions" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1985), 244. The second 6-244 occurs after three successive scalar runs thus links
rhythmic notation is not always exact but is generally proportional. it by way of textural considerations to the opening. Note, in
194 Music Theory Spectrum

Example 4c. Example 5a. Head tune for Anthony Braxton's "489M ...,"
from Five Pieces 1975 (Arista AL-4064)
**5-30

A r

fact, that the two 6-244's are different by only one pc, Bb sub-
stituting for Ab in the second iteration. And the Z-related set
6-219[0,1,3,4,7,8] is the closing hexachord of the third system
(including the drone B).
Example 5b shows the progression of the all-interval tetra-
chords included in each hexachord. These sets are most often
transformed by T3(in the case of 4-Z29[0,1,3,7]or T5.This pat-
tern suggests that here the all-interval tetrachords may be the
core of an improvisation built around the use of these chords
under relatively few operations.
Ornette Coleman's classic composition, "Lonely Woman,"
from his album The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959), can be sec-
tioned into the head tune (Ex. 6) and two different types of cho-
ruses. The first chorus is eight measures long and is accompa-
nied by a chromatic ascent from D to Fin the bass each time it is
heard; the second chorus is approximately 22 measures long,
the same as the length of the head tune with introductory mea-
sures. Since the head tune and first chorus remain in the minor
mode, and since there is a constant return of the D-minor
pedal, one might simply call this piece tonal. However, such a
view, though it does express the relationship of "Lonely
Woman" to the harmonic past of jazz and its roots in the blues,
does not contribute much to an understanding of what

Example 5b. Progressions of all-intervaltetrachords included as
subsets in the hexachords of Braxton, "489M.. ."
Coleman achieves here. Much more informative with respect
to compositional design are certain remarkable pitch-class rela-
tionships in the piece. Example 6 includes a tetrachordal seg-
mentation of the opening head tune. The evidence of a tightly
thought-out melodic line is compelling: only a few tetrachord
types account for the construction.ll That the bassist, Charlie
Haden, has worked closely with the ensemble both in the head
and throughout the entire work is evident from the fact that his
pitches are almost all shared with the melody. In the last two
phrases of the head, however, the contrapuntal relationships
are less dependent on imitation. The repeated fifth A-E which
"The D-minor scale (including the raised sixth and seventh along with their
natural correspondents), considered as a set of nine notes, includes abstractly
all 29 of the possible tetrachords.
Transformation in Free Jazz 195
opens the penultimate phrase forms 4-11[0,1,3,5] with the
horns; the same pitch classes occur at the opening of the second
melodic phrase (m. 10) as well. Above the pedal, Haden chro-
matically fills in the minor third, D-F, which both anticipates
the chorus and parallels the upper voices. In the final phrase, if
G# is interpreted as a passing tone (Haden actually slides up to
A), the notes formed above the pedal form 4-22[0,2,4,7]; the
same pitch classes, D-F-G-A, are the opening melodic notes of
"Lonely Woman."
There is some significance even in the abstract relationships
that exist between several pairs of sets in the head tune-
specifically, 4-215[0,1,4,6] and 4-229, 4-4[0,1,2,5] and
4-14[0,2,3,7], and 4-22 and 4-2[0,1,2,4], which are all M-
related. Even more interesting here, however, is the fact that
the links between these sets are all by way of the same specific
pitch-class operation, T3M (see Ex. 7).12(1) The opening four
notes of the melody are transformed through T3M into C-C#-
D-E, a 4-2 tetrachord, in the third phrase. (2) In the fourth
phrase, which has the quality of a quick but pointed interjection
that interrupts the melodic flow in a beautiful way, one impor-
tant set formed is D-E-F-A,4-14. This is a T3Mtransform of B-
C-C#-E, 4-4, which is part of the harmonic support in the last
notes of the previous phrase. This set is formed (by Coleman's
own part) in a rather curious way: its penultimate note, C#, du-
plicates an octave lower one of the pitches in the melody; but its
last note, Bh , is not a melodic doubling. (3) The ending of the
third phrase has B-C#-D-E,4-10[0,2,3,5], as a harmonic com-
ponent. Set 4-10 maps into itself under multiplication and can
thus be interpreted as a T3Mtransform of the 4-10 formed me-
lodically at the end of the second phrase. (4) The first four notes
of the fourth phrase, 4-229, are related by T,MI to the 4-215
tetrachord formed in the opening phrase. (5) The most extraor-
dinary relationship of all is the one that emerges between the
general diatonic nature of the entire passage and the melodic
'*This would include the T9Moperation, since it is the inverse of T,M.
196 Music Theory Spectrum

Example 6. Segmentation of head, Ornette Coleman, "Lonely Woman." Transcription by the author from The Shape of Jazz
to Come (Atlantic SD-1317). (Parentheses indicate M-related pairs; asterisks indicate T3-M-relatedsets)

trumpet and d l ~ soah

-
--
--
-- - - -/
- -- -
-
-.

n - 1
Phrase 11 I
I
,
r
/
- -
8
I
-
7

-
a
7
1
I

I
-.
I a
F
r-3-7

I
--
d

4.1

Phrase 5 1 1 4-3 I
Phrase 61 4-19

 Transformation in Free Jazz 197

Example 7.
T3M and T3MI
relations in
the head of
"Lonely Woman"

M T3
8-1 (4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11)-(8,1,6,11,4,9,2,7)-(11,4,9,2,7,0,5,10) or8-23[2,4,5,7,9,10,01+[IIl
(D minor with added raised sixth)
198 Music Theory Spectrum
chromaticism which enters in the penultimate phrase. The
circle-of-fifths mapping, applied to a diatonic passage, gener-
ally transforms it into a chromatic one. The penultimate me-
lodic phrase (winds only) forms a chromatic octochord which
spans the fifth E-B. This set, subjected to the T3M transform,
yields the natural minor scale of D with a raised sixth (set 8-23).
In examining the tetrachordal sets that fall out of the D-
minor tonality, one should consider whether the frequency of
certain included sets might explain pitch choices in a specific
context. The subset of 8-23 with the greatest such frequency (8)
is 4-22. Sets 4-229 and 4-11 are also frequently represented as
subsets of 8-23 (they occur 4 and 6 times respectively) and are
also prominent in this passage. Set 4-2(2), however, is not as
frequently represented as a subset yet occurs at an important
melodic point (see above, point (1)). Furthermore, 4-13(4),
4-16(4), and 4-27(4) are of comparable frequency yet are not
profiled in the head. Set 4-13 can be formed as a subset of sev-
enth and ninth chords often encountered in jazz, and 4-27 is the
dominant seventh or half-diminished seventh; these chords are
thus more likely to be outlined in a tonally oriented work. That
the head tune does not include such sets indicates that the sets
which are formed are part of a chosen pitch structure. This anal-
ysis is certainly more informative than the all-too-often re-
peated account of Coleman's improvisations as non-functional
chord changes within a tonally centered framework.
Example 8a shows the melodic line of both first and second
choruses of "Lonely Woman" with a segmentation by tetra-
chord.13Once more, the small number of sets helps project the
taut structure of the passage. In addition, the restricted field of
pitch-class operations (To, T3, Ts, T&l, TloMI) accounts for
many of the phrase-to-phrase transformations which lend such
great aural cohesion to the work. For example, the two in-
"In most circumstances, the segmentation follows Coleman's phrasing.
The only exceptions occur where a fourth pitch is appropriated from the begin-
ning of a phrase to complete a tetrachord at the end of the previous phrase.
stances of 4-12[0,2,3,6] formed successively in two phrases of
the second chorus have the musical sense of a fragment which is
announced and then completed in the following phrase as the
melodic line moves to the highest point of the chorus. More
specifically, however, the second set is related to the first by T3,
which same operation links at least two other phrases in the
chorus (see Ex. 8b). Another example is the relation involving
4-24 and 4-2. The two sets occur successively in the music (sepa-
rated by phrasing); later in the same passage, the Tl&lI trans-
forms of both sets appear-in reverse order (see Ex. 8b). The
aural relationship is particularly striking in this passage, since
the clearly whole-tone character of 4-24 is preserved (4-24 maps
into itself under M).
It is also useful to examine some of the larger pc collections
in this piece. The third chorus can be segmented into eight me-
lodic phrases on the basis of the soloist's pauses. Five of the
phrases contain one of the two 2-related sets, 6-23[0,1,2,3,5,6]
and 6-236[0,1,2,3,4,7]. None of the five instances of these is a
pitch-class duplicate of any other, a clear indication that Cole-
man must be thinking intervallically as he improvises the line.
Some of the specific transformations of this passage are out-
lined in Example 9. The two five-note sets formed here are in-
cluded in larger sets that have some prominence in this chorus.
The first 5-29[0,1,3,6,8], for instance, is abstractly included in
6-247[0,1,2,4,7,9],a set which is related by the M transform to
6-236. If F# is added to the 5-29 (it occurs in the next phrase) at
the opening of the section, the 6-247 formed would be related
by TOMIto 6-236 in the following phrase and by TloMI to the
6-236 included in the last phrase (see Ex. 9). The second penta-
chord, 5-24[0,1,3,5,7], is included in 6-226[0,1,3,5,7,8], a set
formed by the six notes which precede the final cadence on A .
Specifically, if the G that enters as the first note of the next
phrase is added to the 5-24 shown, the resulting set contains the
same pitch classes as are sounded at the end of the chorus (see
Ex. 9). Among the 6-231236 pairs themselves, all 6-236 sets
are related by T2and the 6-23 pair is also related by T2.The first
 Transformation in Free Jazz 199

Example 8a. Segmentation of the melodic line of the first two choruses in "Lonely Woman." Transcription by the author.
(Parentheses indicate M-related sets)

1st Chorus (A) 4-229 (4-235)

4-14 (44)

200 Music Theory Spectrum
Example 8b. Two pitch-class phrase connections in the opening
chorus of "Lonely Woman"
6 - 2 3 formed in the chorus is related by TOM to the
6-225[0,1,3,5,6,8] shown in the segmentation in the last
phrase-and, in fact, 6-225 can also be considered a superset of
the initial five notes. In this section, then, a pattern of relation-
ships based upon whole-tone transpositions begins to emerge.
The harmonic consistency of "Lonely Woman" is just as
noteworthy as the linear consistency detailed above. Example
10 displays a harmonic segmentation of the latter half of the
second chorus-that is, the portion following the eight-
measure sequence which is included in all the choruses.14Here
I4Here again the segmentation generally follows the phrasing, although in
this revolutionary section, where bassist and soloist are playing in two different
tempi, the phrasing is determined by the pauses of the more prominent voice.
too, the majority of the sets have clear interrelations, especially
the instances of 6-226 and 6-248[0,1,2,5,7,9]. The three
6-248's are actually two T5-relatedsets scored so that there is a
departure from and return to the first form presented in the mu-
sic. The 6-226 is formed at the end of the chorus in the mea-
sures preceding the final measure and, as so often happens in
this piece, the same set occurs horizontally as well as vertically.
While the 6-2261248 pairs cannot map into each other under
the M operation, 6-226 maps under M into 6-24[0,1,2,4,5,6],
the very first set formed in this part of the chorus. The specific
relation between the two sets here is T2M; this lends further
emphasis to the sense that whole-tone transposition controls
the pitch structure. In addition, another five-note set formed
 Transformation in Free Jazz 201

Example 9. Some relationships between sets and implied sets in the third chorus of "Lonely Woman."
Transcription by the author
TOMI Tl0Ml
6.247 (phrase I ) 6.236 (phrase 2) 6.247 (phrase 1) 6.236 (phrase 6)
I 5-29 I 1
7I

C
-
1
w = - *
i) -
I 1

--
- I
i)-
I -
.
i . 2 4 (phrase 3 ) ~ncludedIn 6-226 (phrase 8)

TOM
6.23 (phrase 5) 6.225 (phrase 8)

A I 1 1

I I
I T? I hi
6-23 (phrase 5 ) 6.23 (phrase 7) (6.7.9.lO.ll.O) -~h,11,9.?.7.0)

Example 10. Harmonic segmentation of second chorus, second section of "Lonely Woman."
(Slashes separate Z-related sets; sets in parentheses are M-related)
202 Music Theory Spectrum
melodically in the measures previous to this section is a subset
of 6-226. Thus, the chord 6-24 is immediately preceded by its
T2M transform melodically and is followed by the same trans-
form at the end of the chorus. It would seem that in this chorus,
at least, networks of sets related to the 6-231236 pair and the
6-2261248 pair can be interpreted as controlling elements of
the improvisation. This is all the more impressive considering
that the two networks result from a counterpoint in which the
bass is clearly an independent voice.
It should be clear from the foregoing that the complexities of
the musical fabric in free jazz deserve far more attention than
analysts have thus far devoted to them. The traditional inter-
pretation of the head tune as the composition itself, and the
music which follows as some kind of variation upon it, clearly is
not appropriate to the hybrid language of many free composi-
tions. Even in examples with clearly diatonic elements, such as
"Lonely Woman," traditional, tonal jazz analysescannot eluci-
date the real relationships between pitch structures. To do the
job properly, the analyst needs recourse to certain constructs
familiar from analysis of early twentieth-century concert music,
such as pitch-class set saturation, tonal centers in a nontonal
context, and aggregate completion. Other constructs, not
much employed in analysis of earlier music, are also useful
here, notably the multiplicative operation, the transformation
of embedded chords, and the rescoring of "end-sets" within
larger sonorities. The consistent use of certain operations such
as T3 and the multiplicative operation in some of these exam-
ples suggests that there may be empirical evidence for use in
jazz of some of the other pitch-class universes that have been
asserted, particularly by Robert Morris.15
The art of free jazz seems to require that the improvisers
themselves steer away from arpeggiation of common chord for-
mations and progressions and think more in terms of relation-
ships defined by interval class; this is true in both tonal andnon-
tonal contexts. For this reason, free jazz has an affinity to early
twentieth-century concert literature, in which composers were
thinking along similar intervallic and structural lines.16While
early twentieth-century composers constructed their pc-
relations, jazz musicians heard them in improvisation-which
suggests that pitch-class and nontonal relations can develop
naturally out of musical practice in the same way that tonal mu-
sic grew out of modal music and nineteenth-century tonality
grew out of that of the eighteenth century.
15Robert Moms, "Set Groups, Complementation, and Mappings Among
Pitch-Class Sets," Journal of Music Theory 26 (1982), 101-144.
16Simplesegmentations, suggested largely by the performers' pauses, seem
appropriate to analysis of free jazz because these compositions are often cre-
ated andlor elaborated spontaneously. Since the relationships that fall out of
such segmentations seem clear, rich, and structurally important, perhaps it
would be worth considering the utility of simple segmentations in the analysis
of early twentieth-century concert music.
ABSTRACT
Set-theoretic methodology is applied to the music of Ornette Cole-
man, John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, and Anthony Braxton in order to
reveal the wide variety of pitch-class transformation present in free
jazz. Each composer's music has been classified somewhat differently
by other analysts-Coltrane's as modal, Coleman's as diatonic, and
Taylor's as nontonal-yet all the improvisations examined here are
shown to be based on tightly constructed conceptions which make use
of such twentieth-century constructs as the multiplicative operation,
transformation of embedded chords, and the use of a small number
of transformational operations which control the course of the
composition.
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Pitch-Class Transformation in Free Jazz
Steven Block
Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 12, No. 2. (Autumn, 1990), pp. 181-202.
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[Footnotes]

Set Groups, Complementation, and Mappings among Pitch-Class Sets

Robert D. Morris
Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 26, No. 1. (Spring, 1982), pp. 101-144.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2909%28198221%2926%3A1%3C101%3ASGCAMA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O