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The use of the term "avant garde" was essentially a catch-all, a term affixed by the jazz critics of the 1960's to describe the multitude of musical developments of that decade. "Avant garde" was used to describe the music of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Sunny Murray, and a host of other musicians whose music departed from hard bop orthodoxy. As Rudd's article said, back then, the term avant garde connoted free improvisation. But in reality, the term was so loosely applied as to represent a serious lapse in judgment and critical thinking skills, an inability to investigate or analyze the disciplines and rigors that constituted the musics of so-called "free" players. Archie Shepp was lumped into the avant garde even as he played the blues. Ornette Coleman was labelled avant garde even as he composed hummable melodies and swung the living daylights out of them. In the end, "avant garde" has become a meaningless label, even a stigma, as it follows Roswell Rudd around and diverts attention from what he's really about.
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