In answer to wouldbe-neo-BeBoper

Had tech probs with email, so apologies for late reply this end. Appreciate your busyness - same here. Volume not as much of an issue as I seem to have indicated. More space in the din; less continuous; less of a jam. That's my thing. Miserable oldgits is fine; I'm a big boy now. But atmosphere IS important; as important as the playing, as a creativity-promoting element. Unclear re your workshop comment. I've ran lots and atmosphere is important there, also. I'm all for getting down to it, and for cutting out the shite; but I had only just met you all! Surely some chat wouldn't have broken the rules! I'm combative, dialectical by nature - so I have little problem in standing my ground; but the kind of improv and improv situation I desire to make gets its charge from flowing in similar directions - like, to simplify, a kind of communism; rather than constituting itself as a kind of aural fight; like so many arguments - like so many capitalists trading stocks on the stock exchange floor! I'm being pithy, I know, but the difference is an ideological one; it is a difference in outlook. The stock exchange floor scenario feels dated to me, now. I love McLaughlin and his ilk for what they wrere and did. But - as an apt, familiar-to-you distinction - take the seeming internal fights of a Beefheart composition, with its supposed disjuncture, supposed hesitation, supposed disharmony etc. Because the thing is so meticulously-constructed it flows together in a kind of unity, as a radical reworking of unity itself. It doesn't disipate its energies by being overly individualistic in its internal structure and outward effect. That, for me, was Beefheart's contribution as a 20th Century composer. Meanwhile, if one takes the form of that seeming internal argument aesthetic and uses it as a means to free up players in a group situation, you get chaos; but, generally, not interesting or sophisticated or radical, new forms of chaos, but tried and tested, dated forms of chaos. The worst jams are that, for me: however many people in a room, playing individually together. That had its time as a viable method for serious players. At bottom, I like conversation, to speak as well as to listen. That, in brief, was the subject of my doctorate: reciprocity. My wish now is to apply that ideal to group improvisation.

Regards, Anthony