The Detroit Jazz Festival returns this weekend with four days of free music at Hart Plaza. Why it matters: Billed as the ...

Alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman's masterpiece, Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet, is one of the hinges of jazz evolution. As a musical hinge, Free Jazz, ...

Forty four years after its publication in French, Philippe Carles and Jean-Louis Comolli's thought-provoking, fiercely intellectual book Free Jazz/Black Power finally finds its way into English, ...

Ornette Coleman’s music was never supposed to be easy on the ears. When the alto saxophonist, who died Thursday at age 85, released his first album in 1958, the nine original compositions featured ...

This challenging subgenre, including the subset of free jazz, is driven by the fire of spontaneity, and its rules are still being written. Eleven writers, critics and musicians share their favorites.