Remarkable figures working in this field include Sonny Sharrock (b.1940), who joined the Pharaoh Sanders group in 1965, appearing briefly on Tauhid (1966) and taking off on Izipho Zam (1969), on which he plays screaming ascending lines and wild atonal excursions, tremulous vibratos, volcanic sonic noises, and seesawing slide within a cacophonous stream-of-consciousness music. Fred Frith (b. 1949) worked at the frontiers of experimentation with prepared guitars in the 1970s, adapting the instrument with added objects, loosening strings and creating unfamiliar sounds on Guitar Solos (1973).

Derek Bailey

In Britain, the revolutionary Derek Bailey (b. 1930) sought a new, more contemporary language. He can be heard in a recorded rehearsal from 1965, with drummer Tony Oxley and bass player Gavin Bryars, playing John Coltrane's head "Miles Mode," which they use as a springboard for open-time based modal interplay, and for new harmonic, melodic, and spatial explorations. This work culminated in the decision to create music through free improvisation without preconceived material.

After this he made a quantum leap, with a complete departure from American jazz. Fascinated by unusual sounds and timbres, electronic music, and the serial methods of Schoenberg andWebern, Bailey started bypassing standard harmonies and modal jazz, and developed a new, dissonant style. With the Spontaneous Music Ensemble on Karyobin (1968), his attack, colors, glass-toned clusters, use of unexpected noises, and unfamiliar angular lines are astounding. Characteristic of his style are sophisticated voicings made up of stopped notes, open strings, and compound intervals, with harmonics and notes behind the bridge, and fast changes between atonal clusters. He also uses a volume pedal to remove the attack from sounds, producing long, gliding notes and grainy atonal soundscapes, and in 1970 he added stereo amplification.

On his solo recording, Solo Guitar (1971), Bailey plays four different free improvisations, in which he uses staccato notes and chords, taut percussive sounds, harsh dissonances, string bends giving micro tonal pitch variations, and effects with strings pulled out of position and off the fingerboard, often with volume fluctuations and gliding volume techniques, feedback, and harmonic distortion. Three compositions range from sound-processed continuous rhythms to a shambolic sight-reading interpretation, and there is a piece on which he plays two guitars at once.