Thurston Moore documents his obsession with free jazz in a new book

Thurston Moore is obsessed with jazz.

Not the mellow, easy-listening assortment that serves arsenic inheritance euphony successful elevators and waiting rooms.

No, Moore goes for the hard stuff: wailing saxophones, arrhythmic bass lines, drums that travel beats truthful retired of clip they mightiness arsenic good travel from the deepest reaches of space. Call it broadcasts from Planet Jazz.

We’re talking escaped jazz, an experimentation successful improvisational euphony that captivated the world’s top jazz musicians successful the 2nd fractional of the 20th century: Albert Ayler, Derek Bailey, Ornette Coleman — and truthful forth.

For the past six years, Moore has been pouring this passionateness into a caller book: “Now Jazz Now: 100 Essential Free Jazz and Improvisation Recordings 1960-80,” co-written by Byron Coley and Mats Gustafsson and published by Ecstatic Peace Library, the publishing imprint helium runs with Eva Moore. The publication besides features words from Neneh Cherry and Joe McPhee.

The irony is abundant. The erstwhile singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth, an experimental stone set with 1 ft successful New York’s nary question infinitesimal and different successful the indie stone detonation of the aboriginal 1990s, is devoted to a subgenre of euphony that isn’t precisely known for large electrical guitars.

It’s besides a departure from the autobiographical penning successful Moore’s memoir “Sonic Life” published successful 2023, oregon the enactment helium does arsenic a penning teacher astatine the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics astatine Naropa University successful Boulder, Colo.

Nevertheless, the publication covers what helium and his co-authors see the 100 top records by artists some legendary and obscure. “Now Jazz Now” is much than a postulation of top hits, it’s the chronicling of a decades-long obsession with escaped jazz betwixt “three grounds geeks who are truly into collecting,” Moore said via Zoom from his location successful London past month.

In a sense, the publication began backmost successful the ’80s erstwhile Coley, Gustafsson and Moore started collecting these unusual recorded documents successful experimental dependable astatine a clip erstwhile these records were hard to find and adjacent harder to research.

“We knew that it was obscure,” Moore said. “We weren’t funny successful it for the involvement of obscurity. We were precise funny successful it for the involvement of the euphony and the personalities involved. And arsenic we got deeper into it, it was each astir getting each transcript we could find.”

When Moore describes those days, helium sounds similar idiosyncratic traveling backmost successful clip to a distant land: “Before the internet, earlier Discogs, earlier eBay, earlier anything. It was each precise mythical,” Moore said.

“We knew that it was obscure,” Moore said of his obsession with escaped jazz that drove the penning of this “Now Jazz Now.” “We weren’t funny successful it for the involvement of obscurity. We were precise funny successful it for the involvement of the euphony and the personalities involved.”

(Vera Marmelo)

As a young musician, Moore was funny successful jazz but couldn’t truly marque consciousness of it, truthful helium turned to his person Byron Cole for help. Cole had worked astatine Rhino Records successful California and erstwhile helium returned to the East Coast helium was named the jazz exertion of ‘80s hardcore zine Forced Exposure. Moore believed this was a extremist connection successful its ain close considering the country wasn’t precisely known for nuance and sophistication.

“I asked him to marque maine a cassette for circuit truthful I could effort to decode what was going connected here,” Moore recalled. “He made maine 20 and it was each large connection of modern jazz. I spent an full circuit with headphones on, listening to and falling successful emotion with this music.”

The instrumentalist who erstwhile spent hours poring implicit hardcore zines to way down the latest 7-inch records from bands popping up astir the state similar outbreaks successful an epidemic present turned his mania toward jazz.

“I started collecting the records connected tour,” Moore said. “I was going into each grounds store. looking for Sun Ra records. At the time, they were a dime a dozen. … Even successful the aboriginal ’90s, successful definite assemblage municipality grounds stores, they were similar a subordinate each.” Today, immoderate of those archetypal pressings spell for thousands of dollars.

Rounding retired the trio is Gustafsson, a bona fide jazz musician, a wizard with a saxophone with heavy feeling and unbridled enthusiasm. Here helium is describing a collaboration betwixt Eric Dolphy and Ron Carter: “It is free. It is beautiful. It is comic even! It freaks maine out! Give maine my encephalon back!”

“We each person a chiseled penning style,” Moore acknowledged, but “we besides wanted to marque definite that our information was correct. So we’re being precise anal and geeky astir which league came astatine which clip and which players were astatine which session. It becomes astir similar a James Elroy caller with each these characters.”

The assemblage for these records were passionate but small, truthful by necessity the recordings were often do-it-yourself affairs. “It reminded maine a batch of what funny maine astir punk stone aboriginal on,” Moore said, “that it was euphony made extracurricular of the permissions of the firm grounds world. … That, to me, was truly interesting. It was an artist-run scene.”

Then there’s the euphony itself, which was beyond avant-garde. Cutting borderline was the starting point. When Moore talks astir these artists and their music, it’s similar he’s describing a spiritual experience: “It’s similar a sonic roar from the archetypal groove,” Moore said of Peter Brötzmann’s “Machine Gun.” It’s conscionable this saxophone blaring done what sounds similar a distorted snare head. It’s truthful radical. It’s a large portion of sound music, but it’s escaped jazz, and it’s not adjacent pursuing the structures of what you cognize to beryllium due jazz behavior. It’s thing other entirely.”

“Now Jazz Now”

(Ecstatic Peace Library)

Or, arsenic Coley quips, “‘Machine Gun’ is often the archetypal grounds I play for punk listeners looking to unfastened their holes a bit.”

The authors are truthful passionate astir the task that the hardest portion wasn’t penning the publication but deciding what to permission out.

“We had astir 500 much records that we had to parse disconnected the list,” Moore admitted. “We had a batch of debates and arguments astir which records were going to beryllium successful the publication and shunting definite ones speech and truthful we created a contenders list, which we’ll astir apt enactment up connected a dedicated tract online. ‘If you similar these 100 records, and erstwhile you’ve processed them, here’s 500 much that you should really, truly perceive to!’”

Naturally, immoderate of the ideas Moore was listening to connected these records and seeing successful clubs connected the Lower East Side began to signifier his ain knowing of improvised music. “When I realized however incredibly liberating and beauteous that was, it was each implicit for me. I started playing overmuch much otherwise aft that. My guitar playing truly changed. It allowed maine to consciousness assured successful expressing myself successful a mode that had perfectly nary shackle to it.”

Does this mean that Moore has traded successful his axe for a sax?

Hardly. Moore is inactive penning songs, making records, and playing shows. Last twelvemonth helium released a caller solo medium — “Flow Critical Lucidity” — and dropped a caller azygous conscionable past summer. He volition beryllium performing astatine Big Ears Festival successful Knoxville, Tenn., connected March 28, 2026.

“I’m a songwriter. I similar penning songs. I similar penning experimental popular songs,” Moore said. “I spell retired with my set and I play emblematic set gigs, but I similar being successful a basement with a escaped jazz drummer immoderate time of the week.”

Ruland is the writer of “Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records.” His caller novel, “Mightier than the Sword,” volition beryllium published adjacent twelvemonth by Rare Bird.