Abstract

This article explores the intersection between freedom-liberty and freedom-gratuity in the practices filed under the heading «free jazz ». In light of the exemplary trajectory of Ken Vandermark, it analyses the space of freedom opened up by US college radios for the dissemination of improvised music. It then sketches the socio-political model implicitly projected by this unique form of interactive invention taking place within the collective of a jazz band, an interactive invention which dissolves the very notion of authorship. Rejecting the traditional binary opposition between constraint and freedom, calling for an approach conceived in terms of pressure , the utopia of jazz invites us to reflect upon the type of structures most conducive to the autoproduction of singularities