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> I saw him once at the Mudd Club, of all places. When he played the rake, he had a look on his face like a little boy trying to annoy his parents. I think that impulse may be behind the urge to leave harmony, rhythm, and melody (don't forget that one! and, the Beethoven fan in me has to add development) behind and just make noise.
Yeah... there's definitely the punk/noise side, but then there's the uber-polite side of free-improv. I think a substantial proportion of the performers and audience in Sydney are Conservatorium students. These are highly trained musicians (Chadbourne, has a reputation as a very good guitarist) and very theoretical about what they are doing. It has the highest pedigree - probably ground zero for polite improv (although of course free jazz came much earlier) is AMM in the late 1960s, of which Cornelius Cardew was a founding member. It intersects between jazz and post-Cage classical.
AMM fell out over Marxist politics - Cardew moving towards Maoism and drummer Eddie Prevost not - though Prevost remains both a practising musician and Marxist too I think. The whole UK scene was apparently full of marxists and political radicalism more generally. Ben Watson from the British SWP wrote a biog of improv guitar superhero and radical Derek Bailey a few years ago (published by Verso) that focuses on the politics. Interesting review here: http://www.metamute.org/en/First-cut-is-the-deepest
I don't buy the idea that it's an inherently (especially) political form, but they're definitely interesting people!
Mike Beggs