Definition of Free jazz

For the Ornette Coleman album after which this genre was named see Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation.

Free jazz is a movement of jazz music developed in the 1950s and 1960s by artists such as Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Joe Harriott, Archie Shepp, Mary Lou Williams, John Tchicai,  Bill Dixon, Paul Bley, Hal Russell and Sun Ra. Some of the best known examples are the later works of John Coltrane. Though the music produced by these players varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the expressive possibilities of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz; each in his own way, free jazz musicians attempted to break down or extend the conventions of jazz, often by discarding hitherto invariable features of jazz such as fixed chord changes or tempos.