European free jazz

European free jazz is a part of the global free jazz scene with its own development and characteristics. It is hard to establish who are the founders of European free jazz because of the different developments in different European countries. One can, however, make an argument that European free jazz took its development from American free jazz, where musicians such as Ornette Coleman revolutionised the way of playing. As the British drummer Eddie Prévost, of long-standing improvising ensemble AMM, has put it, 'the music of Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler gave us permission to disobey.' Yet at much the same time, there were significant European innovations: for example, the same year as Coleman's Free Jazz album was released (1961), in the UK the Jamaican alto saxophonist Joe Harriott released the first of his experimental albums, Free Form. It was recorded in late 1960, the month before Coleman's.