progressive jazz

American  

noun

1. an experimental, nonmelodic, and often free-flowing style of modern jazz, especially in the form of highly dissonant, rhythmically complex orchestral arrangements.

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Etymology

Origin of progressive jazz

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

Both Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman brought up Schoenberg when I interviewed them, and it was their world of progressive jazz that led Hugh Levick to Hear Now.

From Los Angeles Times • May 16, 2025

His shape-shifting, elliptical approach to playing and writing influenced musicians as varied as trumpeters Wynton Marsalis, a standard-bearer for traditional jazz, and Dave Douglas, a pillar of alternative or progressive jazz.

From Washington Post • Mar. 2, 2023

After funking up Marymoor Park with an ace band in 2019, the 81-year-old progressive jazz great’s taking it inside to the Paramount Theatre’s more acoustically advanced surroundings.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 14, 2021

Mr. Marsalis performed and recorded throughout the 1960s and ’70s with a variety of modern and progressive jazz musicians, including the drummer Ed Blackwell and the eminent horn-playing brothers Cannonball and Nat Adderley.

From New York Times • Apr. 1, 2020

The quaint atonalities of progressive jazz and the childishly frantic rhythms of "cool sounds" were somehow soothing and reassuring in their reminder of a simple heritage from a simpler age.

From This Crowded Earth by Bloch, Robert