Lately The New York Times has asked jazz musicians, writers and scholars to share the favorites that would make a friend fall in love with Herbie Hancock, New Orleans jazz, Sun Ra or Mary Lou Williams. Now we’re putting the spotlight on avant-garde jazz, a challenging subgenre born out of the desire to do something that wasn’t as prescribed as bebop or post-bop, a sound carried by the fire of spontaneity by players who weren’t considered to be in the upper echelon of jazz. The definition of avant-garde jazz has been a point of contention since its inception. Perhaps its biggest public advocate was the saxophonist and bandleader John Coltrane, who took an interest in free jazz — a subset of avant-garde jazz — in the mid-1960s and pushed for the saxophonists Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders to release their music on the mainstream label Impulse! Today, the rules for what is and what isn’t avant-garde are still being written.

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Persons: Herbie Hancock, Sun Ra, Mary Lou Williams, weren’t, Amiri Baraka —, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, ◆ ◆ ◆ Ana Roxanne, “ Longview, Barre Phillips, John Surman, I’ve Organizations: New York Times, Association for, Advancement of Creative Musicians, Area Locations: Herbie Hancock , New Orleans, “ Longview ”, France, Longview, ”