M-Base

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The term "M-Base" is used in several ways. In the 1980s, a loose collective of young African American musicians including Steve Coleman, Graham Haynes, Cassandra Wilson, Geri Allen, Robin Eubanks, and Greg Osby emerged in Brooklyn with a new sound and specific ideas about creative expression. Using a term coined by Steve Coleman, they called these ideas "M-Base-concept" (short for "macro-basic array of structured extemporization") and critics have used this term to categorize this scene's music as a jazz style.^[1] But Coleman stressed "M-Base" doesn't denote a musical style but a way of thinking about creating music.^[2] Coleman also refuses the word "jazz" as a label for his music and the music tradition represented by musicians like John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, etc. However, the musicians of the M-Base movement, which also included dancers and poets, strived for common creative musical languages, so their early recordings show many similarities reflecting their common ideas, the experiences of working together, and their similar cultural background. To label this kind of music, jazz critics have established the word "M-Base" as a jazz style for lack of a better term, distorting its original meaning.^[3]