<P> Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s . Though the music produced by free jazz composers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s . Each in their own way, free jazz musicians attempted to alter, extend, or break down the conventions of jazz, often by discarding hitherto invariable features of jazz, such as fixed chord changes or tempos . While usually considered experimental and avant - garde, free jazz has also oppositely been conceived as an attempt to return jazz to its "primitive", often religious roots, and emphasis on collective improvisation . Free jazz is strongly associated with the 1950s innovations of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor and the later works of saxophonist John Coltrane . Other important pioneers included Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Joe Maneri and Sun Ra . Although today "free jazz" is the generally used term, many other terms were used to describe the loosely defined movement, including "avant - garde", "energy music" and "The New Thing". During its early and mid-60s heyday, much free jazz was released by established labels such as Prestige, Blue Note and Impulse, as well as independents such as ESP Disk and BYG Actuel . Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician (s) involved . The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in its own right . Free improvisation, as a genre of music, developed in the U.S. and Europe in the mid to late 1960s, largely as an outgrowth of free jazz and modern classical musics . None of its primary exponents can be said to be famous within mainstream; however, in experimental circles, a number of free musicians are well known, including saxophonists Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, Peter Brötzmann and John Zorn, drummer Christian Lillinger, trombonist George Lewis, guitarists Derek Bailey, Henry Kaiser and Fred Frith and the improvising groups The Art Ensemble of Chicago and AMM . </P> <P> Allmusic Guide states that "until around 1967, the worlds of jazz and rock were nearly completely separate". The term, "jazz - rock" (or "jazz / rock") is often used as a synonym for the term "jazz fusion". However, some make a distinction between the two terms . The Free Spirits have sometimes been cited as the earliest jazz - rock band . During the late 1960s, at the same time that jazz musicians were experimenting with rock rhythms and electric instruments, rock groups such as Cream and the Grateful Dead were "beginning to incorporate elements of jazz into their music" by "experimenting with extended free - form improvisation". Other "groups such as Blood, Sweat & Tears directly borrowed harmonic, melodic, rhythmic and instrumentational elements from the jazz tradition". The rock groups that drew on jazz ideas (like Soft Machine, Colosseum, Caravan, Nucleus, Chicago, Spirit and Frank Zappa) turned the blend of the two styles with electric instruments . Since rock often emphasized directness and simplicity over virtuosity, jazz - rock generally grew out of the most artistically ambitious rock subgenres of the late 1960s and early 70s: psychedelia, progressive rock, and the singer - songwriter movement ." Miles Davis' Bitches Brew sessions, recorded in August 1969 and released the following year, mostly abandoned jazz's usual swing beat in favor of a rock - style backbeat anchored by electric bass grooves . The recording "...mixed free jazz blowing by a large ensemble with electronic keyboards and guitar, plus a dense mix of percussion ." Davis also drew on the rock influence by playing his trumpet through electronic effects and pedals . While the album gave Davis a gold record, the use of electric instruments and rock beats created a great deal of consternation amongst some more conservative jazz critics . </P> <P> The counterculture was not only affected by cinema, but was also instrumental in the provision of era - relevant content and talent for the film industry . Bonnie and Clyde struck a chord with the youth as "the alienation of the young in the 1960s was comparable to the director's image of the 1930s ." Films of this time also focused on the changes happening in the world . A sign of this was the visibility that the hippie subculture gained in various mainstream and underground media . Hippie exploitation films are 1960s exploitation films about the hippie counterculture with stereotypical situations associated with the movement such as marijuana and LSD use, sex and wild psychedelic parties . Examples include The Love - ins, Psych - Out, The Trip, and Wild in the Streets . The musical play Hair shocked stage audiences with full - frontal nudity . Dennis Hopper's "Road Trip" adventure Easy Rider (1969) became accepted as one of the landmark films of the era . Medium Cool portrayed the 1968 Democratic Convention alongside the 1968 Chicago police riots which has led to it being labeled as "a fusion of cinema - vérité and political radicalism". One film - studio attempt to cash in on the hippie trend was 1968's Psych - Out, which is in contrast to the film version of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant, which some say portrayed the generation as "doomed". The music of the era was represented by films such as 1970s Woodstock, a documentary of the music festival . (See also: List of films related to the hippie subculture) Inaugurated by the 1969 release of Andy Warhol's Blue Movie, the phenomenon of adult erotic films being publicly discussed by celebrities (like Johnny Carson and Bob Hope), and taken seriously by critics (like Roger Ebert), a development referred to, by Ralph Blumenthal of The New York Times, as "porno chic", and later known as the Golden Age of Porn, began, for the first time, in modern American culture . According to award - winning author Toni Bentley, Radley Metzger's 1976 film The Opening of Misty Beethoven, based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (and its derivative, My Fair Lady), and due to attaining a mainstream level in storyline and sets, is considered the "crown jewel" of this' Golden Age' . </P> <P> In France the New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema . Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self - conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful iconoclasm and is an example of European art cinema . Many also engaged in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making their radical experiments with editing, visual style and narrative part of a general break with the conservative paradigm . The Left Bank, or Rive Gauche, group is a contingent of filmmakers associated with the French New Wave, first identified as such by Richard Roud . The corresponding "right bank" group is constituted of the more famous and financially successful New Wave directors associated with Cahiers du cinéma (Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, and Jean - Luc Godard). Left Bank directors include Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, and Agnès Varda . Roud described a distinctive "fondness for a kind of Bohemian life and an impatience with the conformity of the Right Bank, a high degree of involvement in literature and the plastic arts, and a consequent interest in experimental filmmaking", as well as an identification with the political left . Other film "new waves" from around the world associated with the 1960s are New German Cinema, Czechoslovak New Wave, Brazilian Cinema Novo and Japanese New Wave . During the 1960s, the term "art film" began to be much more widely used in the United States than in Europe . In the U.S., the term is often defined very broadly, to include foreign - language (non-English) "auteur" films, independent films, experimental films, documentaries and short films . In the 1960s "art film" became a euphemism in the U.S. for racy Italian and French B - movies . By the 1970s, the term was used to describe sexually explicit European films with artistic structure such as the Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow). The 1960s was an important period in art film; the release of a number of groundbreaking films giving rise to the European art cinema which had countercultural traits in filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luis Buñuel and Bernardo Bertolucci . </P>

Where did the youth protest movements of the 1960s begin