A movement of jazz music developed in the 1950s and 1960s by artists such as Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp and Sun Ra. Some of the best known examples are the later works of John Coltrane. Though the music produced by these players varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the expressive possibilities of bebop and hence an attempt to break down or extend the conventions of jazz, often by discarding hitherto invariable features of jazz such as fixed chord changes or tempos.

While free jazz is most often associated with the era of its birth, many musicians have kept the style alive to the present day, continuing its development as a jazz idiom. In Europe the style was further extended by players such as Derek Bailey, Peter Brötzmann and Evan Parker into an idiom that came to be called free improvisation.