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As punk was soon to prove, what was wrong with rock was not its noise and populist appeal, but the way marketing deprived it of immediacy, humour and politics. The exploitation of the avant-garde as a musical 'style' meant misconstruing its aims. Having a recognisable star - Robert Wyatt or Carla Bley - sing a song by John Cage effectively cancels its disruption of classical performance logic and converts it into an exercise in sentiment. This was the version of the avant-garde that the Kronos Quartet subsequently brought to market: rather than a culture of debate and experiment which resists passive consumption, the 'avant' becomes a smorgasbord of exotic comfits proffered to well-dressed yuppies.

(B Watson, Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation, s 132, min emfas)