Prevost notes that some have referred to AMM, cheekily, as "John Cage jazz"
Prevost pushes back on this, gently, by noting that "Cage always maintained a strong hold on the way 'his' music was to be made. Even if by some slight of hand method, he maintained and perpetuated the increased authority that has been enjoyed by composers in western music in the last two centuries. The chance methods and the various interpetation techniques which musicians have to use in order to play various Cage pieces--for example, Variations I-VI --are as imbued with Cage's ethos and methodology as the commands of a more formal notation. AMM opted for the freedom to work collaboratively that is absent from the Cage agenda"
similarly, Stockhausen's improvisations ("Intuitive Music") also "have qualities which direct the musician"
"AMM differed from such projects because it denied all external authority and resisted individual attempts to impose their will upon events"