I think the blues is fine for blues players, but free blues has never made much sense to me.

In the absence of that, I am happy to play solo, but I don't think there is any comparison.

Diversity is its most consistent characteristic....The characteristics of freely improvised music are established only by the sonic-musical identity of the person or persons playing it.

Undeniably, the audience for improvisation, good or bad, active or passive, sympathetic or hostile, has a power that no other audience has. It can affect the creation of that which is being witnessed. And perhaps because of that possibility the audience for improvisation has a degree of intimacy with the music that is not achieved in any other situation.

I don't research anything.

Personally, I've found one of the more stimulating ways of playing in recent times has been to kind of move outside the free improvised area and work with people who are probably improvisers but they have a particular way of working.

Even if it is difficult playing with other people - sometimes it's great, sometimes it isn't, but that is kind of the point of it. It loses its point playing solo.