"Free jazz"...here is a case where the music, to be fully understood as a form of human expression (which all art is), must be seen in its social context, as a reflection of the times.
Otherwise, to analyze it, or try to approach it on a strictly formal level, will more often than not yield no fruit. A query into the nature of free jazz must be motivated by a desire to approach it, with the implicit assumption that it is a valid form of artistic expression which warrants our efforts to understand it;
If we are "turned off" by the very sound of it, then there is little motivation to engage with it. Difficult forms of art must be approached by us; there is no "payoff" unless we do this.
By "difficult" art, I mean art which is created as a reaction to, or as a commentary on the existing form or tradition from which it is derived. This is an involuted process in many instances. If the art is abstruse, it may be that way for a reason; perhaps to purposely alienate the traditional subject, in order that the "slate is cleared." These are in many cases artists, or movements, which seek to revise or overhaul an existing social hierarchy, or redefine the way an art form has been assimilated by its societal context.
Art does not exist in isolation; it is a two-way "mapping of experience" from creator to listener, using agreed-upon meanings and contexts, much as a "language" functions. To attempt to completely formalize it, or to isolate it from its context, will never yield a complete understanding.
The old ontological argument about "if a tree fell over in the woods, would anybody hear it?" should be discarded as irrelevant, when dealing with art. Art is not simply an object. It is a symbolic "talisman" of human experience and meaning, which is ultimately concerned with human experience, which, like all metaphysical things, cannot be assessed objectively.