Ornette Coleman: Free Jazz

Having first heard this 35 years ago (on vinyl) in the earliest explorations of jazz (along with classical and world music, to broaden listening horizons) and only having the barest of understanding of what was involved with improvisation and its relationship to harmony and rhythm, especially in that world in 1960, Ornette Coleman's 37-minute Free Jazz, recorded in one take and no editing, was really a jarring experience, but a fascinating one.  The leader stated that the goal "was for us to play together, all at the same time, without getting in each other's way, and also to have enough room for each player to ad lib alone—and to follow this idea for the duration of the album."

One of the elements of the recording that immediately stood out was the placement of four musicians on each channel, with the leader, trumpeter Don Cherry, drummer Billy Higgins and bassist Scott LaFaro on the left and bass clarinetist Eric Dolphy, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell on the right.  That way, especially with headphones, you can hear the differences between the two quartets, even as the processing of the octet as an ensemble is taking place.

Coleman called Free Jazz a collective improvisation because he only wrote out the parts played by the horns prior to each solo; otherwise, the musicians had that freedom to play whatever they wanted to complement or supplement what the soloists were playing.  That meant that the excellence of the individual musicians had to be sharpened as part of this collectivity and all eight of them were masters.  

As someone who tends to focus on the rhythm sections as the underpinning of the music, it is especially fascinating to hear the differences between but commonalities among the bassists and drummers.  LaFaro had the toughest assignment, as Haden, Blackwell and Higgins were experienced participants in the leader's unusual sound world.  The soloing of these duos is also fascinating, while it's the continual driving pulse the holds all of this together.

Regarding the horn players, the varying styles are clear, but so is the ability of them to be part of that ensemble as the other support the given soloist.  Having Dolphy, moreover, play clarinet adds a richness and depth, as well as variation, in the performance, while Hubbard, a more traditional player, seems to easily adapt to this freer environment, in which, of course, Cherry and Coleman were deeply absorbed.  Also very notable are the ways in which the other wind instruments engage with the soloist.

Those having the late 1990s CD version can also hear "First Take," which is less than half the length of the originally released recording and it is very interesting to listen to it and compare and contrast it to the fuller version.  Though Free Jazz was reviled, as well as hailed, by many when released in September 1961, it encouraged to future efforts like John Coltrane's Ascension (1965) and influenced a great many jazz musicians to open themselves in terms of what was viewed as necessary or required in the music.  

With music this untethered to traditional approaches, immersion seems the only way to appreciate what this incredible album offers.  As Coleman remarked in the liner notes: "We were expressing our minds and emotions as much as could be captured by electronics."   

Ornette Coleman/Charlie Haden: Soapsuds, Soapsuds

While Ornette Coleman was creating some fascinating music with his electric ensemble, Prime Time, he took a detour and engaged in a side project with Charlie Haden, his long-time bass playing colleague, and recorded Soapsuds, Soapsuds, a series of absorbing and revealing duets, in January 1977, released the next year on Coleman's Artist House label and later reissued on his Harmolodic label through Verve.  In his long, remarkable career, Coleman didn't record a lot of duet albums, but they can be among the most amazing of his projects, such as when he worked with pianist Joachim Kühn or with guitarist Pat Metheny, when the interplay between the two musicians reflects that they are truly listening to each other.  This was certainly the case with Coleman and Haden, who first played together two decades before, and who would continue working together occasionally after the bassist left Ornette's band about this time.  

There is an intimacy to many duet performances that draw the listener in as if you're hearing the performers in a private concert and this is one of those examples, all the more striking given the dense and usually exciting Prime Time performances of the era.  Haden was always a master of supporting the other musicians, never feeling the need to overplay or over-impress, and he was particularly brilliant here in giving Coleman the space to play some of the most beautiful tenor work (Ornette primarily being an alto player) he'd recorded.  In his rare, but typically cryptic notes, Ornette does say simply: "this music . . . has . . . a very simple message: these performers are playing for the sake of making music for people to enjoy their own concept of hearing."  Those last few words are particularly noteworthy.  As for Haden, he observed "most of what I have learned about the art of listening can be directly attributed to playing with Ornette. In order to contribute totally to his music, one must listen to every note he plays . . . and then come the endless possibilities."  This really is an immersive experience when focused concentration is directed to what these two masters brought to this stunning recording.

Ornette Coleman Quartet: This Is Our Music

After the controversial splash (or tidal wave, maybe) that the Ornette Coleman Quartet made when it played its legendary run at the Five Spot in New York in 1959, the group was signed to a major label deal with Atlantic Records.

What resulted was an amazing run of phenomenal recordings that raised a ruckus among those who thought Coleman was a fraud, in his playing and compositional and conceptual methods, but also was inspiring to a new generation of creative artists and adventurous listeners drawn to his freer ideas of performance.

The third Atlantic release, and Coleman's fifth album overall, This Is Our Music, was recorded in summer 1960 and released early the following year.  It included pocket trumpeter Don Cherry and bassist Charlie Haden from his previous work, but also featured drummer Ed Blackwell, replacing Billy Higgins.  The latter was an important part of the success of The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century, but Blackwell proved to be more than a worthy successor, with his particular way of accompanying the soloists and, as Coleman wrote in the liners, his ability to "play rhythm so close to the tempered notes that one seems to hear them take each other's places."

This Is Our Music starts off with the hard-hitting and propulsive "Blues Connotation," which easily has one of the most memorable melodies in all of Coleman's work.  This high-energy masterpiece is followed by one of the most haunting and off-kilter ballads in the composer's palette, the stunning "Beauty is a Rare Thing" (which became the title of the 1990s box set of Coleman's complete recordings for Atlantic.)

All the tunes on this album are excellent and showcase not only the fine solo work, including some of the more interesting playing by the leader in his long career, but also the staggering interplay among the four musicians as an integrated ensemble--a core component of Coleman's hard-to-articulate concept of "harmolodics."  Notably, for a composer who almost never performed covers, there is a pretty straight-ahead version of the Gershwin brothers' chestnut "Embraceable You" that stands out amid the originals.  Part of the immense appeal (or the big turnoff) of Coleman's work in those early years was his unpredictability and willingness to explore wherever the music took the players and the listeners.

Ornette Coleman: Town Hall, 1962

The death of the great Ornette Coleman yesterday at age 85 means the loss of another master of creative musical expression, not just in jazz, but in all music.

This blogger has vivid memories of buying, in the same day in 1990, John Coltrane's My Favorite Things and an album of Atlantic outtakes from Coleman's years there, The Art of the Improvisors, especially its opening, frenetic "The Circle with a Hole in the Middle."  That recording let quickly to purchases of such classics as The Shape of Jazz to Come, Change of the Century, Free Jazz and many others.

Coleman's approach to harmony, his melodic sense, and the total freedom given to the musicians to play what felt right, provided they were listening and responding to each other, was revolutionary, drawing scorn and appreciation across the spectrum.

While his influence wasn't such that covers of his pieces are very common, outside of a few iconic tracks like "Lonely Woman" or the rare tribute album, like John Zorn's amazing Spy vs. Spy, his legacy is perhaps best represented in the spirit of expression that the murkily-defined concept of harmolodics, in which harmony is given equal weight with melody in the context of free expression concerning time, rhythm and other structures, embodied.

Now, in 1990, this listener, new to jazz, did not appreciate much of these notions, but was drawn to the playful, celebratory, light and crisp sounds of those Atlantic recordings that were made at the peak of Coleman's notoriety.

Of course, Coleman continued to probe, explore and express through his years at Blue Note, Columbia and then on to his electric group, Prime Time, and more modern pursuits, including the remarkable Sound Grammar, the fantastic collaboration with Pat Metheny, Sound X, and the little-discussed duet with Joachim Kuhn, Colors, a rare instance of the use of piano in Coleman's music.  That live recording in Leipzig from the mid-1990s represented Coleman's unceasing explorations in instrumentation, as well as sound, and may have had a precursor from over thirty years before.

This was the Town Hall concert of 21 December 1962, recorded by Blue Note Records, but then released on the fledgling ESP-Disk label, which went on to a notable career of releasing free jazz, underground rock and other cutting edge sounds.  Having left Atlantic and not feeling appreciated for his utterly original approach to music, Coleman decided to use his own limited funds to rent New York's Town Hall and present a concert that took evolving ideas of composition and expression to a level beyond what he had done at Atlantic.  Bernard Stollman, who founded ESP-Disk, was also Coleman's manager at the time.

He had the perfect rhythm section for his new phase in drummer Charles Moffett, whose cymbal work in particular was notable, as well as the stunning bassist David Izenzon, whose clasically-dervived bowing technique was phenomenal in addition to his pizzicato playing.  On this record, there are two short pieces, "Doughnut" and "Sadness," in which these two masters utilized their individual and collective strengths to give Coleman a new palette of textures and colors from which to solo.

"Dedication to Poets and Writers," written for a string quartet played by violinists Selwart Clark and Nathan Goldstein, celloist Kermit Moore and Julian Barber on viola, was Coleman's first attempt at a notated piece along classical lines.  Coleman had been involved in a project of so-called Third Stream music, blending modernist classical music with jazz, through its most noted promoter, Gunther Schuller, in which the composer wrote "Abstractions" specifically for Coleman.

Remco Takken's notes point out that Izenzon's classical training and approach to bowing on his double bass provide a bridge between the string quartet and the trio performances at this show and this listener totally agrees that what could have been disparate, jarring contrasts became more of an organic, unified program because of Izenzon's way of playing.  Coleman's approach to harmolodics, which was always being refined and redeveloped, is also detectable on close listening.

"The Ark" probably represents the closest linkage between the trio and string quartet sections of the concert.  A sprawling, multi-faceted, and fascinating excursion into all the tools Coleman had to offer at the time, the piece really is a stunning effort, with Coleman exploring the full range of his alto, Moffett using his highly effective and understated approach, even on his fine soloing, on the kit, highlighted by his shimmering cymbal work, and Izenzon demonstrating why he was a marvel of playing the bass in both the arco and pizzicato styles.

Coleman, however, was thoroughly demoralized by the conditions surrounding his music in terms of what he felt was a lack of appreciation as well as financial concerns and went on a self-imposed hiatus from public performance and recording that lasted two years.  During 1963 and 1964, however, he worked busily on his compositional approaches through harmolodics and looked for new ways of expression through learning two new instruments.  Although his technique was rough, the emotive content of his playing on trumpet and violin added new dimensions of sound, in terms of color and texture.  These are, probably, best exemplified by the stunning recordings from the Golden Circle in Copenhagen from 1965, released on Blue Note.

As a document that was, simultaneously the end of an era from the big splash he made in New York in 1959 and the harbinger of a new phase that was delayed for a couple of years, Town Hall, 1962 is probably, along with a record like Colors, among the least appreciated of Coleman's half-century of recorded work.

Listening to this album tonight evokes clear recollections of the 1990 trio performance (intended to be a reunion of the 1959 quartet, but trumpeter Don Cherry had to bow out because of the flu) at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles during Peter Sellars' Los Angeles Festival.  Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins were certainly different in their approaches as the rhythm section, but the full integration of drummer and bass player with the leader is striking in both cases.

Finally, from the perspective of remembrance, this blogger is grateful to have heard Coleman in one of his last local performances, at UCLA's Royce Hall nearly five years ago.  It was typically probing, with two bassists, Coleman's son Denardo playing with great mastery on the drumkit (amazing that his father was derided for using his 10-year old son, along with the late, great Charlie Haden on bass, on 1966's The Empty Foxhole), a Japanese singer employing wordless and otherworldly vocals, and then, for a couple pieces, bassist Flea, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers but also a huge jazz fan, joining the quartet and showing that his jazz chops were substantial.

Even at 80, Coleman demonstrated his lifelong commitment to expressing, fully and freely, the wonder of sound.  That may be his legacy:  taking himself, his fellow musicians, and listeners on an uncharted journey into the ineffable joys of music.

Now, as "The Ark" has just ended and the applause fades, this is the time to say to Ornette Coleman, one of the great creative artists of our time, rest in peace and thank you for sharing your wonder with us.

Ornette Coleman: Change of the Century

There is a generation of jazz musicians that we are rapidly losing and yesterday another giant passed on.  Bassist Charlie Haden, whose work with Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett and his own Liberation Music Orchestra and Quartet West projects among many others put him at the forefront of so-called "avant garde" or "new jazz" playing, died at age 76 in Los Angeles after a long illness.

Haden, who came to Los Angeles to study music and met Coleman in the mid-1950s, first came to attention in the legendary Coleman quartet that made a splash at the Five Spot Café in New York in 1959 and in subsequent classic recordings for Atlantic Records.  The first, The Shape of Jazz to Come, has been featured here and is one of the great jazz records of all time.

The second album, recorded in Los Angeles in October 1959, is Change of the Century and its assertive, provocative title, as with its predecessor, is more than apt and delivers fully on its promise.  Coleman was hitting on all cylinders with his unusual composition and arranging method, as well as his emotive and innovative playing and his telepathic harmonizing with Don Cherry, on pocket trumpet, continues to astound.  Billy Higgins, an always-versatile drummer who could play as easily with the freest of players as well as the most traditional, is relentlessly swinging even as he adapts his playing to match the unusual structures established by the leader.

Then there's Haden, whose supple, flexible, creative and spot-on tone works in tandem with Higgins to keep those free rhythms with enough organization to allow the soloists to work without hindrance and provide the listener endless enjoyment—provided that the listener appreciates the yeoman work that a bassist provides.

This album is filled with great pieces, from the opening "Ramblin'" to the self-evidently titled "Free," the Higgins-showcase "Forerunner," which also has an excellent blistering Coleman solo and the sublime "Una Muy Bonita," which starts with Haden's low, simple but powerful underpinning riff and Coleman and Cherry's great melodic harmonizing to start a great piece of music.  "Bird Food" has a melody that is, of course, highly evocative of Charlie Parker, showing the importance of tradition expressed in new ways.  Cherry also gets an extended solo here.  Finally, "Change of the Century" features a head arrangement of great complexity and speed with that Coleman/Cherry interplay that may well have peaked on this album and its title track.  Coleman's solo work is also something to behold here.

 

Again, Haden's consistency, inventiveness and dependability in holding down the bottom is nothing short of remarkable on each of these tunes.  He does get to put his playing more in the forefront on "The Face of the Bass" but it is not one he uses to show off, but instead displays his technique in more subtle ways which make his understated playing all the more remarkable.  Sadly, as was too often the case in the jazz world, a heroin addiction led to Haden's departure from the Coleman quartet in August 1960.

 

But, as noted above, Haden went on to other impressive work, but his years with Coleman are likely the most memorable and it's hard to top the fabulous Change of the Century, which had the unusual distinction of being a sophomore release (well, in this case, a major-label followup--two albums on the Los Angeles-based Contemporary label predate the Atlantic albums) that was every bit as good as its forerunner.

 

30 years later, as part of the Los Angeles Festival, a reunion of the Coleman Quartet was scheduled at the beautiful old Orpheum Theatre in downtown.  The September 1990 performance, however, became a late-hour trio when Don Cherry came down sick after a dental appointment.  This listener, just starting to become exposed to jazz in a big way, happened to have great orchestra-level seats near the center of the former movie palace and listened with enthusiastic amateur wonder as Coleman, Higgins and Haden performed two hours of magical music.

 

It was an unforgettable experience and, pondering the death of Charlie Haden, it is one that came immediately to mind when the news was read.  Long may his music be heard and appreciated!

Pat Metheny/Ornette Coleman: Song X

Pat Metheny has had great success with his Pat Metheny Group, but lesser known are his occasional forays into "outside" music and he has developed quite a portfolio of collaborations as part of his obvious interest in experimental music.  His "Electric Counterpoint" with minimalist composer Steve Reich and a recent album performing some of John Zorn's Book of Angels works are examples that will be covered here eventually.

One of his more notable collaborative efforts, however, is with alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman on the amazing Song X, Metheny's first album for the newly-launched Geffen label and which was released in 1986.  Back in the early 90s, this was among the first jazz albums purchased by this blogger and it made a big impact then (along with "Electric Counterpoint").  Listening to it nearly a quarter century later does not diminish that feeling. 

Song X was an opportunity for Metheny to "stretch out" and for Coleman to "rein in."  By that, the dense and complex electric funk of the sax giant's Prime Time ensembles was stripped back, allowing Coleman and Metheny to employ the kind of harmonic interplay that stretched back to Coleman's work with Don Cherry in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Making the marriage even more harmonious was the fantastic support of bassist Charlie Haden and the dual drumming of Coleman's son Denardo, who has been an excellent ground for his father over the years, and the always-amazing Jack DeJohnette.

Metheny's decision to record the album live over three days in mid-December 1985 allowed the band to maintain a freshness, immediacy and intensity that could be lacking in something more polished and produced.  Moreover, some of Coleman's best writing is found, either on his own or with collaborative works. 

Among the more adventurous pieces are Coleman's title track and the phenomenal collaboration "Endangered Species."  "Video Games" has a cool theme, reminiscent of some of Coleman's earlier work, but with Metheny harmonizing instead of Cherry and the two go off into extended interplay that is striking.  "Trigonometry" has another one of these fine head arrangements, before Coleman launches into an excellent, exploratory solo, reaching high into the upper register of his alto.   It is also something to hear Haden roaming his bass during Coleman's solo.

Meantime, there are some very fine ballads, including Coleman's "Mob Job" and "Kathelin Gray," by him and Metheny--this latter being one of the prettiest pieces either men has likely done.  Actually, all the pieces are strong, providing for a cohesive and smoothly-flowing sequencing.

For those who want to further revel in the telepathic interplay of the two leaders, "Song X Duo" fits the bill--if anything, at just over three minutes, the piece may be a few minutes too short!  "Long Time No See" is a fine close to a remarkable record and is another piece replete with tight interplay between Metheny and Coleman.  The guitarist even manages some Latin melodic elements in his solo.  Here, as well, the dual drummers do a great job of laying down solid and complex rhythms with nice cymbal work to boot.

Metheny's obvious respect for Coleman is manifested by the fact that, though this was his album and the first for David Geffen's ambitious label, he treated the experience as a true collaboration, giving the saxophonist equal billing and equal time and space.  His guitar work is excellent and understated, not only allowing for Coleman to share plenty of the spotlight, but also for the tremendous support of Haden, Denardo Coleman and DeJohnette to be heard.

Ultimately, Song X is a generous and humble statement of respect by a younger modern musician for one of his musical heroes and it has been viewed as a classic since its release.  A 2004 remastering included six previously unreleased songs.

Pat Metheny/Ornette Coleman:  Song X (Geffen, 1986)

1.  Song X  5:36
2.  Mob Job  4:07
3.  Endangered Species  13:16
4.  Video Games  5:17
5.  Kathelin Gray  4:13
6.  Trigonometry  5:08
7.  Song X Duo  3:10
8.  Long Time No See 7:39

The Music of Ornette Coleman: Something Else!!!!

This past week Jayne Cortez, who was Ornette Coleman's wife from 1954 to 1964, passed away. She was also a well-known poet and artist who had roots in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, but spent her later years in New York, where she collaborated in spoken word and musical projects with her son by Coleman, Denardo, who has been a drummer for his father since he was just about ten years old.

It seems opportune, then, to have Ornette's first album be highlighted in this post, both because it was his debut recording and because one of the pieces was named for his then-wife. While his New York debut in Fall 1959 just before his first album for Atlantic, The Shape of Jazz to Come, which has been featured here, is legendary for its revolutionary reaction, negative and positive, in the jazz world, the recording of this record on the small Contemporary label in Los Angeles in February and March 1958 proves to be an important precursor to the splash later made in the world's jazz capital.

Coleman had been pursuing his unique and utterly "out" vision of music for several years and in almost complete obscurity in Los Angeles.  He was regarded as highly eccentric for his long hair and beard and his clothing style in addition to his music, which many musicians thought was a joke or a reflection of someone incapable of playing jazz as it had become standardized in the bop world; that is, according to the chord changes that guided the genre.

Though gigs were highly infrequent and often regarded with blatant hostility, there were a few musicians who were keyed in with what this visionary was doing.  Chief among these was his main foil, trumpeter Don Cherry, as well as drummer Billy Higgins, though there was also bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell, who would later join Coleman's group.

 

Bass player Red Mitchell, though certainly not an "outside" player, was impressed with Coleman's compositions and got him an appointment with Contemporary's chief, Lester Koenig, to demonstrate his songwriting, not his playing.  But, Coleman's works proved to be too difficult for others to play, so the alto sax player, who used a plastic instrument because he didn't have the money for a standard sax, but kept the instrument even when he could afford the other because he liked the sound, auditioned the pieces himself.

 

To Koenig's everlasting credit, he signed Coleman for two albums, with the second recording being Tomorrow is the Question.  Koenig, who used excellent recording equipment for the era, had such names on his label as drummer Shelly Manne (whose LA jazz club, the Manne Hole, was a major venue for quite a period of time in the 60s and 70s), Art Pepper, Sonny Rollins and Cecil Taylor, the latter being as revolutionary as Coleman.

 

On the debut, there is a tension between Coleman's desire to break free of chordal restrictions, regulated time signatures and other conventions and his use of bassist Don Payne and pianist Walter Norris who, while playing well, were also performing in a bop style that clashed with the freer ideas of the other band members.  In fact, the piano was insisted upon by Koenig, who produced the album.  The instrument, which normally is so chordally oriented as to force other musicians to play the standard changes of the day, unless the pianist was Thelonious Monk or Cecil Taylor, was not featured on a Coleman recording again until his Sound Museum dual albums with the great Geri Allen.  There are some songs, like "Chippie" and "The Disguise" where identifiable signatures are definitely present and indicative of the transitional nature of the album.

 

Still, this is an excellent record, with tunes like "The Blessing" and the aforementioned "Jayne," revealing a fresh approach to the blues underpinnings of jazz that combined Coleman's Texas roots and long professional experience in blues and R & B settings in gigs played throughout the South in the later 1940s with his radical ideas that developed after coming to Los Angeles in the early 1950s.  One track is titled "When Will the Blues Leave?" and it is a tongue-in-cheek one, presumably, because they never have! 

 

Accounting for the conventional, but solid playing of Payne and Norris, with the pianist wisely keeping himself in a low profile, the telepathic melodic and harmonic interplay between Coleman and Cherry, which matured and blossomed over the next few years, was well advanced and Higgins proved to be an ideal drummer, who could discard standard time, but still provide the swing that makes this album work so well.

 

To this untrained and unschooled listener, Coleman's melodic bent has always created a feeling of playful inventiveness, rather than the powerful intensity of John Coltrane, who was a great admirer of the altoist.  In fact, when Coltrane recorded an Atlantic album with Coleman's sidemen (Cherry, Haden and Higgins) in 1960, it is notable that most of the tunes were from these early Contemporary Records, perhaps because they were not as free as what came later.

 

It would be a mistake to avoid these first two albums, thinking that the revolutionary nature of Ornette Coleman's music only began with his Atlantic recordings in late 1959.  To these ears, which were, indeed, first exposed to Coleman's music in 1990 with the album of Atlantic outtakes issued as The Art of the Improvsiers, starting with Something Else!!! and Tomorrow is the Question!! and then moving to the Atlantic albums is a great way to see the work-in-progress of Coleman's remarkable ideas. 

 

Let's hope that the 82-year old Coleman still has many more years of music and life in him--he is truly a living master of American music.

 

The Music of Ornette Coleman: Something Else!!!!

 

1.  Invisible  4:11

2.  The Blessing  4:45

3.  Jayne  7:17

4.  Chippie  5:37

5.  The Disguise  2:46

6.  Angel Voice  4:19

7.  Alpha  4:09

8.  When Will the Blues Leave?  4:58

9.  The Sphinx  4:13



Ornette Coleman: At the Golden Circle, Volumes One and Two

After two LPs for the small Los Angeles label Contemporary, Ornette Coleman was signed to Atlantic Records and recorded a series of amazing albums that befuddled, bedazzled, enraged and engaged audiences and critics.  Still, the music business was hardly beneficent to the vast majority of jazz musicians and Coleman decided not to sign a new contract with Atlantic in 1961.  Instead, he hoped to be able to create his own destiny through recordings and concerts and the move proved to be one in which for most of the period from 1962 to 1966, hardly any music was performed or recorded by this uniquely innovative and talented artist.

Last night, YHB finished the interesting 1966 A. B. Spellman book, Black Music: Four Lives (a.k.a. Four Lives in the Bebop Business), in which the journalist details the lives and careers of four then-neglected or struggling musicians, these being the protean pianist Cecil Taylor, the almost-unknown pianist Herbie Nichols, alto sax stalwart Jackie McLean and Coleman.  It is often depressing and saddening to hear how these men, despite their remarkable talents and commitment to their music, were mistreated by club owners and label executives and the chapter on Coleman also is a reminder that his way of composing and creating with ensembles was heavily criticized by other musicians, not just jazz reviewers.

Finally, though, in 1965, Coleman was signed to Blue Note Records and a series of recordings made during a two-week engagement at The Golden Circle club in frigid Stockholm, Sweden in early December were released in two volumes the following year known as At the Golden Circle.  Coleman and his trio, including bassist David Izenzon and drummer Charles Moffett, perform remarkably individually and the interplay between the three is impressive.

Notably, lines notes by Swede Ludvig Rasmussen make the case that Coleman's "emotion range is fairly limited and if it were not for the variety of his music, we would certainly consider it tedious."  This seems like a backhanded compliment at best, but Rasmussen continued that "the content of his music is mostly pure beauty, a glittering, captivating, dizzying, sensual beauty."  According to him, "a couple of years ago, nobody through so, and everyone considered his music grotesque, filled with anguish and chaos."

It seems strange to think that a listener could find that Coleman lacked emotion and yet played with great beauty, but, in a way, Rasmussen's point might be grounded in a perception that unlike John Coltrane, whose powerful and intense soloing indicated great groundswells of emotion, Coleman's "variety" seems more playful and joyful in terms of the exploration of sound and, perhaps, "pure beauty."  Glittering actually seems a particularly apt way to express much of what came forth from that plastic alto sax and it is, indeed, "captivating" and, maybe, "dizzying."

Rasmussen, moreover, highlights the shock of discovering how innovative and impressive the largely-unknown Izenzon, who was a highly-skilled classical player who performed regularly in chamber music groups and orchestras, was and YHB agrees that the bassist stands out for his unusual way of complementing Moffett's drumming and accompanying Coleman.  He compares Izenzon to the late Scott LaFaro, whose virtuosity was very noteworthy.  In fact, in Four Lives, Coleman is quoted at length talking about why he so often used white bassists (Izenzon, LaFaro and the sublime Charlie Haden), while one of the few black players he used was Jimmy Garrison, the longtime member of John Coltrane's classic quartet.

Concerning Izenzon (who died of a heart attack after chasing a man who robbed him in New York), Coleman commented that "he knows that he's Jewish, he knows his conception of that in relation to the human struggle," but also noted that "he has a feeling of superiority about his playing, playing with all those symphony orchestras, but he backed up that feeling of superiorty with an ability to do anything that's possible to be done on the bass."  He followed with a discussion about the difference between "hearing music" and having a technical virtuosity, as well as asserting that a bass is "a more expressive instrument to non-Negro, non-black people" and that this was why he used mostly white bassists.  Whether using a bow, especially on "Dawn" on Volume 1, or plucking, found abundantly throughout, Izenzon's strength, clarity and manner of accompaniment are something to behold.

Moffett, whose son Charnett is a very fine bass player (and was featured on Sonny Sharrock's mind-shattering Ask the Ages album, featured here not long ago) may seem underappreciated in this context, but his use of counterpoint along with that of the bassist, gives Coleman the freedom and space to perform all manner of solos and yet keep a swing and rhythm that hold down the bottom line, especially when Izenzon steps out to try something new and interesting outside of keeping the rhythm.

With Volume 2, the track "Snowflakes and Sunshine" is a marvel for many reasons.  First, Moffett's triple time approach to the drums and the leader hauls out a violin, which he took up during his long absence from the scene and debuted only recently at a Village Vanguard engagement in New York, and launches screeching, abrasive sounds that led to much criticism from musicians and critics.  Well, so did Coleman's adoption of another instrument, the trumpet, which also makes its first recorded appearance here and which was so identified with Coleman's early musical soul mate, Don Cherry.  Probably if a listener approaches Coleman's "playing" of these instruments as ways to bring a certain "color" or "texture" to his music, it might go over better?

In any case, Volume 2 is more intense that the first, but the two are excellent recordings that showed that Coleman's mid-sixties work could be quite exciting and compare favorably with the more-heralded Atlantic years of 1959 to 1961.  Those interested in hearing these fine live albums are encouraged to seek out the 24-bit remastered Rudy van Gelder editions issued by Blue Note in 2001. 

Already a legendary engineer known for bringing out superb sounding records at the time, van Gelder's remastering on CD reveals a notable difference from the original masters.  Interestingly, Charles Mingus, a notorious eccentric by about any standard, refused to work with van Gelder because he argued that the engineer manipulated the natural sounds of musicians for his own creative purposes.  On the other hand, van Gelder was sought out by musicians and producers for his advanced studio set-ups and the results of his "secret recipe" at the soundboard.

Coleman, meantime, went on to record two studio albums with Coltrane's classic rhythm section of Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones before leaving for a stint with Columbia Records and then emerging in the 1970s with a more electric sound via his Prime Time ensemble. HIs music will be regularly featured here and the 82-year old master is still active (YHB got to see him at U.C.L.A. a couple of years ago and he sounded great, if a bit fragile.)

Ornette Coleman: The Shape of Jazz to Come

If John Coltrane's 1965 album A Love Supreme was the ultimate in spiritual expression in jazz, then The Shape of Jazz to Come, the 1959 recording from Ornette Coleman was perhaps the ultimate in establishing the freedom of expression that many other musicians and listeners followed, while others turned away in disdain and despair.

We're inured much more more than a half-century later to unorthodox sounds, but when Coleman, who initially played a plastic alto sax for financial reasons and found he loved the sound so much that he continued to use it, and his quartet (Don Cherry on cornet, Charlie Haden on bass and drummer Billy Higgins) first made waves in an engagement at the Five Spot club in New York, the reactions were visceral and largely polarized.

The Shape of Jazz to Come was boldly titled and played.  There was nothing like it before and Coleman's music became totally distinctive, both for those who loved and hated it, when the album was unleashed in October 1959.

While detractors made many claims (he couldn't play, was "jiving", etc.), the opening track clearly shows Coleman's true gift for melody and composition.  "Lonely Woman" is simply one of the most beautiful, haunting tracks in music and the harmony between Coleman and Cherry is remarkable as is Haden's incredible strumming on the bass.  In fact, on "Focus on Sanity," which seems an ironic remark, Haden's confident and and supple performance heralds a new way of playing an instrument generally relegated to rhythmic support.  And, Higgins provides the support for the freedom of the others while being able to demonstrate his own plastic sense of time and rhythm.  "Just for You" has another awfully pretty melody for someone that some critics thought was ruining jazz, while "Eventually" shows a supremely-tight (and, yet, loose) ensemble at a frenetic pace with colors and tones that were light years ahead of most (though not all) of what was being done at the time.

Actually, for this basically untutored listener, it seems like there is a lot of tradition in The Shape of Jazz to Come.  There is a pronounced bluesy feel (Coleman was from Fort Worth, Texas and had much exposure to blues and R & B playing his his earlier days) to much of the soloing and the ensemble playing does seem to hearken back (without just reproducing) the feeling of the New Orleans roots of the music. 

The signature "harmolodics" of Coleman's approach relative to jazz's origins and development just doesn't seem to be that much of a stretch (at least not to some of our jaded 21st-century ears), even if, as Cherry once said, what could start as a harmonic device would develop into a melody and vice-versa.  In a way, wasn't what Coleman was doing was taking elements of "the tradition" and establishing a new sense of freedom for the players, who, after all, weren't "jiving," but were genuinely engaging in the time-honored jazz fundamental basis of experimenting with improvisation?

It's probably best to quote Coleman here.  For example, his statement that "you can't intellectualize music" and that "pure emotion" in reaction to the sounds is what matters.  Or, "there is a law in what I'm playing," but, "when you get tired of it you can change it." Finally, the epitome of explaining what he was doing is reflected in his observation that there was Dixieland's ensemble playing, swing's riff-based soloing, and bop's progressive approach to melody and harmony.  Concluded Coleman, "now we are blending all three together to create and give more freedom to the player and more pleasure to the listener."

Freedom for the musician and pleasure for the listener--at least for this listener, The Shape of Jazz to Come is one of the best examples in all of jazz of the two in harmony--or harmolodically!

The Shape of Jazz to Come

1.  Lonely Woman
2.  Eventually
3.  Peace
4.  Focus on Sanity
5.  Congeniality
6.  Chronology