This box set of 3 cds, 2 dvds, and a 24 page book with liner notes and photographs contains the last recordings of the jazz icon and pioneer Ornette Coleman. The music is culled from the 2014 “Celebrate Ornette” Concert at Prospect Park in Brooklyn and the 2015 Ornette Coleman Memorial at the Riverside Church. The dvds contain all of the speaking and interviews from friends and admirers including Sonny Rollins, Yok Ono, Howard Mandel and Geri Allen,and Ornette himself gives a tender speech. The Memorial dvd includes the Processional, opening prayer all the way through the eulogy, benediction and recessional, while some reflections and music being delivered to honor the departed giant.
The three discs of music gives insight as to the seismic shift that Coleman’s sound and vision created. For the Brooklyn Concert, his son Denardo plays drums as his DENARDO VIBE team of Charlie Ellerbe/g, Tony Falanga/b, Al MacDowell/b and Antoine Roney/ts form the “house band” for the various guests, including dad himself, who sounds a bit fragile with Murray and Threadgill on “Ramblin’” and “OC Turnaround” with Murray and Savion Glover tapping in accompaniment. Geri Allen, Joe Lovano, Wallace Roney and Murray dig deep on “The Sphinx” while the Laurie Anderson, John Zorn Bill Laswell and Stewart Hurwood give a sonic tribute on “Ornette Reverb Quartet.”
Paii Smith gives some vocals with Lenny Kaye and friends for some free form “Seneca” and “Tarkvsky,” while Ravi Coltrane gets extroverted on “Peace.” A surfeit of saxes from Murray, Marsalis, Coltrane and Lovano team up with Roney and Allen on a marathon take of “Lonely Woman” while ringer Bruce Hornsby sits at the piano for a hair raising “Song X” with James Blood Ulmer, Laswell, Coltrane and Marsalis.
The Memorial service has some tender tributes by a solo Pharoah sanders and Cecil Taylor, while duets by Threadgill-Jason Moran on “Sail”, Allen and Coltrane on “Peace” and Jack DeJohnette with Glover on a duo celebrate the free form of the jazz icon. The list and range of musicians and speakers demonstrates how long a shadow Mr. Coleman cast during the four score and 5 years he was on this planet.