Considered the creator of what was called both “The Avant Garde” or “Free Jazz,” Ornette Coleman and his alto sax transformed jazz with an atom bomb of playing who’s shock was still resonate today. This two disc set covers his early years when the gauntlet was first drawn, and with 50+ years retrospective hearing, it’s a fascinating history lesson, as well as great music.
All of Coleman’s work at this point was on Atlantic Records, and except for the double quartet tornado of Free Jazz, the band made few changes, with alter ego Don Cherry on pocket trumpet along with Walter Norris-Percy Heath-Red Mitchell-Charlie Haden/b, the one-off Walter Norris/p and Billy Higgins-Shelly Manne-Ed Blackwell/dr mixing and matching through the evolution of the sound.
While the early recordings from 1958’s Something Else!!, and both Tomorrow is the Question & The Shape of Jazz to Come from 1959 sent shock waves through the jazz community, what is most surprising to hear the performances today is how mainstream these pieces are. You wonder what the fuss was all about when “The Blessing” and “Gigging” are firmly rooted in bebop, while the unison lines of the horns sound more orthodox than most of today’s performers.
Even on the more loosely pulsed “Lonely Woman,” and “Ramblin’” hardly an eyebrow would be raised today, while “Peace” is simply a gorgeous piece of art. The lithe pulse created by Haden and Blackwell is as deft as it was revolutionary for the time, making one wonder if it was actually the rhythm that changed everything and not the solos.
The entire 37 minute opus Free Jazz which includes Cherry, Higgins, Blackwell and Haden with Freddie Hubbard/tp, Eric Dolphy/bcl, and Scott Lafaro/b is considered the album that created seismic changes in modern music. It’s still a tough endurance test, and as Mark Twain once said, “A classic is a book you want to have read” which summarizes this cataclysmic yet fascinating tsunami. If you’ve wondered what the fuss of Ornette Coleman was all about, this set is the place to begin.