Free Jazz by Ornette Coleman
“Endlessly surprising. The interplay between the quartets, and the musicians is, fifty five years later, still a constant delight...”
2 more comments / 19 lovesThis jam was posted by 10 people
but The1960s was first
Endlessly surprising. The interplay between the quartets, and the musicians is, fifty five years later, still a constant delight...
2
Still may be my favorite jazz album of all time. RIP sir.
“I don’t want them to follow me. I want them to follow themselves, but to be with me.” ~ Ornette Coleman "Some walked in and out before they could finish a drink, some sat mesmerized by the sound, others talked constantly to their neighbors at the table or argued with drink in hand at the bar". ~ George Hoefer in Downbeat on Ornette at the Five Spot in 1959 “I listened to him high, and I listened to him cold sober. I even played with him. I think he’s jiving, baby.” ~trumpeter Roy Eldridge
1961 - The album features a double quartet, one in each stereo channel. The personnel consists of Coleman's touring quartet, augmented by returning Coleman Quartet drummer Billy Higgins, multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy, and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. Bassist Scott LaFaro, whom Coleman had worked with the previous two days on sessions for Gunther Schuller, would both appear on this album and replace bassist Charlie Haden in the Quartet for Coleman's next album, Ornette!. The rhythm sections play simultaneously, and though there is a succession of solos as is usual in jazz, they are peppered with freeform commentaries by the other horns that often turn into full-scale collective improvisation. The pre-composed material is a series of brief, dissonant fanfares for the horns which serve as interludes between solos. Not least among the album's achievements was that it was the first album-length improvisation, nearly forty minutes, which was unheard of at the time - Wikipedia
