Skies of America
Skies of America is the second and last LP produced while Coleman was under contract with CBS. However short his tenure there, he used the opportunity to realize a project that was probably only possible with the resourced of a big media conglomerate: a symphony for large orchestra and jazz ensemble. Skies of America was recorded only after lengthy preparations and in an altered format, with Coleman the only soloist. This, however, is not the fault of CBS but of the British Musicians' Union, which objected to the involvement of the Coleman quartet at the recordings in the Abbey Road studio, as well as the piece's planned premiere in London. In consequence, Coleman's most important symphonic work remains available today only in a provisional version, although there have been several concert performances over the course of the years in the originally intended format.
Whoever knows Coleman's earlier works for classical ensemble will not be too much surprised by the sound world of this symphony. Much here is familiar, especially in comparison with the wind quintet “Forms And Sounds”: the superimposition of severally [sic] rhythmically distinct, but self-contained blocks of sound; the parallel movement of the voices in unchanging note values; sudden tumultuous outbursts interrupting a generally quiet musical flow; the arrangement into short segments; the uniform harmonic color, neither completely dissonant nor merely triadic. Coleman's liner notes reveal how this odd harmony comes into being: when a sing score is read in four different clefs—violin, alto, tenor, and bass-clef—a harmony in four voices results, which contains not only consonant chords such as thirds, sixths, and fifths, but also dissonant tensions like sevenths and ninths. In this context the composer invokes the so-called “harmolodic theory”; this is the first reference to this controversial concept, which will cause much confusion in future, although the approach is discernible in Coleman's earlier works.
There is more that is new on Skies of America, however, than simply the extrapolation of Coleman's compositional procedures to symphonic scale. On seven of the twenty-one sections the saxophonist performs for the first time with a classical ensemble. (In the second setting of “Sounds And Forms” he had only played interludes between the wind passages; in Chappaqua Suite the ensemble operated too much the background to speak of intercommunication.) Coleman appears to aim above all for a simple, clear style of playing; with its string of straightforward diatonic motifs it sometimes sounds almost simplistic. And for the first time he involves a classical ensemble in the expression of several themes usually reserved for jazz groups. Thus, “The Good Life,” “Holiday For Heroes,” and “The Soul Within Woman” are already familiar from earlier combo recordings as “School Work,” “Forgotten Songs,” and “Street Woman,” while “All Of My Life,” as its name suggests, is a re-working of the vocal of the number “All My Life” from the LP Science Fiction. Admittedly, the connection between combo and orchestra language is less obvious on the other segments.
The orchestra is accompanied by two drummers posted on either side; on the left, by classical tympani, augmented at times by tom-toms; on the right by a drummer with a standard jazz kit. Their playing seems to rely less on composed material than that of the horns and strings, and the tympanist often performs with more verve and imagination the his (anonymous) jazz counterpart, who sticks to straightforward timekeeping.
The bright sound of the orchestra has a programmatic purpose, as Coleman explains in the liner notes: “The voicing of the orchestra is written in very high parts because I wanted the sound of the orchestra to create a very clear earth and sky image of sound as much as a feeling of night, stars and daylight.” Elsewhere he said: “I grew up in Texas, in the South, where there was a lot of discrimination, a lot of problems for minorities. Sometimes the sun shines on one side of the street, and on the other dies, maybe only a few feet further on there'll be hail and thunderstorms. And that reminded me of something, which happens to people. In America, one senses that everyone is happy, and in the next moment, they all fight themselves. The people are exactly like the elements. As I gave the piece this title, I wanted to see whether I could describe beauty, a beauty that is not tied to races or to a territory. In other words: heaven has no territory.”
- Peter Niklas Wilson, in Ornette Coleman: His Life & Music
At The “Golden Circle,” Vol. 1 & 2
After the extravagant trio excursions of Who's Crazy? these recordings from the Gyllene Cirkeln nightclub in Stockholm, where the group gave a guest performance two weeks long, seem downright regressive. It is possible that Blue Note chose pieces of a rather conservative cast from the group's two days at the club (a larger selection remains unpublished); it is also possible that Coleman wanted to present different music to the audience at a jazz club than to a concert audience in London or the audience for an experimental film. The music on the first of these two albums, especially, (which are not arranged chronologically) is much less adventurous than the previous trio productions. Coleman concentrates on the saxophone on these four pieces; the rhythm section performs fairly conventionally, and refrains from surprising tempo changes and metric dissolution. It almost seems that the old hierarchy of soloist and accompanists is enforced again. The themes bolster this conservative impression: “Dawn” has the character of a conventional jazz ballad; “Dee Dee” is a blithe, innocuous melody in four-bar phrases, and the simple diatonic waltz “European Echos” (which surfaced briefly on Who's Crazy?) could even be mistaken for a piece of musical parody if it were not presented so straightforwardly. The playing of the trio reminds one most of the group on the LP Ornette! from 1961: curt themes; long improvisations in constant tempi; orderly solos in the traditional sequence horns, bass, and percussion, rather than collective improvisation. The solos, however, are consistently inspired: David Izenzon, in particular, on “Faces & Places” and “Dee Dee” makes beautifully shaped, masterly pizzicato contributions.
Volume 1 of the “Golden Circle” recordings goes some way towards refuting the supposition that the trio was reluctant to alienate the public with excessively alien sounds. What, after the experience of Chappaqua Suite, the Fairfield concert, or the Who's Crazy? Soundtrack one may miss in Volume One, is back with a vengeance on Volume 2: Coleman's vehement trumpet and violin playing (which Izenzon supports with violent double-stop passages), and the sudden tempo changes which show off the seemingly intuitive communication of David Izenzon and Charles Moffet, particularly toward the end of “The Riddle.” (Ekkehard Jost has justly compared this rhythm team with the legendary bass-percussion duo of Charles Mingus and Dannie Richmond.) “The Riddle” is also a beautiful example of Moffett's alert, variegated, but always time-referential drumming. His exploration of the different colors produced by the damped or ringing cymbal is especially admirable, and it becomes clear at such moments that he is unjustly overshadowed by his predecessor (and successor) Ed Blackwell).
- Peter Niklas Wilson, in Ornette Coleman: His Life & Music
Change of the Century
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
This is, of course, the best of all the Coleman LPs issued so far and is the only one to which I can listen with any degree of pleasure at all. So much for that sort of comment, except that I might add that the use of the priori propaganda of titles like Change of the Century and The Shape of [Jazz] to Come reminds me more of Stan Kenton and his “Forwardism” than anything else.
This LP, like all the others, consists of original compositions by Coleman in which there is trumpet-alto ensemble, trumpet solo, alto solo, exchanges, and, now, and then solos by the bass and drums.
Since we don't know the tunes themselves (and one observation I would like to make is that I will be surprised if a great many of these tunes become standard jazz vehicles even to fledglings in their emulation of the latest word), we don't know if the various shiftings, etc., take place all the time.
If you don't know the reference, you can't get the real point.
I would suggest that this music is part of the general revolt against the bop cliché, the endless routinizing of tunes, the orthodox solo pattern, and the general stagnation into which the newcomers in jazz have been mired for a couple of years now. (The major forces make their own rules.) It may or may not be the music of the future: only time will tell that. But it is symptomatic of a new wind ablowin' just as Kerouac, the Tokyo riots, Absolute Beginners, and La Dolce Vita are symptoms of new things.
It would be helpful for evaluation even now if there were an LP of the group playing standards. Then there might be some clue for us tin-eared critics. As it is, there's nothing to do but face the music squarely—if you will forgive. So my reaction, after numerous hearing of this LP, is the following:
I do not think that this is what Ornette Coleman will sound like when he has perfected his style. He is, after all, one of the few major contributors (if he is a major contributor) not to come completely formed (as Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk did) to recording. We are watching the thing work out here. If this is what he wants to sound like ultimately, I am sorry, but it is an annoying and unmusical sound to my ears.
In Ramblin', for instance, I find the echoes of the street bands like the Jenkins Orphanage Band of the '20s rather than any bow to the Bird's word. In Una Muy Bonita, by for the most attractive tune, there is a kinship between the playing and the overtones of Spanish music that is surprising.
All in all, I find the tunes difficult to judge and the playing of Coleman himself highly individual, highly erratic and harsh, and sometimes ingenuously winning.
He and Cherry obviously improvise together with facility and empathy that is not all surprising, since they have worked together so long. Just as on the other LPs, I feel that Cherry is the only one who knows or senses what Coleman is up to at any given point. Not that the others don't fit. They do, or rather the pattern is one that allows them to sound as if they do, and no one knows if they are successful in Ornette's terms or not, only whether or not the over-all effect is good.
Again, I say I cannot listen, except to Ramblin' and Una Muy Bonita, for personal pleasure—and not much then.
But this does not mean the LP or the total body of work is unimportant. It obviously is. And in my opinion, it marks the turning point away from the ultimate extension of swing into bop and is another indication of possible new directions for part of jazz to take, along with John Lewis and Gunther Schuller's “new music. John Coltrane, Monk, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, and the others who are attempting to create a music that is still jazz but is more free of the restrictions inherent in swing-bop than what has been done so far.
Or course, for musical value, there's always Duke Ellington.
- Ralph J. Gleason; Downbeat; August 18, 1960
Free Jazz
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
In first hearing, Free Jazz strikes one as a sprawling, discursive, chaotic jumble of jagged rhythms and pointless cacophonies, among which however are interlarded a number of striking solo segments (particularly those of the two bassists). The force, intensity and biting passion that motivate it also come across.
On repeated listening, however, the form of the work gradually reveals itself and it is seen that the piece is far less unconventional than it might at first appear. It does not break with jazz tradition; rather, it restores to currency an element that has been absent in most jazz since the onset of the swing orchestra-spontaneous group improvisation. Yet Coleman has restored it with a vengeance. Here we have better than half an hour's worth, with only a minimal amount of it predetermined to any degree.
All things considered, the disc is largely successful-it certainly lives up to Coleman's dicta, at least. It is a powerful and challenging work of real conviction and honest emotion; it poses questions and provides its own answers to them. It is restless in its re-examination of the role of collective improvisation, and this is, in many respects, where the work is most successful.
- Pete Welding; Downbeat; January 18, 1962
Free Jazz
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
This friendly get-together is subtitled "a collective improvisation by the Omette Coleman double quartet." One might expect a collective improvisation by Coleman's usual crew of four to be a merry event. But here we shoot the moon. It's every man-jack for himself in an eight-man emotional regurgitation. Rules? Forget 'em.
Where does neurosis end and psychosis begin? The answer must lie somewhere within this maelstrom. If nothing else, this witch's brew is the logical end product of a bankupt philosophy of ultraindividualism in music. Collective improvisation? Nonsense. The only semblance of collectivity lies in the fact that these eight nihilists were collected together in one studio at one time and with one common cause: to destroy the music that gave them birth.
- John Tynan; Downbeat; January 18, 1962
The Shape of Jazz to Come
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Coleman can some as something of a shock to the normally attuned ear because he arrival has not been prepared in gradual stages (as, for instance, the arrivals of Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane were). Coleman appears to have gone directly back to the basic foundation set up by Charlie Parker, to have shucked off the surface derivations which have been accumulating on it for 15 years, and to have taken off from this bare-bone launching pad in his own direction. His trumpet-playing partner, Donald Cherry, seems to stand in an equivalent relationship to Dizzy Gillespie and there are many times on this disc when they project a sensation that is very reminiscent of the early Parker-Gillespie groups—a sensation that is somewhat dimly based on sound and style, but much more clearly on creative intensity.
That is the element that pours out of this disc—creativity in strong, concentrated waves. Four of the half dozen Coleman originals in this collection grow out of bop roots, but Coleman hears other things, too. Peace, the most easily assimilated selection in the set, is in a relaxed blues vein, and Coleman, who often produces an extremely harsh, shrill tone on his plastic alto, plays with an ease and warmth here that is direct and communicative. Lonely Woman, on which Coleman make formidable use of his interest in paralleling his instrument with the human voice, achieves a lamenting wail that is strikingly similar to the New Orleans dirges as they have been recorded by the Eureka Brass band and others.
This is not easy music for the listener, but even at its most difficult it remains compelling. Coleman still has a great deal of refining to do if his ideas are to lead anywhere. But he has solid musical ground under his feet here, and this disc is a more reassuring and provocative signpost than his first LP, Something Else, Contemporary 3551.
- John S. Wilson; Downbeat; December 10, 1959
Something Else!
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Coleman's playing suggests an intense desire to do to jazz what Charlie Parker did in the middle 1940s. But wanting isn't having—and Coleman is far from being a reincarnation of Parker.
About the closest parallel one can make from this 28-year-old Texan's passionate, sometimes almost inarticulate playing is to the piano approach of Thelonious Monk. There is in it the same reaching, striving feeling and also the frustration of not being capable of attaining the heights yearned for so desperately.
All the selections were composed by Coleman, whose writing strangely is quite removed from his blowing. His lines are attractively linear, strongly mobile, and quite melodic at times. Much of the rating here is inspired by this excellent writing.
With the decided asset of a powerful, bursting rhythm section in [pianist Walter] Norris, [bassist Don] Payne, and [drummer Billy] Higgins, Coleman and 22-year-old newcomer [Don] Cherry have full freedom to blow their best. The trumpeter [Cherry], who even now displays intelligent ideas becked up by growing technique, in time should develop into a major hornman.
On first hearing, this album raises goose bumps. One is puzzled by Coleman's jagged, fragmentary playing, and it is easy to imagine listeners quickly taking sides for or against him. With repeated listening, however, his approach becomes clearer, his strengths and weaknesses stand out.
A basic weakness—and a most serious one for any musician—is Coleman's frequent failure to capture the rhythmic feel of the music itself. There are times when he is on one planet, the rhythm section on another. Then, too, it seems the faster the tempo, the less capable is the altoist of functioning relaxedly.
Probably Coleman's prime asset in a jazz sense is his wealth of feeling and honesty. This guy isn't putting anyone on, and he lets you know it. He also writes with force and a real personality.
Pianist Norris is the most satisfying soloist on the album and should certainly record a set of his own. His comping is always sympathetic to the hornmen, and his creation and development of original solo lines show why he is so highly regarded by musicians in L.A. area.
Higgins and Cherry, by dint of much playing together and sheer enjoyment of the proceedings, make a fine team.
Abstractionist Coleman may or may not become a “success” in jazz—but from the viewpoint of personal satisfaction in his music he's a success already. His album should be heard.
- John A. Tynan; Downbeat; October 30, 1958
