Landmark Jazz Album #19 - Free Jazz - Ornette Coleman (Columbia)

Ornette Coleman (as), Freddie Hubbard, Don Cherry (t), Eric Dolphy (b cl), Scott LaFaro, Charlie Haden (b), Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins (d). Rec. 1960

This one turned everyone around. Ornette set the musicians up in two parallel quartets, arranged some loose themes and collective playing to book end the entire performance as well as section off each solo, then let the musicians loose for a collective bout of improvisation that lasts well over half an hour reinventing the possibilities of jazz as it does so. The overall marvel of this record is that, while it proved to be so pregnant with ideas for those who followed in the next decades, the music grips the listener as excitingly as ever today. Some CD issues of this album contain the 17-minute rehearsal version of ‘Free Jazz’, called ‘First Take’, as a bonus.

Credits: KS