John McLaughlin - My Goal's Beyond (1970)

After bouncing around on a couple of labels (Douglas/Polydor/Ryko,) the CD reissue of this album ultimately ended up on KnitMedia. The startling thing about this record is that it points the way toward two directions McLaughlin would take in the future -- exploring Indian music and the acoustic guitar -- and this while he was in the thick of the burgeoning electronic jazz-rock movement. The first half is a John McLaughlin acoustic guitar tour de force, where he thwacks away with his energetic, single-minded intensity on three jazz standards and five originals (including one genuine self-penned classic, "Follow Your Heart") and adds a few percussion effects via overdubbing. The second half is devoted to a pair of marvelously intricate fusions of Indian rhythms and drones called "Peace One" and "Peace Two," with jazz flights from flutist/soprano saxophonist Dave Liebman, a simpatico encounter with future Mahavishnu cohorts Billy Cobham on drums and Jerry Goodman on violin, and Airto blending his sounds seamlessly with the Indian tambura and tabla. Throughout, McLaughlin's acoustic lines faultlessly straddle the line between the subcontinent and jazz, and the ethereal results still hold up beautifully today.

by Richard S. Ginell in All Music Guide

Styles:
Fusion
World Fusion

Tracks:
01 - Peace One (7:18)
02 - Peace Two (12:15)
03 - Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (3:20)
04 - Something Spiritual (3:29)
05 - Hearts and Flowers (2:10)
06 - Phillip Lane (2:36)
07 - Waltz for Bill Evans (2:01)
08 - Follow Your Heart (3:19)
09 - Song for My Mother (2:34)
10 - Blue in Green (2:38)

Line-up:
John McLaughlin -- acoustic guitar
Billy Cobham -- drums
Jerry Goodman -- violin
Charlie Haden -- bass
Dave Liebman -- flute, soprano saxophone
Airto Moreira -- percussion
Badal Roy -- tabla
Mahalakshmi -- sruti box

Alice Coltrane - Lord of Lords (1972)

Lord of Lords, released in 1973, was Alice Coltrane's final album for Impulse! It was the final part of a trilogy that began with Universal Consciousness and continued with the expansive World Galaxy. Like its immediate predecessors, the album features a 16-piece string orchestra that Coltrane arranged and conducted, fronted by a trio in which she plays piano, Wurlitzer organ, harp, and timpani with bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ben Riley. Riley was familiar with the setting because he had been part of the sessions for World Galaxy. The first two pieces, "Andromeda's Suffering" and "Sri Rama Ohnedaruth" (titled after the spiritual name for her late husband, John Coltrane), are, in essence, classical works. There is little improvisation except on the piano underneath the wall of strings. They are scored for large tone clusters and minor-key drone effects, but also engage in creating timbral overtones. They are quite beautiful, yet have little or nothing to do with jazz except for the seemingly free passages toward the end of the latter track, but even these feel scored, because of the control of tension and dynamic. "Excerpts from The Firebird," which uses the organ to open the piece, features the strings playing almost (because with Alice Coltrane, she interpreted in her own way) directly from Igor Stravinsky's score. The droning organ is so gorgeous underneath those reaching strings that it's breathtaking. As to why she chose this piece as the centerpiece for her own album, she claimed that Stravinsky came to her in a vision and passed something on to her in a glass vial, a liquid that she drank!
Riley and Haden appear in earnest on the title track, a long modal piece where drones, rhythms, and time signatures are registered through the direction of Coltrane's piano and harp, creating a blissful kind of tension and dynamic. It cracks open at about six minutes, and Coltrane (on the organ), Haden, and Riley engage in some lively improvisation, with the strings offering trilling high-end swooping in the background. The set ends with Coltrane's transformation of a gospel hymn called "Going Home." Her harp introduces Riley's brushes and the strings, which in turn offer a root chord for her to play the melody and improvise upon it on the organ. Here the blues make their presence known. It offers a kind of understanding for the listener that Coltrane, no matter where this musical direction was headed (even as it went further toward the Cosmic Music she and her late husband envisioned together), continued to understand perfectly where her musical root was. The interplay between the three principals is lively and engaging, based on droning blues chords, and her soloing -- even amid flurries of notes -- comes right back to the root, and she quotes quite directly from Delta blues riffs and other gospel songs. Haden's bass is a beautiful anchor here (although mixed a bit low), and the strings offer a lovely response to her organ and harp. Riley's cymbals are shimmering shards of light throughout, ending Lord of Lords on a very high note. While it's true that Alice Coltrane's later Impulse! music may not be for everyone, even those who followed her earlier, more jazz-oriented recordings on Impulse!, it was obvious from the beginning that she was seeking to incorporate Indian classical music's drone center into her work, and was literally obsessed with the timbral, chromatic, and harmonic possibilities of strings. She succeeds here, in ending her Impulse! period with elegance, grace, and soul.

by Thom Jurek in All Music Guide

Styles:
Modern Improvisation
Structured Composition

Tracks:
01 - Andromeda's Suffering (09:04)
02 - Sri Rama Ohnedaruth (06:11)
03 - Excerpts from The Firebird (05:45)
04 - Lord of Lords (11:17)
05 - Going Home (09:59)

Line-up:

Alice Coltrane - Harp, Piano, Organ, Timpani [Tympani], Percussion
Charlie Haden - Bass
Ben Riley - Drums, Percussion
Anne Goodman , Edgar Lustgarten , Jan Kelly , Jerry Kessler , Jesse Ehrlich , Raphael Kramer , Ray Kelley - Cello
David Schwartz , Leonard Selic , Marilyn Baker , Myra Kestenbaum , Rollice Dale , Samuel Boghosian - Viola
Bernard Kundell , Gerald Vinci , Gordon Marron , James Getzoff , Janice Gower , Leonard Malarsky , Lou Klass , Murray Adler , Nathan Kaproff , Ronald Folsom , Sidney Sharp , William Henderson - Violin

John Coltrane & Don Cherry - The Avant-Garde (1960)

This album is rightfully co-credited to Don Cherry (trumpet), who ably trades blows with John Coltrane (tenor/soprano sax) throughout. The Avant-Garde also boasts the debut studio recording of Coltrane playing soprano sax -- on "The Blessing" -- in addition to his continuing advancements on tenor. Although these tracks were recorded during the summer of 1960, they remained shelved for nearly six years. Joining Coltrane and Cherry are essentially the rest of the members of the Ornette Coleman Quartet, Ed Blackwell (drums) and Charlie Haden (bass) on "Cherryco" and "The Blessing," as well as Percy Heath (bass) on the remaining three selections. This is fitting, as over half of the album consists of early Coleman compositions. Coltrane's integration into this band works with some extraordinarily fresh results. Neither Cherry nor Coltrane makes any radical departures on this album; however, it's the ability of each to complement the other both in terms of modal style and -- perhaps more importantly -- texture that lends heavily to the success of these sides. Cherry's brisk and somewhat nasal intonations on "The Blessing" mimic those of Miles Davis, albeit with shorter flourishes and heavily improvised lines. When combined with Coltrane's well-placed -- if not somewhat reserved -- solos, the mutual value of both is dramatically increased. Blackwell -- the only other musician besides Cherry and Coltrane to be featured on every track -- provides some non-conventional percussive accompaniment. His contributions to "The Blessing" and workout on the aptly titled "Focus on Sanity" are primal.

by Lindsay Planer in All Music Guide

Styles:
Hard-Bop
Avant-Garde

Tracks:
01 - Cherry-Co (6:47)
02 - Focus On Sanity (12:15)
03 - The Blessing (7:53)
04 - The Invisible (4:15)
05 - Bemsha Swing (5:05)

Line-up:

John Coltrane - soprano & tenor saxophones

Don Cherry - trumpet

Charlie Haden - acoustic bass
Percy Heath - acoustic bass

Ed Blackwell - drums

Ornette Coleman Quartet - This is Our Music (1961)

With two landmark albums already under its belt, the Ornette Coleman Quartet spent nearly a year out of the studio before reconvening for This Is Our Music. This time, Billy Higgins is replaced on drums by Ed Blackwell, who has a similar knack for anticipating the ensemble's direction, and proves a more fiery presence on tracks like "Kaleidoscope" and "Folk Tale." The session is also notable for containing the only standard (or, for that matter, the only non-original) Coleman recorded during his tenure with Atlantic -- Gershwin's "Embraceable You," which is given a lyrical interpretation and even a rather old-time, sentimental intro (which may or may not be sarcastic, but really is pretty). In general, though, Coleman disapproved of giving up his own voice and viewed standards as concessions to popular taste; as the unapologetic title of the album makes clear, he wanted to be taken (or left) on his own terms. And that word "our" also makes clear just how important the concept of group improvisation was to Coleman's goals. Anyone can improvise whenever he feels like it, and the players share such empathy that each knows how to add to the feeling of the ensemble without undermining its egalitarian sense of give and take. Their stark, thin textures were highly distinctive, and both Coleman and Cherry chose instruments (respectively, an alto made of plastic rather than brass and a pocket trumpet or cornet instead of a standard trumpet) to accentuate that quality. It's all showcased to best effect here on the hard-swinging "Blues Connotation" and the haunting "Beauty Is a Rare Thing," though pretty much every composition has something to recommend it. All in all, This Is Our Music keeps one of the hottest creative streaks in jazz history going strong.

by Steve Huey in All Music Guide

Styles:
Free-jazz
Modal

Tracks:
01 - Blues Connotation (5:14)
02 - Beauty Is a Rare Thing (7:12)
03 - Kaleidoscope (6:33)
04 - Embraceable You (4:54)
05 - Poise (4:37)
06 - Humpty Dumpty (5:20)
07 - Folk Tale (4:46)

Line-up:
Ornette Coleman – alto saxophone
Don Cherry – pocket trumpet
Charlie Haden – double bass
Ed Blackwell – drums

Archie Shepp - Mama too Tight (1966)

The octet Archie Shepp surrounded himself with in 1966 was filled with new and old faces. The twin trombones of Roswell Rudd and Grachan Moncur III embodied this, but so did bassist Charlie Haden and trumpeter Tommy Turrentine, while familiar figures like drummer Beaver Harris and tubaist Howard Johnson had been part of Shepp's regular band. There are four tracks on Mama Too Tight, all of them in some way acting as extensions of the opening three-part suite, "A Portrait of Robert Thomson (As a Young Man)." Shepp had hit his stride here compositionally. The track is, at first, a seeming free jazz blowout, but then traces the history of jazz, gospel, and blues through its three sections. Certainly there is plenty of atonality, but there is plenty of harmonic and rhythmic invention too. The piece, almost 19 minutes in length, has an intricate architecture that uses foreshadowing techniques and complex resolution methods. The title track is a post-bop blues swinger with a killer front-line riff turning in and out as the trombones go head to head. And finally, "Basheer," with its Eastern modality that transposes itself toward blues and folk music, becomes a statement on the transitional ties the '60s were ushering in musically. Here again, lots of free blowing, angry bursts of energy, and shouts of pure revelry are balanced with Ellingtonian elegance and restraint that was considerable enough to let the lyric line float through and encourage more improvisation. This is Shepp at his level best.

by Thom Jurek in All Music Guide

Styles:
Avant-Garde
Free Jazz

Tracks:
01 - A Portrait Of Robert Thompson: A. Prelude to a Kiss / B. The Break Strain-King Cotton / C. Dem Basses (18:57)
02 - Mama Too Tight (5:25)
03 - Theme for Ernie (3:21)
04 - Basheer (10:38)

Line-up:
Archie Shepp: tenor saxophone
Tommy Turrentine: trumpet
Grachan Moncur III: trombone
Roswell Rudd: trombone
Howard Johnson: tuba
Perry Robinson: clarinet
Charlie Haden: bass
Beaver Harris: drums

Charlie Haden - Liberation Music Orchestra (1969)

A fascinating reissue that comfortably straddles the lines of jazz, folk, and world music, working up a storm by way of a jazz protest album that points toward the Spanish Civil War in particular and the Vietnam War in passing. Haden leads the charge and contributes material, but the real star here may in fact be Carla Bley, who arranged numbers, wrote several, and contributed typically brilliant piano work. Also of particular note in a particularly talented crew is guitarist Sam Brown, the standout of "El Quinto Regimiento/Los Cuatro Generales/Viva la Quince Brigada," a 21-minute marathon. Reissue producer Michael Cuscuna has done his best with the mastering here, but listeners will note a roughness to the sound -- one that is in keeping with the album's tone and attitude.

by Steven McDonald in All Music Guide

Styles:
Experimental Big Band
Avant-Garde

Tracks:
01 - The Introduction (1:15)
02 - Song of the United Front (1:52)
03 - El Quinto Regimiento/ Los Cuatro Generales/ Viva la Quince Brigada (20:58)
04 - The Ending to the First Side (2:07)
05 - Song for Ché (9:29)
06 - War Orphans (6:42)
07 - The Interlude (Drinking Music) (1:24)
08 - Circus '68 '69" (6:10)
09 - We Shall Overcome (1:19)

Line-up:
Charlie Haden — bass
Perry Robinson — clarinet
Gato Barbieri — clarinet, tenor saxophone
Carla Bley — piano, tambourine
Sam T. Brown — guitar, thumb piano
Don Cherry — flute, cornet
Andrew Cyrille — percussion, drums
Howard Johnson — tuba
Michael Mantler — trumpet
Paul Motian — percussion
Bob Northern — percussion, French horn
Dewey Redman — alto saxophone, tenor saxophone
Roswell Rudd — trombone

Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959)

Ornette Coleman's Atlantic debut, The Shape of Jazz to Come, was a watershed event in the genesis of avant-garde jazz, profoundly steering its future course and throwing down a gauntlet that some still haven't come to grips with. The record shattered traditional concepts of harmony in jazz, getting rid of not only the piano player but the whole idea of concretely outlined chord changes. The pieces here follow almost no predetermined harmonic structure, which allows Coleman and partner Don Cherry an unprecedented freedom to take the melodies of their solo lines wherever they felt like going in the moment, regardless of what the piece's tonal center had seemed to be. Plus, this was the first time Coleman recorded with a rhythm section -- bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins -- that was loose and open-eared enough to follow his already controversial conception. Coleman's ideals of freedom in jazz made him a feared radical in some quarters; there was much carping about his music flying off in all directions, with little direct relation to the original theme statements. If only those critics could have known how far out things would get in just a few short years; in hindsight, it's hard to see just what the fuss was about, since this is an accessible, frequently swinging record. It's true that Coleman's piercing, wailing alto squeals and vocalized effects weren't much beholden to conventional technique, and that his themes often followed unpredictable courses, and that the group's improvisations were very free-associative. But at this point, Coleman's desire for freedom was directly related to his sense of melody -- which was free-flowing, yes, but still very melodic. Of the individual pieces, the haunting "Lonely Woman" is a stone-cold classic, and "Congeniality" and "Peace" aren't far behind. Any understanding of jazz's avant-garde should begin here.

by Steve Huey in All Music Guide

Styles:
Avant-Garde
Free-Jazz

Tracks:
01 - Lonely Woman (05:01)
02 - Eventually (04:22)
03 - Peace (09:02)
04 - Focus on Sanity (06:50)
05 - Congeniality (06:47)
06 - Chronology (06:04)

Line-up:
Ornette Coleman – alto saxophone
Don Cherry – cornet
Charlie Haden – double bass
Billy Higgins – drums

Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz: A Colective Improvisation (1960)

The original cover of "Free Jazz" (1960) featured a reproduction of one of Jackson Pollock's drip paintings, "White Light." The reference is an apt one--like Pollock, Ornette has always had faith that out of chaos, intuition and freedom, beauty will emerge. For the recording session of "Free Jazz," Ornette brought with him two quartets (each with bass drums, and two horns) and had them play simultaneously, giving them only a few very vague directions.
What emerged was, like a Pollock painting, a thing of primal beauty and power, formally strange and surprisingly dance-like. It is also (like a Pollock) better experienced than described.
Each quartet occupies their own stereo channel (Ornette, Don Cherry, Scott LaFaro and Billy Higgins are on the left channel; and Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell are on the right). The music that comes out of the speakers is much more than an experiment; it's also much more than just the collective sound of all these wonderful musicians. It's an ecstatic work that has been an inspiration to creative musicians for over 40 years, and it will continue to be for many years to come.

Styles:
Avant-Garde
Free-Jazz

Tracks:
01 - Free Jazz (37:10)
02 - First Take (17:02)

Line-up:
Ornette Coleman – alto saxophone
Don Cherry – pocket trumpet
Scott LaFaro – bass
Billy Higgins – drums
Eric Dolphy – bass clarinet
Freddie Hubbard – trumpet
Charlie Haden – bass
Ed Blackwell – drums