Sun Ra - All Stars in Berlin (1983)

Tracks:
01 - Announcement Michael Naura
02 - Happy Birthday / Stars That Shine Darkly
03 - Title
04 - Somewhere Else
05 - Early Morning Blues
06 - Poinciana
Line-up:
Sun Ra - keyboardsDon Cherry - trumpet, vocal
Lester Bowie - trumpet
Marshall Allen - alto sax, percussion
John Gilmore - tenor sax, flute
Archie Shepp - tenor sax, vocals
Richard Davis - bass
Clifford Jarvis - drums
Philly Joe Jones - drums
Famoudou Don Moye - percussion

Don Cherry - Symphony for Improvisers (1966)

For his second album, Symphony for Improvisers, Don Cherry expanded his Complete Communion quartet -- tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri, bassist Henry Grimes, and drummer Ed Blackwell -- to a septet, adding vibraphonist Karl Berger, bassist Jean François Jenny-Clark, and tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders (who frequently plays piccolo here). The lineup has a real international flavor, since Barbieri was from Argentina, Berger from Germany, and Jenny-Clark from France; Cherry had gigged regularly with all three during his 1964-1965 sojourn in Europe, and brought them to New York to record. With all the added firepower, it's remarkable that Symphony for Improvisers has the same sense of shared space and controlled intelligence as its predecessor, even when things are at their most heated. Once again, Cherry sets up the album as two continuous medleys that fuse four compositions apiece, which allows the group's improvisational energy and momentum to carry straight through the entire program. The "Symphony for Improvisers" suite is the most raucous part of Cherry's Blue Note repertoire, and the "Manhattan Cry" suite pulls off the widest mood shifts Cherry had yet attempted in that format. Even though the album is full of passionate fireworks, there's also a great deal of subtlety -- the flavors added to the ensemble by Berger's vibes and Sanders' piccolo, for example, or the way other instrumental voices often support and complement a solo statement. Feverish but well-channeled, this larger-group session is probably Cherry's most gratifying for Blue Note.

by Steve Huey in All Music Guide

Styles:
Free-Jazz
Avant-Garde

Tracks:

01 - Symphony for Improvisers: Symphony for Improvisers/Nu Creative Love/What's Not Serious?/Infant Happiness (19:43)
02 - Manhattan Cry: Manhattan Cry/Lunatic/Sparkle Plenty/Om Nu (19:17)

Line-up:

Don Cherry - cornet
Gato Barbieri - tenor saxophone
Pharoah Sanders - tenor saxophone, piccolo
Karl Berger - vibes, piano
Henry Grimes - bass
Jean-François Jenny-Clark - bass
Ed Blackwell - drums

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

Don Cherry/ Blood Ulmer/ Rashied Ali - Jam Session

Line-up:
Don Cherry - pocket trumpet
James Blood Ulmer - guitar
Rashied Ali - 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

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

Don Cherry - Organic Music Society (1972)

"[Don Cherry's exoticism] is not that of the Orient and not that of Africa; it is the exoticism of Somewhere, the Here and Somewhere; and this means it is the exoticism of dreams." Alain Gerber, 1971
Despite its emergence there in the early sixties, the ‘free-jazz’ movement garnered a limited and very temporary acceptance in America. Following Coltrane’s death, many exponents of free-jazz sought refuge in the (mostly) welcoming arms of other musical styles (to the utter horror of the purist jazz-critics, and true delight of REAL music fans everywhere). Some merged the freedom of jazz with the rhythmic strictures of funk, for example, (Miles, obviously, but also Ornette Coleman’s out-there ‘free-funk’ project, Prime Time). Yet others would take their searches further afield, finding a welcome audience for this most experimental of musical forms, especially in Europe (Manfred Eicher’s ECM Records, for example). This literal movement east-wards was further compounded by a similar psycho-spiritual, inherently mystical movement towards non-western philosophies and cultures: a movement articulated, particularly, through the musical styles and techniques of various third-world countries.
Thus, the seventies were a time of real musical adventures and ‘travelogues,’ with many of the American free-jazz ‘exiles’ pioneering the blending of their own avant-garde styles with the traditional music(s) of India, Africa, Japan etc. Leading this burgeoning ‘World-Fusion’ movement, was the late free-jazz pioneer: Don Cherry. Having already released what many consider to be the founding text of World-Fusion: Eternal Rhythm (1968) on the hip German MPS label, Cherry had also provided BYG/ACTUEL with Mu (Part’s One and Two - 1969): a legendary freak-flute-and-horn collaboration with percussionist Ed Blackwell (the Mu LP’s, in particular, are the sound of your DNA imploding!!) Upping sticks in the early seventies to the Swedish hinterlands (were he would meet wife, Mocqui - a.k.a. Moki), Cherry gathered together a community of Swedish, Turkish, Brazilian, and American jazz-hippies, and set about creating this monumentally ramshackle, but eternally endearing, communal, free-jazz/world-fusion text, for the achingly obscure Swedish label, Caprice. Like Wegmuller’s Tarot, or Lula Cortez et Ze Ramahlo’s Paebiru, this is one of those out-there, early-to-mid-seventies, mystical ur-fucking-doubles!! - a massive musical tract that exists as a self-enclosed, universal totality - offering a myriad of psycho-musical landscapes that take in Africanised free-jazz and ritual percussion, Buddhist-funk, sublimely blissful minimalism, European free-folk, and mystical chanting. To whit, Don Cherry’s ORGANIC MUSIC SOCIETY.
It kicks of with percussionist, Nana Vasconcelos’ “North Brazilian Ceremonial Hymn,” 12 mother-fucking minutes of Manson Family-type vocal droning, as dreadfully sinister as it is sublimely meditative. Somewhere, wife Moki is stroking a tamboura, whilst other commune members intone a woozy, wordless chant that rises and falls like the setting of an ancient sun. Sounding for all the world like some long-lost abstract prayer to Incan generations past, Vasconcelos can be heard rattling what sounds like a big ole’ bag of dried voodoo-bones in the corner, before moving on to altogether more out-there percussive devices!! Before you know it, the dude is twinging, twanging, and oooh-weeeoooh-wee-oooh-weee-ing his way to enlightenment, and the solemn chant drones on. Soon, in a show of communal camaraderie, the commune begin emptying whole bin-bags chock-full of obscure percussive devices onto the floor, as the chant peaks. It then starts its downward trajectory, until all that is left is Cherry’s earthly hum, and the ever present, all-pervading tamboura drone.
“Elixir” conjures up an ancient forest glade at sunrise, Cherry’s breathy wood-flute melody gently persuading tentative creatures out of their night-time abodes to bask in the sun. A fertile and primal landscape is concocted, as this solo flute piece twitters on for a few minutes. Until a sudden cry is heard amongst the forest canopy, that is. Shit! the animals are back in their holes before you can say ‘free-jazz,’ taking cover, as a rumbling barrelhouse piano gallops into earshot; crazily thwacked drums propel an ancient boogie-woogie piano assault - until its breaks down again into more muttered African-type yelps - only to erupt again.
Again, like most of Cherry’s orchestrations of this period - a background Indian drone is set up for Hans Isgren’s beautiful “Manusha Raga Kamboji‘” - some of Cherry’s plaintive, African-type, folk-song vocal moaning accumulates alongside it (before literally jumping out of the mix); its has a very soothing vocal presence, a sort of universal lullaby, a panacea for all the ills of the world. In all seriousness, though, we are journeying headlong into the mystic here - the REAL (and modern) world left far, far behind. Hans Isgren chokes his sarangi - a kind of strange Indian instrument that looks like a violin inside an ornate music box (only held like a mini-cello) instrument - which growls and coughs out a grating discordant, dread-filled string piece, the music turning on a darkly religious vibe - calling the (devilishly) faithful to prayer.
Next up is a two-part, early run-through for Cherry's fascinating 1973 release, Relativity Suite. That said, the version is very formative, and bears only a passing resemblance, at times, to the finished LP. “Relativity Suite Part 1,” for example, begins with African chanting across a strange lolloping, kangarooing, percussion track over which Cherry lays down his musico-philosophical raison d’etre. Many spiritual proclamations follow concerning “the frustration of temptation,” et al. - mixed, intermittently, with Cherry’s strange bird-like vocal shrills and Buddhist om-chants. Cherry’s voice - never his main instrument - displays a beautiful timbre at times. “Relativity Suite Part 2” follows in the same vein - describing his “organic manifesto” more assertively over a deep, deep, DEEP, marimba-like bass-line:
Spiritual development by the aid of music / Who are the heroes of imagination?
A five-pointed star, a crescent moon, and a hawk!
[And so on…Could have come straight off the back off a Santana LP - No wonder Alejandro Jodorowsky immediately signed Cherry up to help with the soundtrack to The Holy Mountain (1973) - a huge meta-spiritual quest saga, partially bankrolled by the Lennon’s, and originally set to star George Harrison in the lead role of “the Thief”].
Actually, if any part of this colossal LP starts to drag it is almost certainly here, as the two parts of this ‘suite’ reach upwards of 18 minutes in total. Cherry does change tack slightly with the next offering, “Terry’s Tune,” his version of mystic American minimalist, Terry Riley’s own tune - a kind of late-Can-type repeat-athon, with some great free-jazz flute perched precariously over the top; it breaks down into a chaotic, entropic, avant-garde battle between Turkish percussionist, Okay Temiz’ fiery drums and Cherry’s trumpet conjuring - a rampant few minutes in any one’s musical book.
This leads in to one of the most beautiful pieces Cherry ever wrote - and one of his late-period, signature works: “Hope” (later recorded for Relativity Suite under the name “Desireless” with sax replacing the voice). A golden flurry of rippling piano chords (ala Alice Coltrane and, also, Magma’s own John Coltrane ode’ “Coltrane Sundia” from Kohntarkoz), and a yearning, wordless wail issues from Cherry. He sounds like he is bearing all the troubles of the world single-handedly, and, yet, is still willing to humble himself before us all. Spell-bindingly beautiful in its soul-baring simplicity, the tune develops into a steady-paced piano & vocal chant - a hymn to an earlier ‘age of the Ancients.’ 10 minutes of free-bliss - the flutes, and sun-drenched cymbal strokes, adjoining the groove to create pure musical manna from heaven.
Indeed, listening to the music of Don Cherry (and reading up about the man), he comes across as one of the most humble characters you could ever wish to meet - a true mystic, a journeyman, - one jazz critic even described him as a ‘wood nymph,’ trotting down New York streets.
[Don’s step-daughter, Neneh Cherry, tells an endearing story about her early days living with him in New York. Don would take her, and her step-brother, Eagle Eye, to ride on the subway, where he would suddenly whip out an African Wood Flute with out a moments notice, hassling both children until they joined in the impromptu improvisation! What a guy!! Believe me the world needs more people like Don Cherry].
Pharoah Sanders’ (free-)jazz-soul anthem “The Creator has a Master Plan.” is covered next by Cherry (both musicians had featured on most of the important free-jazz and ‘avant-garde’ recordings). A quick-paced piano gallop (unnervingly similar to jazz-standard: Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five”), is then replaced by that well-known two-chord vamp, arriving to tell us that the creator, does indeed, have a master plan. More dancing flute and rolling drums create a loose-limbed take on the Sanders standard - as great jazzy trumpet fills in the spaces with woozy runs - very messy, but endearingly so! In fact, there is a generous and humbled pastoral quality scored right through the very core of this LP, very much in keeping with the late-sixties/early-seventies hippie-commune ethos it extols. This track finishes amongst some crazy brass flourishes and thwacked drums - until Cherry and his magical cohorts waltz off into the sunset on that ever-rolling, two-chord groove.
“Sidharta” and “Utopia and Visions” are two more pastoral-side-of-Magma-type tunes - all sun-dappled piano, and wordless chant doubled on piano/vocal - makes me wonder how much of Don Cherry's music those elder priests of zeuhl had heard prior to the Kohntarkosz sessions (given the date of this LP). This merges into another version of “Hope” (indeed, this melody must have obsessed Cherry, reappearing on a number of LP’s in different versions). This later version is more instrumental , with some marvellous Garden of Eden-style flute playing, giving a vibe that is, on a more general level, similar to the last eight minutes of Popol Vuh’s gorgeous “In den Garten Pharos.”
“Resa” finishes the LP in a slight sinister style - a huge communal vocal chant by the Swedish Youth Orchestra who, by the sound of it, have seemingly been lured into some haunted underground cavern with promises of mystical enlightenment (and session fees!!) - Cherry gathers these tribes together to ululate a resonant, but wobbly-pitched, kind of guttural chorale. Herrmann style rising/falling string-sequences accompany this unearthly groan. This track (especially the strings) also has a strange Indian or Arabic flavour to it - sounding distant - as if beaming in from another psychic plane - and is backed up by some great swing-type drumming, only for that eternally unending Terry Riley riff to reappear out of nowhere. All manner of strange vocals are now emanating from the lost corners of the mix. All the while, the woozy string sequence creates some type of strange sonic sea-sickness in the listener, who, by this time, is either travelling blissfully upon the astral plane - OR - alternatively, muttering discontentedly about “those fucking free-jazz types!!”
It’s quite a unsettling end to an amazing 80-minutes, or so, of musical mysticism. Ragged, but sublimely beautiful, endearingly simple and, at times, frustratingly complex, melding the ancient and the modern - all the essential paradoxes of the human condition are engaged at length in Don Cherry’s Organic Music Society.

By Julian Cope

Styles:
Avant-Garde
World Music
Free-Jazz

Tracks:
01 - North Brazilian Ceremonial Hymn (12:29)
02 - Elixir - Manusha Ragakamboji (08:29)
03 - Relativity Suite Part 1 (06:53)
04 - Relativity Suite Part 2 (12:01)
05 - Terry's Tune - Hope - The Creeator has a Master Plan - Sidhartha - Utopia (20:30)
06 - Bra Joe From Kilimanjaro - Terry's Tune (06:33)
07 - Resa (07:43)

Line-up:
Don Cherry - trumpet, piano, vocals, percursion, harmonium, flute, etc
Nana Vasconcelos - voice, berimbau
Moki - voice, tambura
Helen Eggert - voice, tambura
Christer Bothen - piano, guana guitar, etc
Bent Berger - drums, log drums, mridanga, tablas
Tommy Koverhult - flute
Okay Temiz -drums

Don Cherry - Orient (1971)

Don Cherry, who passed away in 1995 at age 59, was a world musician long before the term became fashionable. Two recent early '70s reissues - Orient and Blue Lake (both previously Japan-only releases), help to solidify Cherry as not only one of the greatest (pocket) trumpeters/cornetists that jazz has known, but also one of its most well-rounded musicians.
His global approach and experimentations on Orient (1971), two live dates with separate trios, is supplemented through one half by Dutch percussionist Han Bennink and East Indian tamboura accompaniment. Bennink keeps things constantly moving as Cherry's nomadic musical-self transitions between pocket trumpet, flutes, piano and chanting on the first and last tracks ("Orient" and "Si Ta Ra Ma"). The title piece gets underway with tom-tom drum crescendos spilling over Cherry's Alice Coltrane-like arpeggio runs on piano and humming chants, before segueing dramatically into the leader's frenetic brass playing and Bennink's polyrhythmic percussive displays. After a few minutes the pace changes again with more wooden sounding drums—as well as gongs, bells, chimes, and "small" instruments (as memorably utilized by the Art Ensemble of Chicago).
The other half of Orient features the legendary South African bassist Johnny Dyani and percussionist Okay Temiz. Dyani's plucked and arco bass opening to the first movement of "Eagle Eye"—accompanied by a wistful clay flute, wind-like chimes, and sensitive drum tapping—resonates with the magic that often inspires bassist William Parker these days. The second allegro movement is much more rhythmic and borders on an outpouring of emotion. The third movement then settles the rhythm into gear with a meditative and melodic humming chant offered to the crowd by Cherry. Both trios feature masterful improvisational interplay by what would seem greater than a mere threesome; the experience is captured exquisitely.
The ever-evolving Cherry was a true music master whose example was an anomaly for record labels and music stores. It can never be stressed enough that Cherry, to borrow Ellington's catch phrase, was most definitely "beyond category," making the world a much smaller place.

by Laurence Donohue-Greene in All About Jazz

Styles:
Progressive Jazz
World Music
Avant-Garde
Free-Jazz

Tracks:
01 - Orient (25:10)
02 - Si Ta Ra Ma (19:16)
03 - Eagle Eye (12:10)
04 - Togetherness (11:41)

Line-up:
Don Cherry - trumpet, vocals, flute, pocket trumpet, piano
Ed Blackwell - vocals, flute, piano
Moki Cherry - tamboura
Johnny Dyani - bass guitar
Han Bennink - accordion, drums, percussion
Okay Temiz - drums

Don Cherry - Mu (The Complete Session) (1969)

This classic pair of recordings, reissued as a single CD, captures Don Cherry near the height of his global quest to absorb as much music as possible from different cultures and funnel it back through his jazz sensibility. It's one of the earliest, and most successful, experiments in what would later come to be known as world music. He wisely chose his fellow Ornette Coleman cohort Ed Blackwell -- a drummer steeped in the traditions of New Orleans, African music, and free jazz -- for his partner. Despite his reputation as a trumpeter, Cherry spends a great deal of time here on piano, flutes, and vocals. His piano playing, while relatively simple, is fluid and melodic, owing a good deal to Abdullah Ibrahim (who is represented here with a couple of his themes). Likewise, his singing -- heavily influenced by Indian karnatic song -- is endearingly bright, heartfelt, and lovely. But, above all, his trumpet playing is stellar. When Cherry hits his ringing, clarion passages, he projects a purity of sound that few other trumpeters could match. Blackwell matches him sound for sound, with rolling West African-derived rhythms, Basin Street marches, and the most overtly musical tone of any drummer this side of Max Roach. The Mu sessions have long held legendary status and it's not difficult to hear why. Highly recommended.
by Brian Olewnick in All Music Guide

Styles:
Free-Jazz
Avant-Garde
World Fusion

Tracks:
"Mu" First Part
01 - Brilliant Action (08:44)
02 - Amejelo (07:29)
03 - Total Vibration (09:27)
04 - Sun Of The East (07:54)
05 - Terrestrial Beings (04:34)

"Mu" Second Part
06 - The Mysticism Of My Sound (03:54)
07 - Medley/ A) Dollar Brand, B) Spontaneous Composing, C) Exert, Man On The Moon (02:42)
08 - Bamboo Night (06:59)
09 - Teo-Teo Can (06:04)
10 - Smiling Faces, Going Places (04:41)
11 - Psycho Drama (02:23)
12 - Medley/ A) Theme Albert Heath, B) Theme Dollar Brand, C) Babyrest, Time For... (04:00)

Line-up:
Don Cherry - pocket trumpet, piano, indian flute, bamboo flute, bells, percurssion, voices
Ed Blackwell - drums, percurssion, piano, bells

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