Ornette Coleman: Free Jazz To Ornette! Revisited

For ezz-thetics' revisited series' fourth Ornette Coleman album, the label has ventured back further than any of its previous Coleman albums, to New York City in December 1960 and January 1961. Recorded at A&R Studios on Wednesday December 21st 1960 from 8pm to 12.30am, the Free Jazz session produced two pieces, the thirty-seven minute "Free Jazz" itself, which was issued in September 1961 on an Atlantic album entitled Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation By The Ornette Coleman Double Quartet, and the seventeen minute "First Take" which was issued on the Atlantic album Twins in 1971. The latter is not included on this album.

On each of those tracks two quartets played simultaneously; on the left channel Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Scott LaFaro and Billy Higgins can be heard, and on the right channel are Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. This means it is very much an album that should be listened to in stereo so the two quartets can be heard separately. The playing was continuous free improvisation, with only a few brief pre-set sections, done in one take. None of the players knew how long it would last. In fact, "Free Jazz" lasted thirty-seven minutes so, at the time, had to be split between the two sides of an LP, no longer necessary thanks to technology.

Although Free Jazz is sometimes cited as the beginning of free jazz (however that is defined) it is worth noting that, as early as 1949, Lennie Tristano had pioneered free improvisation in his recordings "Intuition" and "Digression" with Warne Marsh, Lee Konitz and others, "free improvisation" or "improv" being European names for the music called free jazz in USA. Nonetheless, considered as music in its own right, Free Jazz remains an extraordinary album which is essential listening as much as being of historical importance.

Between the recording of Free Jazz and that of Ornette! (Atlantic, 1962) which took place at Atlantic Recording Studios in NYC on Tuesday January 31st 1961 from 3pm to 7-30pm, the Ornette Coleman Quartet played two weeks at the Village Vanguard with new bassist Scott LaFaro alongside Coleman, Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell, all of whom had recorded Free Jazz.

The most immediate characteristic of Ornette! is that the quartet does not sound radically different as a result of Free Jazz except for the arrival of LaFaro. All four tracks are Coleman compositions in the pre-Free Jazz style, allowing space for solos without dominating the players.

Sadly, LaFaro was much in demand by other musicians, notably pianist Bill Evans and Miles Davis. As a result, the two Coleman albums here are the only ones ever to feature LaFaro. On July 6th 1961, aged 25, he was killed in a car accident on U. S. Route 20 four days after accompanying Stan Getz at the Newport Jazz Festival.

In a nutshell, this album has a plethora of reasons to appeal to lovers of quality jazz or improvisation—historical, artistic and personnel reasons.... It is timeless and sounds better and better as time goes by.