Results for "Ornette Coleman"

Ornette Coleman

Early on in his career, alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, recorded an album entitled, The Shape of Jazz To Come. It might have seemed like an expression of youthful arrogance - Coleman was 29 at the time - but actually, the title was prophetic. Coleman is the creator of a concept of music called "harmolodic," a musical form which is equally applicable as a life philosophy. The richness of harmolodics derives from the unique interaction between the players. Breaking out of the prison bars of rigid meters and conventional harmonic or structural expectations, harmolodic musicians improvise equally together in what Coleman calls compositional improvisation, while always keeping deeply in tune with the flow, direction and needs of their fellow players. In this process, harmony becomes melody becomes harmony. Ornette describes it as "Removing the caste system from sound." On a broader level, harmolodics equates with the freedom to be as you please, as long as you listen to others and work with them to develop your own individual harmony.

Eivind Austad: That Feeling

By FRIEDRICH KUNZMANN

Presenting an equal amount of originals and covers/standards, Norwegian pianist Eivind Austad's New Orleans Trio channels The Big Easy's musical spirit through gospel-tinged ruminations, extended blues forms and a healthy portion of New Orleans shuffle on the collaboration's debut effort. Following only a year after Austad's sophomore outing Northbound (Losen Records, 2019) saw the light of ...

Mirna Bogdanović: The Art Of Confrontation

By SERENA ANTINUCCI

It takes a vivid imagination to stand still and yet reach faraway places. This is the sense communicated when hearing the debut album of the Slovenian/Bosnian jazz singer-songwriter Berlin-based Mirna Bogdanović. Traditional forms of music unfold towards contemporary, instinctive directions. Confrontation, released on December 18 by Klaeng Records (an independent label from Cologne), does ...

Santi Debriano: Flash of the Spirit

By PAUL RAUCH

Bassist/composer Santi Debriano has been prominently on the scene since the late seventies, when he worked for several years with saxophonist Archie Shepp. Born in Panama, and raised in Brooklyn from a very young age, his life was integrated with the many crosscurrents of jazz music in the Americas. He worked prominently with Sam Rivers in ...

Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe / Four Men Only: Complete Recordings

By JOHN SHARPE

It's not often that something comes along which upends accepted wisdom, but that's what the Lithuanian NoBusiness imprint has accomplished with the reissue of four albums in a three-CD box set by the now unremembered Modern Jazz Quintet Karlsruhe (MJQK) and its successor FourMenOnly (FMO). The group, comprised of Herbert Joos, reedman Wilfried ...

Nicole McCabe: Introducing Nicole McCabe

By PAUL RAUCH

If you were a young and talented jazz musician in Portland, Oregon, you would make yourself highly visible on the local scene to gain invaluable experience playing with the best the city had to offer. In addition to your more formal studies, you would extend your musical outreach from post-bop modernism to the avant-garde. Most importantly, ...

Ian Patterson's Best Releases Of 2020

By IAN PATTERSON

A year like no other produced a terrific amount of great music, much of inspired by--or in spite of—the surreal circumstances. Here, in no particular order, are some of my favorite releases of the year. A huge thank you to all the musicians, record labels, studios, agents, promotors and virtual technicians who helped keep us relatively ...

Francois Carrier: Japan Suite

By JOHN SHARPE

Canadian alto saxophonist François Carrier frequently travels light. Even more so on this occasion as his regular peripatetic partner drummer Michel Lambert was not on board for a 2019 tour of Japan. This 78-minute album presents a first-time meeting with a group of Japanese improvisers, comprising bassist Daisuke Fuwa founder of the Shibusa Shirazu Orchestra, with ...

Jerome Wilson's Best Releases of 2020

By JEROME WILSON

2020 was a wretched year in many respects. In the jazz world alone, a number of musicians succumbed to COVID-19 and live performance almost became non-existent. Despite all that there were still a lot of stimulating and excellent recordings released in the past year. Here is a list of my personal best. Some reflected the issues ...

Angelo Olivieri: Other Colors

By NERI POLLASTRI

Non è purtroppo un musicista che sia facile ascoltare dal vivo per la penisola Angelo Olivieri, uno dei nostri migliori trombettisti e artista che non si adagia sui materiali facili o sulle forme espressive consolidate, come ben dimostra in questa sua eccellente ultima fatica. Ve lo troviamo alla testa di un quartetto “elettrico," composto dalla chitarra ...