Ornette Coleman

• 18-gram audiophile-grade lp

• mastered at 45 rpm

• 5 stars all music guide

Let's face it, Ornette Coleman's early run of albums for Contemporary and Atlantic (all of which are classics and essential jazz listening) do not come off as revolutionary today as they once did. Coleman's ideas about melody and pitch in jazz have been so thoroughly absorbed by the jazz establishment (that once literally feared those ideas) that his early musical explorations simply seem like a natural progression of where jazz was headed at the time, and where much of it is today.

There is one glaring exception to this rule, an album by Coleman that even today defies categorization and eludes easy explanation. It changed the rules of presenting jazz on an LP, and yet it remains an album that has essentially never been replicated. The album, of course, is Free Jazz, a recording so influential it named a new direction in jazz music. It was so controversial at the time of it's release that Downbeat magazine featured it's first ever double-review of an album, with Pete Welding giving the record 5 stars and John A. Tynan rewarding it no stars.

PERSONNEL:

• ON LEFT CHANNEL:
• Ornette Coleman - (alto sax)
• Don Cherry - (pocket trumpet)
• Scott LaFaro - (bass)
• Billy Higgins - (drums)

• ON RIGHT CHANNEL:
• Eric Dolphy - (bass clarinet)
• Freddie Hubbard - (trumpet)
• Charlie Haden - (bass)
• Ed Blackwell - (drums)

Recorded December 21, 1960 in New York City

TRACKS:

• LP ONE:
• A. Free Jazz (Part 1) .... 10:18
• B. Free Jazz (Part 2) .... 9:35
• ______________________

• LP TWO:
• C. Free Jazz (Part 3) .... 8:47
• D. Free Jazz (Part 4) .... 8:49