snobb Ornette Coleman was the one among a few jazzmen who started playing what later has been titled "a new thing" still in late 50s. His album "Free Jazz" gave the tag for all new jazz direction which dramatically changed genre's scene for decades to come. Still at the late 60s-early 70s it looked Ornette got stuck in his music(his excellent "Science Fiction" from 1972 is an exception only confirming the sentence).

Fortunately for us jazz lovers he did it again - in late 70s Ornette returned back with new jazz revolution again. His new quintet came all-electric this time - two(!) guitarists, bassist and unorthodox drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson beside of Coleman himself. The music,if still rooted in early free jazz, was seriously different and at the moment sounded extremely modern and non-conventional at the same time. Influenced by some time's dominated trends, Ornette's new music was closer to jazz fusion, or better to say - free funk still staying within jazz idiom.

First ever recorded example of Ornette's new music has been released on their "Dancing in Your Head"(1977) - 31 minute-short LP which contained only one true new band's composition "Theme From A Symphony" (which initially has been planned as EP release) and completed with four-and-half minute "Midnight Sunrise" world fusion piece,recorded with Master Musicians of Jajouka. Then in 1978 same band releases "Body Meta" - true first full album of "harmolodic" jazz. Five compositions, almost forty minutes of excellent energetic and free mix of groovy pulsation, drummers acrobatics and extremely inspired and focused Coleman sax soloing, one among best in his career.

Comparing with many recordings,released by Coleman and his followers later, "Body Meta" has one big advantage - because of permanent changes of tunes and rhythmical structures whole album doesn't sound all that much repetitive and initial fresh and positive impression doesn't change to boredom after first fifteen-twenty minutes of listening.

Coltrane (and his collaborators/followers) will develop and explore this new for the time sound for decades to come but "Body Meta" still will stay one of style cornerstone album in jazz history.

frankbernardi22 Since the first grooves, "The shape of jazz to come" (1959) shows all the alloy of a masterpiece. A son, this one by Ornette and Donald, lovely brooded by two creations that came before: "Something else!!!!" and "Tomorrow is the question". Should both vinyls be listened to - and loved - linked together, as the two moments have common roots, and that's more than a story or a concept: it's the developement of a large extended view. As Bob Palmer of "Rolling Stones" will write on the back of Ornette's "Science Fiction" at the beginning of the Seventies, the first thing in Ornette's appearing "is that it grabs you inside before you 'undestand' it intellectually. Ornette doesn't wait for introduction". At the same time all that should be unattainable and dumb without Coleman and friend's "years of discipline and determination". Here we are more on a Davis' side than on a Coltrane's, and we certainly don't speak of abnegation and sacrifice (taken for granted) , but of clearness of purposes. Being, the aim, in Ornette and Miles, the return to the core of music, to the African root: well different the shape of path, but very similar under the "weight", the proportions, the rigour of the output (in the meantime Trane "lays out" meditating on the meaning of it all). The '59 masterpiece (in this case "The Shape...", not "Kind of Blue"!) finds brilliantly and easily the prints let in "Tomorrow...": first tune, "Lonely woman", has that bitter taste found in "Lorraine", with its funeral march atmosphere (that will be unbeatable in "Beauty is a rare thing" from "This is our music"); and from "Focus on Sanity" (also in "The Avant Garde" with Coltrane and Cherry) to the ending "Chronology", Coleman's "speech" gives demonstration of itself without any need of utter explanation. At the same time, the severe placement of mics for capturing the sound of the combo, finds a sort of acoustic resolution of the project. Each horn a channel, the rest for sublime machine Haden and Higgins, immune from the fear of empty spaces. Here the silence is coinceived like a 5th sideman, or more. And silence has been one of great Miles' best friends too...

frankbernardi22 "What a new avant garde musician we have on the jazz scene. His name is Ornette Coleman". So they said (better: somebody said) many years ago, when the young man - come from Texas - began to give his records titles like "Something Else!!!", the shakespearian "Tomorrow is the question" and "The Shape of jazz to come" (for somebody was Nesuhi Ertegun, Atlantic executive, to christen the third of the records as "The Shape..."). Words, the latter, that contained the promise of a revealed future. Or the future itself. But in in 1958, year of the first record, the couple Coleman - Cherry seemed to remind - in a grotesque way - the famous duo Bird an Diz. "Bird and Diz" is Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, together in a studio on June, 6th, 1950. With them, Monk on piano. No need of other words. Eight years after, paladin and revolutionaries' defender Cherry, played his little trumpet for Ornette, the last promise, the more interesting surprise of those years. Trumpet, little, and not a toy: yes, smaller than the usual horn, but a perfect old dented instrument, B flat tuned. And what about Ornette's sax, a plastic alto, maybe? Ornette, a life of music and sacrifices, had all the reason to be angry and hungry: but in "Something Else!!!" discontent seems intellectulized and more ironical (in relation to Bird and Diz - and Diz never liked Ornette's music, even if, in some moments, he seemed more raged than Coleman), while joy (the relation is the same), tends here, in 1958, to a somehow out of tune and stilyzed dance; everything is thinner and bathed in a clear light, so poor of shadows. And things are on the same path in the sophomore lp, "Tomorrow is the question" (in the meantime piano disappears and funeral tones move across the grooves) . And today what do we have of all that jazz? A shining piece of precious vinyl, shining even in re - prints and digital discs. Five stars. And "Something Else!!!!" is only the beginning of a book, one of the richest books in all jazz history.

siLLy puPPy ORNETTE COLEMAN shook up the jazz world right from the beginning despite his debut album being quite tame (for him anyway) and more in the lines of traditional 1950s bebop. While working as an elevator operator in a Los Angeles department store, COLEMAN found time to assemble his first array of jazz newbies in the group form of Don Cherry (cornet), Charlie Haden (double bass) and drummers Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins, the former who would join the The ORNETTE COLEMAN Quartet starting with “This Is Our Music,” and the latter who would sign up right from the beginning hang around with the band for a few albums. He would soon meet music producer Lester Koenig of Contemporary Records who recognized his unique vision of revitalizing the union of blues and jazz and was one of the few of the day who also understood his early free jazz leanings to loosen the harmony and chord progressions and the structuring of pitch changes between the notes which would earn him the reputation of playing out of tune. COLEMAN would release two albums on Contemporary before hitting the big time with Atlantic Records which would debut his classic masterpiece “The Shape Of Jazz To Come.”

The debut album SOMETHING ELSE!!!! was only the beginning of COLEMAN’s eccentricities unfurling themselves in his song structures however despite the format being looser and freer of contemporary jazz, on this debut album we more or less find a fairly restrained COLEMAN in an incipient stage of leading his band mate’s into the strange new realms of breaking free from the tradition bebop format and giving the world a mere sampling of what was to come without opening all the floodgates at once. This is the only album in COLEMAN’s discography that contains a substantial role for the piano (handled by Walter Norris) giving this album a very traditional hard bebop structure before he would start to de-emphasize the role of the keyboards and often eliminate it altogether on future releases. Strange magic is afoot here for upon first listen you might mistake this for a rather standard hard bop album of the day. After all the percussion, bass lines and phrasing are fairly standard but there is certainly something strange lurking under these swinging rhythms and syncopation and it comes not only from COLEMAN’s style of sax playing, but also from the compositions themselves.

COLEMAN is credited with restoring the blues to their original roots in African music with unhooked harmonies, thus incorporating traits like the 17 and 25 bar blues. A musical nerd’s dream come true, SOMETHING ELSE!!!! incorporates all kinds of musical innovations that were unmatched for the day except by perhaps Cecil Taylor who was seemingly on a similar free jazz musical trajectory. This is one of those albums that is brilliantly executed as a standard hard bebop album of the day but also undertakes many innovative factors that would blossom just a few years down the road. While many artist’s are only getting their feet wet on their debut album, ORNETTE COLEMAN displays on SOMETHING ELSE!!!! that he has already dived into the swimming pool. It is clear that he is striving to break into a freer state of jazz but is band-oriented enough to understand the limitations of the participating members and only takes his vision as far as possible under the context of this stage of development. A mandatory listen for COLEMAN fans!

siLLy puPPy The first thing I thought after listening to this album for the very first time was – why is this considered so shocking? After hearing my share of extreme metal, progressive rock, avant-garde and indie rock and even avant jazz such as John Zorn, this actually seemed pretty tame. Then it hit me. This came out in 1959 – the “Leave It To Beaver” years. A long time before all that other stuff. I wasn't even close to being a twinkle in my parents' eyes and had to put myself in the context of the time.

Somehow jazz had morphed from the frantic fantastic tapestry of Dixieland Jazz of the 20s and the complexity had been tamed and shined into perfect marketable packages. The big bands of the 40s and bop of the 50s were enjoyable listens for their controlled uniformity but after years of sameness, it must have been getting a little cliché. Then 1959 hit and several notable releases by Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck and Ornette Coleman changed the music landscape forever. Of the previously mentioned Coleman was the one who released the first avant-garde jazz release. This was very daring and profound and shook up the world of jazz and influenced the freeness that would eventually explode in the 60s.

Although I didn't find this shocking in the least, I did find it a great listen. It is still rooted in the traditional bop of the 50s but gave permission to break free from the expected phrasing that accompanied it. Although I haven't explored much of Ornette's canon, I am very eager to do so after hearing this landmark release.