Ornette Coleman: Free Jazz [SPEAKERS CORNER]

Why you'll love it

Speakers Corner's 180g reissue is pressed in Germany for audiophile listeners, with the double quartet split across the stereo channels as the original intended. It was the first album-length improvisation in jazz and gave a whole movement its name.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Pressed in Germany
• Stereo
• Remastered

About the album

Two quartets walked into A&R Studios in New York on December 21, 1960, and came out with a new word for an entire movement. Atlantic issued it in September 1961. Coleman's idea was a double quartet, each with a reed player, trumpet, bass and drums, all playing at once, recorded in one take with no overdubs or edits.

In the left channel is Coleman's working band with Don Cherry, Scott LaFaro and Billy Higgins; in the right, Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. The two rhythm sections lay down a dense, churning floor while the horns take turns soloing and chattering back, stitched together by short, dissonant written fanfares. "Free Jazz (Part 1)" and "Free Jazz (Part 2)" run a side each, with liner notes from critic Martin Williams.

The original came wrapped around a Jackson Pollock painting, which fits; this is music made the way Pollock painted. Put it on at a dinner party and you'll find out very quickly who your real friends are.

Also at Kops: more Ornette Coleman on vinyl · browse Modern Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Atlantic / Speakers Corner (cat# SD 1364), a reissue of the 1961 album.