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| 5.019 Ft
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| 1. | Comme il Faut
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| 2. | Space Jungle II
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| 3. | Song for Che
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| 4. | Broken Shadows
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| 5. | Tomorrow
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Jazz
Ed Blackwell Drums
Ornette Coleman Trumpet, Composer, Violin, Sax (Alto)
2008 reissue of this long unavailable live recording from the Ornette Coleman Quartet. The quartet on this performance features Coleman, Charlie Haden, Dewey Redman and Ed Blackwell. Features five extraordinary tracks including 'Comme Il Faut', 'Broken Shadows' and 'Tomorrow'.
Belgium 1969 fills a huge void in the Coleman recorded timeline for a couple of reasons. It is possibly the earliest recorded appearance of the quartet of Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, and Ed Blackwell who formed the base group for Coleman during his early-'70s recordings. It's also a veritable godsend for devotees of Coleman's Crisis LP on Impulse (still unavailable on CD, how can that be?) since the set list virtually duplicates that unsung classic recorded five months before, and the versions are substantially different. Truth in advertising kudos to Gambit for noting on the back cover the sound quality is not pristine (chiefly the predictable problem of hearing Haden when the others are playing) but the historical value of rarely performed material from an under-documented period clearly wins out over any sonic quibbles. The opening "Comme Il Faut" is taken very fast and never quite achieves the glorious melodic lock of the Crisis version as Redman almost lays out completely on the harmonic intertwine of the opening cadenza before catapulting into his solo. The improvisations are dominated by Coleman and Blackwell, with Haden sensed more than heard, and while the performance is excellent, it feels somewhat truncated -- but bear in mind the 14-minute Crisis version is one of the best Coleman performances ever, and one particularly revealing of his whole musical approach.
"Space Jungle II" begins with Redman's musette sounding like flocks of birds scattering, as Haden works with arco bass overtones, Coleman comes in on trumpet, and Blackwell starts commenting. Each section of this 16-minute voyage in outside sounds starts with one player featured, and then evolves into a kind of continually ebbing and flowing interplay as Blackwell's solo merges with either Coleman's violin or Haden's arco bass (or both). Redman's musette returns for squalls and flurries, then turns it over to Coleman as Blackwell motors on before everyone drops away and Coleman wraps it up with an extended, inimitable violin foray.
The less than exemplary sound may actually enhance this performance by turning it into something of a dub experience -- you wonder who's coming in from what angle, when or whether they backed off the mike intentionally for musical effect or just weren't picked up very well. (For what it's worth, I don't agree with Lawrence Steel's liner note statement that this "Space Jungle" is a different composition from Crisis. I always felt it was pretty obvious the titles for that and "Trouble in the East" were switched on the LP cover and sans Don Cherry's ethereal Indian flute shaping the Crisis version, it's Redman's musette that sets the early tone here).
Coleman really shines in his soling on "Song for Che" leaving lots of spaces between his notes and letting Blackwell's drums carry the momentum into his own brilliant solo turn at the end. Haden is presumably somewhere in there, too, but the real shocker is the absence of a bass solo by the composer which makes you wonder if a pre-melody opening bass solo was edited out or something. A brief backstage interview snippet with Coleman following the short "Broken Shadows," and the fact these performances feel stitched together more than a coherent set per se, raise the possibility the recording was done from the side of the stage or even taped from a radio broadcast. "Tomorrow" closes in kinetic but not frenetic fashion, Redman screaming harmonics over Blackwell's almost all-drum, very-little-cymbals continuum before a patented Coleman moodswing calms it down and sets up a strong (and quite audible) Haden bass solo before the final rapid-fire statement of the theme. Belgium 1969 may not offer the definitive treatment of these pieces (Crisis does) and it does have its sound shortcomings, but it does make available compelling material from an overlooked segment of Coleman's career. It's not essential, but it is a valuable supplement that falls well above the only-for-completists level. ~ Don Snowden, All Music Guide
Ornette Coleman
Active Decades: '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and '00s
Born: Mar 09, 1930 in Fort Worth, TX
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Modern Creative, Fusion, Early Creative, Free Jazz, Free Funk
One of the most important (and controversial) innovators of the jazz avant-garde, Ornette Coleman gained both loyal followers and lifelong detractors when he seemed to burst on the scene in 1959 fully formed. Although he, and Don Cherry in his original quartet, played opening and closing melodies together, their solos dispensed altogether with chordal improvisation and harmony, instead playing quite freely off of the mood of the theme. Coleman's tone (which purposely wavered in pitch) rattled some listeners, and his solos were emotional and followed their own logic. In time, his approach would be quite influential, and the quartet's early records still sound advanced many decades later.
Unfortunately, Coleman's early development was not documented. Originally inspired by Charlie Parker, he started playing alto at 14 and tenor two years later. His early experiences were in R&B bands in Texas, including those of Red Connors and Pee Wee Crayton, but his attempts to play in an original style were consistently met with hostility both by audiences and fellow musicians. Coleman moved to Los Angeles in the early '50s, where he worked as an elevator operator while studying music books. He met kindred spirits along the way in Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell, Bobby Bradford, Charles Moffett, and Billy Higgins, but it was not until 1958 (after many unsuccessful attempts to sit in with top L.A. musicians) that Coleman had a nucleus of musicians who could play his music. He appeared as part of Paul Bley's quintet for a short time at the Hillcrest Club (which is documented on live records), and recorded two very interesting albums for Contemporary. With the assistance of John Lewis, Coleman and Cherry attended the Lenox School of Jazz in 1959, and had an extended stay at the Five Spot in New York. This engagement alerted the jazz world toward the radical new music, and each night the audience was filled with curious musicians who alternately labeled Coleman a genius or a fraud.
During 1959-1961, Coleman recorded a series of classic and somewhat startling quartet albums for Atlantic (all of which have been reissued on a six-CD set by Rhino). With Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Scott LaFaro or Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Billy Higgins or Ed Blackwell on drums, Coleman created music that would greatly affect most of the other advanced improvisers of the 1960s, including John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and the free jazz players of the mid-'60s. One set, a nearly 40-minute jam called Free Jazz (which other than a few brief themes was basically a pulse-driven group free improvisation) had Coleman, Cherry, Haden, LaFaro, Higgins, Blackwell, Dolphy, and Freddie Hubbard forming a double quartet.
In 1962, Coleman, feeling that he was worth much more money than the clubs and his label were paying him, surprised the jazz world by retiring for a period. He took up trumpet and violin (playing the latter as if it were a drum), and in 1965, he recorded a few brilliant sets on all his instruments with a particularly strong trio featuring bassist David Izenzon and drummer Charles Moffett. Later in the decade, Coleman had a quartet with the very complementary tenor Dewey Redman, Haden, and either Blackwell or his young son Denardo Coleman on drums. In addition, Coleman wrote some atonal and wholly composed classical works for chamber groups, and had a few reunions with Don Cherry.
In the early '70s, Coleman entered the second half of his career. He formed a "double quartet" comprised of two guitars, two electric bassists, two drummers, and his own alto. The group, called "Prime Time," featured dense, noisy, and often-witty ensembles in which all of the musicians are supposed to have an equal role, but the leader's alto always ended up standing out. He now called his music harmolodics (symbolizing the equal importance of harmony, melody, and rhythm), although free funk (combining together loose funk rhythms and free improvising) probably fits better; among his sidemen in Prime Time were drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson and bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, in addition to his son Denardo. Prime Time was a major (if somewhat unacknowledged) influence on the M-Base music of Steve Coleman and Greg Osby. Pat Metheny (a lifelong Ornette admirer) collaborated with Coleman on the intense Song X, Jerry Garcia played third guitar on one recording, and Coleman had irregular reunions with his original quartet members in the 1980s.
Coleman, who recorded for Verve in the '90s, has remained true to his highly original vision throughout his career and, although not technically a virtuoso and still considered controversial, is an obvious giant of jazz. He recorded sparingly as the 21st century began, appearing on Joe Henry's Scar in 2000 and on single tracks on Lou Reed's Raven and Eddy Grant's Hearts & Diamonds, both released in 2002.
---Scott Yanow, All Music Guide |
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