Ornette Coleman Music

I find it hard to express anything less than admiration for Ornette Coleman, but this CD is not as great as others I have listened to.
In a song such as Dee Dee - Coleman opens with a humorous phrase, but does not really strech in his improvisation on it. He sounds amused, but not inspired. The rest of the CD is better, especially Dawn. The group plays great together, but for some reason I always get the feeling that Coleman was not all that inspired on this session. I love his "Free Jazz" cd, his 1967 Blue Notes with Dewey Redman, and later works I had a chance to hear.
I enjoy this CD as well, but not as much as I expected. Still, it is good music, interesting and creative.

I have been an Ornette fan for a long time, and have had and heard lots of his music over the years. A few years back I had a break-in, and lost all of my cd's from a to f (they must have gotten spooked or something) Anyway, this cd is one that I still have due to misfiling or something, and It is beautiful. From beginning to end, this trio makes some of the best sounds ever recorded. It is often hard to believe that it is a trio, the music is somehow both incredibly full and spartanly minimalist at the same time. Ornette Coleman will be remembered as one of the most influential and important improvisers of all time and this cd is testimony to it. Very good representation of this period of the mans work.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with altoist/multi-instrumentalist composer Ornette Coleman, he is that rare musical breed, a "maverick" of rare originality as composer Virgil Thomson stated in an interview. Together with another revolutionary musician, Cecil Taylor, Coleman turned the musical world upside down with his Harmelodic theory. If you are hesitant about Ornette Coleman, then this classic recording might be the best place to start. Recorded in two nights at the Golden Circle in Stockholm, Swedan; Coleman and his trio which included 2 now long departed musicians, David Izenson on bass and Charles Moffet on drums, mesmerized audiences every night with their music. I was long turned off to Ornette even with his early Atlantic recordings since I thought he was out of tune but when I heard the first track, "Faces & Places", I was hooked and started to re-examine those early recordings. The first volume I would recommend since on most of the tracks, Ornette is playing alto an instrument I prefer to hear him on rather than violin or trumpet which is more prevalent on Vol 2. Anyway, Ornette has moved on to a different group of musicians nowadays with a electric guitar and 2 bassists. So if you want to hear him at his peak--do check this one out!!

Ornette Coleman only brought a trio to Stockholm, but since he was playing at such a high level, it was all that was needed. The songs are all catchy, and it's simply great saxophone to carry it all through. "Faces And Places" and "Dee Dee" are outstanding, the reasons I give four instead of five stars are the cutesy note-jumps in "European Echoes" and some dragginess in "Dawn". I saw a passing online comment equating Ornette with scary music. The best way to refute that misnomer is with this CD.

A true definition of Ornette Coleman 's idiosyncratic theory of harmolodics eluded this listener in the spring of -66 when I bought this record. The leader's R&B Texas wail, the bassist David Izenson plays as if every note was his last. It's all here: the nascent bag of bends, trills, and double stops that mark Coleman's later work, the weaving of others' solos into the evolving quilt of composition, the ardent commitment to unchained melody on all levels, and a deep, soulful tone that embraces gospel and the Deep South. Couldn't get it. Then in the winter of -67 I was stationed up north in Finland, was in the army and there was a jazz... as a sergeant and he, of all people in the universe, played this music in his room. Amazin stuff, it hit me, and out went the Beatles, Stones, Animals, at least for a while and I realized that I'd finally found the music that speaks directly to your gut. Music that comes from soewhere deep inside Coleman, and not only him, but from some form a collective subconscious of wishes and dreams that he can connect with. I salute the sergeant and still remember with fondness our colemanesque moments in a not so jazz-friendly environment. True, great music is like that. It touches you deep inside and you come out of it a different person.

Ornette Coleman emerged from retirement in 1965 with one of his most exciting groups -- a trio featuring bassist David Izenzon and drummer Charles Moffett. It's great to hear Ornette stretch out more than in the early Atlantic recordings and his interplay with Izenzon and Moffett is practically telepathic. Ornette's playing is lively, humorous, and very melodic; he plays alto sax exclusively on this CD.

This RVG reissue almost doubles the playing time of the original CD issue, with alternate takes of the freebop gem "Faces and Places" and the goofy waltz "European Echoes" as well as the previously unreleased "Doughnuts". Volume 2 is also great though slightly more "out".

The gigs the Ornette Coleman Trio played at the Golden Cirkeln must have been very memorable for those in attendance. I enjoy most the way Ornette, bass-player Izenzon, and drummer Moffett take on the task of remaining in synch in this free-jazz type setting. Both Moffett and Inzenzon seem to always know how to recover during Ornette's many spontaneous excursions.
Furthermore, there is nothing pretentious about this music. Ornette seems to have a theme for each song, and the trio takes it from there. "European Echoes" is my favorite because of its simplicity and humor. I think all musicians should listen to Coleman's music as a means for understanding how to make good music through being real and spontaneous, for those qualities seem to be at the heart of the creative process.

I find it hard to express anything less than admiration for Ornette Coleman, but this CD is not as great as others I have listened to.
In a song such as Dee Dee - Coleman opens with a humorous phrase, but does not really strech in his improvisation on it. He sounds amused, but not inspired. The rest of the CD is better, especially Dawn. The group plays great together, but for some reason I always get the feeling that Coleman was not all that inspired on this session. I love his "Free Jazz" cd, his 1967 Blue Notes with Dewey Redman, and later works I had a chance to hear.
I enjoy this CD as well, but not as much as I expected. Still, it is good music, interesting and creative.

I have been an Ornette fan for a long time, and have had and heard lots of his music over the years. A few years back I had a break-in, and lost all of my cd's from a to f (they must have gotten spooked or something) Anyway, this cd is one that I still have due to misfiling or something, and It is beautiful. From beginning to end, this trio makes some of the best sounds ever recorded. It is often hard to believe that it is a trio, the music is somehow both incredibly full and spartanly minimalist at the same time. Ornette Coleman will be remembered as one of the most influential and important improvisers of all time and this cd is testimony to it. Very good representation of this period of the mans work.

Ornette Coleman possesses a sound and approach that is not easily appreciated by all listeners. This album is extremely experimental, defying convention and sometimes even sounding schizophrenic. Such criticism has always been par for the course in the case of Coleman, who developed his own approach to jazz music which he calls "harmolodics". Boiled down, "harmolodics" are the result of an improvisational relationship between artists, where melody and harmony becomes one cohesive unit.

The Ornette Coleman Trio at the "Golden Circle" Stockholm, Volume II carries on this tradition of Coleman's avant-garde technique. Prior to this recording, Coleman undertook studying the violin and trumpet in addition to the alto saxophone. Recorded on December 3 & 4th of 1965, Coleman showcases his newly acquired trumpeting and violin skills in Stockholm, Sweden on this album. Accompanied by David Izenzon on bass and Charles Moffett on drums, the music on here reminds one of three impressionist painters contributing to one piece of art. The result is agreeable, though I'll readily admit Ornette Coleman is not for everyone.

Please listen to the track previews before buying this album, as they always say more than a review can to you. I recommend this album to Coleman fans and lovers of the early avant-garde, as this work was forward thinking in it's delivery and concept. I hope you enjoy it. The four stars are kind of warning shot for the unsuspecting, though I suspect if you've made it this far you already can dig where Coleman was coming from.

Both volumes of the Ornette Coleman Trio at the "Golden Circle" Stockholm are classic 60s avant-garde jazz albums. After his groundbreaking recordings with Atlantic, Coleman re-emerges with Blue Note in 1965 with these live sessions. On Volume 1, Ornette sticks to his native alto-sax, but on Volume 2 he branches out to violin and trumpet as well. The results of this multi-instrumentation are mixed, but is at the very least an interesting look into how a master composer and improviser tries to expand his methods for musical communication. Overall, any Ornette fan would be remiss to have this CDs absent from his/her collection.

Ornette Coleman possesses a sound and approach that is not easily appreciated by all listeners. This album is extremely experimental, defying convention and sometimes even sounding schizophrenic. Such criticism has always been par for the course in the case of Coleman, who developed his own approach to jazz music which he calls "harmolodics". Boiled down, "harmolodics" are the result of an improvisational relationship between artists, where melody and harmony becomes one cohesive unit.

The Ornette Coleman Trio at the "Golden Circle" Stockholm, Volume II carries on this tradition of Coleman's avant-garde technique. Prior to this recording, Coleman undertook studying the violin and trumpet in addition to the alto saxophone. Recorded on December 3 & 4th of 1965, Coleman showcases his newly acquired trumpeting and violin skills in Stockholm, Sweden on this album. Accompanied by David Izenzon on bass and Charles Moffett on drums, the music on here reminds one of three impressionist painters contributing to one piece of art. The result is agreeable, though I'll readily admit Ornette Coleman is not for everyone.

Please listen to the track previews before buying this album, as they always say more than a review can to you. I recommend this album to Coleman fans and lovers of the early avant-garde, as this work was forward thinking in it's delivery and concept. I hope you enjoy it. The four stars are kind of warning shot for the unsuspecting, though I suspect if you've made it this far you already can dig where Coleman was coming from.

Both volumes of the Ornette Coleman Trio at the "Golden Circle" Stockholm are classic 60s avant-garde jazz albums. After his groundbreaking recordings with Atlantic, Coleman re-emerges with Blue Note in 1965 with these live sessions. On Volume 1, Ornette sticks to his native alto-sax, but on Volume 2 he branches out to violin and trumpet as well. The results of this multi-instrumentation are mixed, but is at the very least an interesting look into how a master composer and improviser tries to expand his methods for musical communication. Overall, any Ornette fan would be remiss to have this CDs absent from his/her collection.

Ornette Coleman possesses a sound and approach that is not easily appreciated by all listeners. This album is extremely experimental, defying convention and sometimes even sounding schizophrenic. Such criticism has always been par for the course in the case of Coleman, who developed his own approach to jazz music which he calls "harmolodics". Boiled down, "harmolodics" are the result of an improvisational relationship between artists, where melody and harmony becomes one cohesive unit.

The Ornette Coleman Trio at the "Golden Circle" Stockholm, Volume II carries on this tradition of Coleman's avant-garde technique. Prior to this recording, Coleman undertook studying the violin and trumpet in addition to the alto saxophone. Recorded on December 3 & 4th of 1965, Coleman showcases his newly acquired trumpeting and violin skills in Stockholm, Sweden on this album. Accompanied by David Izenzon on bass and Charles Moffett on drums, the music on here reminds one of three impressionist painters contributing to one piece of art. The result is agreeable, though I'll readily admit Ornette Coleman is not for everyone.

Please listen to the track previews before buying this album, as they always say more than a review can to you. I recommend this album to Coleman fans and lovers of the early avant-garde, as this work was forward thinking in it's delivery and concept. I hope you enjoy it. The four stars are kind of warning shot for the unsuspecting, though I suspect if you've made it this far you already can dig where Coleman was coming from.

Both volumes of the Ornette Coleman Trio at the "Golden Circle" Stockholm are classic 60s avant-garde jazz albums. After his groundbreaking recordings with Atlantic, Coleman re-emerges with Blue Note in 1965 with these live sessions. On Volume 1, Ornette sticks to his native alto-sax, but on Volume 2 he branches out to violin and trumpet as well. The results of this multi-instrumentation are mixed, but is at the very least an interesting look into how a master composer and improviser tries to expand his methods for musical communication. Overall, any Ornette fan would be remiss to have this CDs absent from his/her collection.

Listening to this music it is almost impossible to recall the WWII days of Ellington and Basie when jazz was, quite literally, the most popular music in America. Jazz was dance hall music, party music, and back porch spooning music, it defined an entire era. Even more than the so called "jazz age" of flappers and bathtub gin, the big bands with their glistening horn sections, tight orchestrations, and flamboyant front men were the very soul of every event worth attending, whether in Harlem or the Hamptons. Jazz was almost unique in its ability to cut across cultural (read racial) and socio-economic divides.

Today, jazz is still vital, though fragmented, and profoundly unpopular, residing somewhere between personal responsibility and moral integrity on the mass appeal spectrum. The molten Velveeta cheese pumped through pipes throughout the nation referred to as "smooth jazz" bears as much resemblance to actual jazz as a lightning bug resembles lightning. This is music for people too cheap to buy opium. On the other extreme is music so avante garde (a phrase which assumes the garde will eventually catch up, which may not occur in this case) as to thoroughly alienate the jazz diehards who swung with Cab Calloway and hoped that jazz would evolve in a comforting way.

Ornette Coleman was not single-handedly responsible for this schism, but it would be hard to find a practitioner who reveled more enthusiastically in driving a stake through the heart of jazz that was "safe, comfortable, and predictable." Even fans who had bravely hung in there with Bird, and even Trane, found Coleman simply too annoying to be worth the trouble. Instead of retreating, Coleman took possession of this neighborhood, gleefully embracing it. In earlier efforts, like The Shape Of Jazz To Come, Coleman showcased his virtuosity in a way that was simultaneously elegant and challenging. In Stockholm he seems intent on offending, being weird, and always going left when every street sign points to the right. (His violin playing alone tells this story emphatically.)

Coleman is a truly great artist, and great art has many responsibilities. One is to be beautiful. One is to be true. One is to inspire. One is to challenge. In the process of challenging, great art frequently offends. (Many lesser practitioners believe that to offend is to be great, which is ludicrous. Much of what is called art is merely vacuously offensive.) This CD, and its companion, conveniently entitled Volume 1, are horses of a very different stripe, or zebras of a very different color.

By kicking the piano out of the family and abandoning any semblance of traditional "song" structure, Coleman created his own musical universe. This is fearless, uncompromising, demented music that makes absolutely no attempt to be accessible. Even among jazz aficionados it was marginalized, if not condemned. When you accept that every note Coleman plays he plays on purpose, and that he has an adventurous spirit Lewis and Clark might have admired, you will find this music fascinating and richly satisfying. The moment it starts to grate on your nerves, imagine how much poorer we would all be if we lived in a world where there was no one intrepid enough to imagine and perform it.

Usually I don't replace my old Blue Note CDs with the new remasters from the RVG series, unless there is something truly special about the reissue/album in question. Well, Ornette's "Golden Circle" Volumes were certainly worth the upgrade! The sound is noticeably improved (this session wasn't originally recorded by Rudy), and most importantly there are three previously unreleased alternate takes. The rest of the disc is the same classic stuff, and I've included my review for the original CD release of this title below:

Both volumes of the Ornette Coleman Trio at the "Golden Circle" Stockholm are classic 60s avant-garde jazz albums. After his groundbreaking recordings with Atlantic, Coleman re-emerges with Blue Note in 1965 with these live sessions. On Volume 1, Ornette sticks to his native alto-sax, but on Volume 2 he branches out to violin and trumpet as well. The results of this multi-instrumentation are mixed, but is at the very least an interesting look into how a master composer and improviser tries to expand his methods for musical communication. Overall, any Ornette fan would be remiss to have this CD absent from his/her collection.

It seems to me that Blue Note put the more challenging music of the Golden Circle engagement on Volume 2. (Which is still far more accessible than, say, Cecil Taylor's Unit Structures or John Coltrane's Meditations -- don't be frightened away!) "The Riddle" is a frantic freebopper with some of Ornette's best playing on these recordings and "Morning Song" is a dark, beautiful ballad. "Antiques" is a nice, medium tempo exploration with Moffett's occasional martial beats. And while all three of those tracks feature Ornette on alto, "Snowflakes and Sunshine" showcases his trumpet and violin playing. His trumpet playing is primitive and his violin playing is sub-primitive, which may disgust some listeners. But even if you don't like that track, there's still more than an hour of phenomenal saxophone playing here.

The new RVG reissue has great sound and almost doubles the playing time of the original with alternate tracks of "Morning Song", "The Riddle", and "Antiques". "Doughnuts", the previously unreleased track, is actually on the more accessible Volume One. Both Volumes are among the high points of 60s avant-garde jazz.

Since I suppose, that you will buy this one together with "Volume 1", which I also reviewed, just let's say something about the things happening only here, namely Coleman's violin- and trumpetplaying on "Snowflakes and Sunshine", the first tune: Ornette's playing on those instruments has often been written off by the critics as lacking of technique or just sounding terrible, but I think it would be to easy explaining things that way: Listening to that tune, you will notice a really surprising "call and response" thing between Ornette's violin-excursions and Izenzon's arco playing on the bass. The same thing happens during the interaction between the leader's trumpet playing and Moffett's drumming. By the way, one cannot understand, why this great drummer didn't get more publicity, he is really exiting. Like on "Vol.1", we have another beautiful ballad (Morning Song), and some astonishing tempo changes at "The Riddle". As for the bonus tracks, "Doughnuts" really knocked me out as being the only tune, that's not just an alternate take of one of the originally material, but a hereto completely unknown composition from that date. It is really a great up-tempo thing, similar to the stuff on "Ornette!", the exiting '61 album from the Atlantic Label.