Ornette Coleman
At the "Golden Circle" in Stockholm, Vol. 1

THE REVIEW

Every now and then in jazz, people come along who speak strange languages. The conservatives think that what comes out of their saxophone are the barks of dogs and the grunts of pigs, but then ten years pass, and it turns out that this has become the dominant idiom. It happened first to Charlie Parker and then to Ornette Coleman at quite a short distance of about twenty years. Sometimes I wonder how jazz evolved so quickly.

The first time you hear it, it seems like a barren, lunar landscape. You think, what absurd chaos is that madman with the saxophone making? You think that he should have taken a couple of harmony lessons before blowing into that damned instrument. You think it's all the same and very boring. After a while, you discover how fun it can be to walk on the moon, you realize that the landscape is actually varied and lively. We didn't understand this at first because we were nearsighted, or maybe because the light was too intense and our eyes weren't used to it. What was chaos has become order; the canons of beauty and ugliness have been revisited. A creaky musical line has become classic harmony. An aesthetic adventure, that's free jazz.

Many people are quick to label it as stuff for snobbish intellectuals. They haven't realized that these are people much crazier than some rockstars. People who invent their own path when it might have been easier to do work more aligned with general taste. Many musicians owe a lot to Ornette. For example, people like Sun Ra, Steve Lacy, Keith Jarrett, Gato Barbieri, John Zorn, just to name four or five.

This live recording, sold in two separate volumes, was recorded in Stockholm in 1965, about six years after the debut in 1959. It has the advantage of not being too hard-core like other albums, including for example "Free Jazz". If you want to get into the genre just to understand what it is, it’s an excellent starting point. In my opinion, it's one of those fundamental jazz records like "Kind of Blue" by Miles or "Giant Steps" by Coltrane.

The ensemble is a trio, with Coleman on alto sax, David Izezon on double bass, and Charles Moffet on percussion. In reality, Ornette occasionally indulges in rather carefree excursions on the violin. There is a great team chemistry here, which in free jazz is perhaps the most challenging thing.

Practically, this is as far removed from polished jazz as you can get. This is mad, rough, harsh, and scratchy stuff like a coyote howling at the moon.