Of Human Feelings is an album by American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Ornette Coleman. It was recorded on April 25, 1979, at CBS Studios in New York City with his band Prime Time, which featured guitarists Charlie Ellerbee and Bern Nix, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and drummers Calvin Weston and Coleman's son Denardo. It followed the saxophonist's failed attempt to record a direct-to-disc session earlier in March of the same year and was the first jazz album to be recorded digitally in the United States.
The album's jazz-funk music continued Coleman's harmolodic approach to improvisation with Prime Time, whom he had introduced on his 1975 album Dancing in Your Head. This approach emphasized natural rhythmic and emotional responses in a way that Coleman compared to a spirit of collective consciousness. He also drew on rhythm and blues influences from early in his career for Of Human Feelings, which had shorter and more distinct compositions than Dancing in Your Head, while applying free jazz principles from his music during the 1960s to elements of funk.
Following a change in his management, Coleman signed with Island Records, and Of Human Feelings was released in 1982 by its subsidiary label Antilles Records. Critics generally praised the album's expressive music and harmolodic approach, but it made little commercial impact and went out of print. Coleman enlisted his son Denardo as manager after a dispute with his former managers over the album's royalties, a change that inspired him to perform publicly again during the 1980s.
Background
Coleman in 1982
At the end of the 1960s, Ornette Coleman became one of the most influential musicians in jazz after pioneering the controversial free jazz subgenre, which contemporary jazz critics and musicians derided for its deviation from conventional structures of harmony and tonality.[1] By the mid-1970s, however, he had stopped recording free jazz, instead pursuing a new creative theory he called harmolodics and recruiting electric instrumentalists in the process.[2]
According to Coleman's theory of harmolodics, all the musicians in an ensemble are able to play individual melodies in any key, and still sound coherent as a collective unit. He taught his young sidemen this new improvisational and ensemble approach, based on their individual tendencies, and discouraged them from being influenced by conventional styles.[3] Coleman likened this group ethic to a spirit of "collective consciousness" that stresses "human feelings" and "biological rhythms", and said that he wanted the music, rather than himself, to be successful.[4] He also started to incorporate elements from other styles into his music, including rock influences such as the electric guitar and non-Western rhythms played by Moroccan and Nigerian musicians.[5]
Of Human Feelings is a continuation of the harmolodics approach Coleman had applied with Prime Time, an electric quartet introduced on his 1975 album Dancing in Your Head. The group comprised guitarists Charlie Ellerbee and Bern Nix, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and drummers Ronald Shannon Jackson and Denardo Coleman, Ornette Coleman's son.[6] Tacuma was still in high school when Coleman enlisted him, and first recorded with Prime Time in 1975 for the album Body Meta, which was released in 1978.[7] Tacuma had played in an ensemble for jazz organist Charles Earland, but Earland dismissed him as he felt audiences gave excessive attention to his playing. Coleman found Tacuma's playing ideal for harmolodics and encouraged him not to change.[8] Although Coleman's theory initially challenged his knowledge and perception of music, Tacuma came to like the unconventional role each band member was given as a soloist and melodist: "When we read Ornette's music we have his notes, but we listen for his phrases and phrase the way he wants to. I can take the same melody, then, and phrase it like I want to, and those notes will determine the phrasing, the rhythm, the harmony– all of that."[9]
In March 1979, Coleman went to RCA Records' New York studio to produce an album with Prime Time by direct-to-disc recording. They had mechanical problems with the studio equipment, and the recording was rejected. The failed session was a project under Phrase Text, Coleman's music publishing company. He wanted to set up his own record company with the same name, and chose his old friend Kunle Mwanga as his manager.[10]
The next month, Mwanga arranged another session for Coleman, this time at CBS Studios in New York City. Recorded under the title Fashion Faces, this April 25, 1979, session resulted in Of Human Feelings.[11] Jackson did not record with the band; instead, Calvin Weston was hired in his place to play simultaneously with Denardo Coleman.[10] They recorded all the album's songs on the first take without any equipment problems.[12]
The album's recording session was captured using a Sony PCM-1600 two-track digital recorder, a rare item at the time.[13] According to journalist Howard Mandel, the passages played by the band sounded neither very soft or loud on the album, because it had been mixed with a middle-frequency range and compressed dynamics.[9] Because of the equipment used, Coleman did not embellish the album with added effects and avoided overdubbing, multi-tracking, and remixing.[13] According to him, Of Human Feelings was the first jazz album to be digitally recorded in the United States.[14]
Composition and performance
People have started asking me if I'm really a rhythm-'n'-blues player, and I always say, why, sure. To me rhythm is the oxygen that sits under the notes and moves them along and blues is the colouring of those notes, how they're interpreted in an emotional way.
According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (2004), Of Human Feelings features jazz-funk, a type of music that developed at the turn of the 1970s and was characterized by intricate rhythmic patterns, a recurrent bass line, and Latin rhythmic elements.[16] Lloyd Sachs of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that, although Coleman was not viewed as a jazz fusion artist, the album can be described as such because of its combination of free jazz and funk.[17]Glenn Kenny disagreed and felt its boisterous style had more in common with the no wave genre and the artists of New York City's downtown music scene such as John Zorn.[18] Jazz writer Stuart Nicholson viewed it as the culmination of Coleman's musical principles that dated back to his free jazz music in 1960, but reappropriated with a funk-oriented backbeat.[19] According to jazz critic Barry McRae, "it was as if Coleman was translating the concept of the famous double quartet" from his 1961 album Free Jazz to what was required to perform jazz-funk.[20]
Coleman (middle), accompanied by guitarists Charlie Ellerbee (left) and Bern Nix (right)
Coleman incorporated traditional structures and rhythms, and other elements from the rhythm and blues music he had played early his career.[21] According to Mandel, the album's simple, brisk music was more comparable to a coherent R&B band than jazz fusion.[22] Although Coleman still performed the melodies on a song, he employed two guitarists for contrast to make each pair of guitarist and drummer responsible for either the rhythm or melody.[20] Ellerbee provided accentedlinear counterpoint and Nix played variations of the song's melody, while Denardo Coleman and Weston played both polyrhythms and backbeats.[23] On songs such as "Jump Street" and "Love Words", Ellerbee incorporated distortion into his guitar playing, which gave the songs a thicker texture.[5] Tacuma and Ornette Coleman's instrumental responses were played as the foreground to the less prominent guitars.[10] McRae remarked that Coleman and Prime Time exchanged "directional hints" throughout the songs, as one player changed key and the others modulated accordingly.[20] The band made no attempt to harmonize their radically different parts while playing.[9]
Of Human Feelings features shorter and more distinct compositions than Dancing in Your Head.[3] "Sleep Talk", "Air Ship", and "Times Square" were originally performed by Coleman during his concerts in 1978 under the names "Dream Talking", "Meta", and "Writing in the Streets", respectively. "What Is the Name of That Song?" was titled as a sly reference to two of his older compositions, "Love Eyes" and "Forgotten Songs" (also known as "Holiday for Heroes"), whose themes were played concurrently and transfigured by Prime Time.[14] The theme from "Forgotten Songs", originally from Coleman's 1972 album Skies of America, was used as a refrain.[24] "Jump Street" is a blues piece, "Air Ship" comprises a six-bar riff, and the atonal "Times Square" has futuristic dance themes.[25] "Love Words" heavily uses polymodality, a central feature of harmolodics, and juxtaposes Coleman's extended solo against a dense, rhythmically complex backdrop. Nicholson observed West African rhythms and collective improvisation rooted in New Orleans jazz on "Love Words", and suggested that "Sleep Talk" was derived from the opening bassoon solo in Igor Stravinsky's 1913 orchestral work The Rite of Spring.[19] The latter track is led off by Tacuma's bass playing and, according to Premier Guitar journalist Nick Millevoi, is an ideal example of Prime Time's aesthetic and sound.[26]
Marketing and sales
A few weeks after Of Human Feelings was recorded, Mwanga went to Japan to negotiate a deal with Trio Records to have the album released on Phrase Text. Trio, who had previously released a compilation of Coleman's 1966 to 1971 live performances in Paris, prepared to press the album once Mwanga provided the label with the record stamper. Coleman was also set to perform his song "Skies of America" with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, but cancelled both deals upon Mwanga's return from Japan. Mwanga immediately quit after less than four months as Coleman's manager.[10]
In 1981, Coleman hired Stan and Sid Bernstein as his managers, who sold the album's recording tapes to Island Records.[27] He signed with the record label that year, and Of Human Feelings was released in 1982 on Island's subsidiary jazz label Antilles Records.[28]Billboard magazine published a front-page story at the time about its distinction as both the first digital album recorded in New York City and the first digital jazz album recorded by an American label.[29]
According to jazz writer Francis Davis, "a modest commercial breakthrough seemed imminent" for Coleman, who appeared to be regaining his celebrity.[30] German musicologist Peter Niklas Wilson said the album may have been the most tuneful and commercial-sounding of his career at that point.[31] The album's clean mix and relatively short tracks were interpreted as an attempt for radio airplay by Mandel, who described its production as "the surface consistency that would put it in the pop sphere".[9]
Of Human Feelings had no success on the American pop charts, however, only charting on the Top Jazz Albums, where it spent 26 weeks and peaked at number 15.[32] Because the record offered a middle ground between funk and jazz, McRae argued that it consequently appealed to neither demographic of listeners.[33]Sound & Vision critic Brent Butterworth speculated that it was overlooked because it had electric instruments, rock and funk drumming, and did not conform to what he felt was the hokey image of jazz that many of the genre's fans preferred.[13] The album later went out of print.[34]
Of Human Feelings received considerable acclaim from contemporary critics.[41] Reviewing the album for Esquire in 1982, Gary Giddins hailed it as another landmark recording from Coleman and his most accomplished work of harmolodics, partly because of compositions which he found clearly expressed and occasionally timeless. In his opinion, the discordant keys radically transmute conventional polyphony and may be the most challenging part for listeners, who he said should concentrate on Coleman's playing and "let the maelstrom resolve itself around his center". Giddins also highlighted the melody of "Sleep Talk", deeming it among the best of the saxophonist's career.[24] Kofi Natambu from the Detroit Metro Times wrote that Coleman's synergetic approach displays expressive immediacy rather than superficial technical flair while calling the record "a multi-tonal mosaic of great power, humor, color, wit, sensuality, compassion and tenderness". He found the songs inspirational, danceable, and encompassing developments in African-American music over the previous century.[42]Robert Christgau called its "warm, listenable harmolodic funk" an artistic "breakthrough if not a miracle". He found its exchange of rhythms and simple melodies heartfelt and sophisticated, writing in The Village Voice that "the way the players break into ripples of song only to ebb back into the tideway is participatory democracy at its most practical and utopian."[40]
Purist critics in jazz complained about the music's incorporation of danceable beats and electric guitar.[5] In Stereo Review, Chris Albertson deemed the combination of saxophone and bizarre funk occasionally captivating but ultimately unfocused.[43] Dan Sullivan of the Los Angeles Times believed the album's supporters in "hip rock circles" had overlooked flaws, arguing that Tacuma and Coleman's playing sound like a unique "beacon of clarity" amid an incessant background.[44]Leonard Feather wrote in the Toledo Blade that the music is stylistically ambiguous, potentially controversial, and difficult to assess but interesting enough to warrant a listen.[45]
At the end of 1982, Of Human Feelings the year's best album by Billboard editor Peter Keepnews, who viewed it as a prime example of fusing free jazz with modern funk.[46] In year-end lists for The Boston Phoenix, James Hunter and Howard Hampton ranked the album number one and number four, respectively.[47] It was voted 13th best in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics nationwide, published in The Village Voice.[48] Christgau, the poll's supervisor, ranked it number one in an accompanying list, and in 1990 he named it the second-best album of the 1980s.[49]
Coleman received $25,000 for the publishing rights to Of Human Feelings but said his managers sold it for less than the recording costs and that he did not receive any of its royalties. According to Stan Bernstein, Coleman had financial expectations that were "unrealistic in this business unless you're Michael Jackson". Antilles label executive Ron Goldstein felt the $25,000 Coleman received was neither a great nor a fair amount for someone in jazz.[50] After he had gone over budget to record a follow-up album, Island did not release it nor pick up their option on him, and in 1983, he left the Bernstein Agency.[51]
Subsequently, Coleman chose his son Denardo to manage his career while overcoming his reticence of public performance, which had been rooted in his distrust of doing business with a predominantly White music industry.[52] According to Nicholson, "the man once accused of standing on the throat of jazz was welcomed back to the touring circuits with both curiosity and affection" during the 1980s.[52] Coleman did not record another album for six years and instead performed internationally with Prime Time.[33]
Reappraisal
Retrospective appraisals have been favorable to Of Human Feelings. In a 1986 article for The New York Times on Coleman's work with Prime Time, Robert Palmer says the album was still innovative and radical by the standards of other music in 1982, three years after it was recorded.[3] Because writers and musicians had heard its test pressing in 1979, the album's mix of jazz improvisation and gritty, punk and funk-derived energy sounded "prophetic" when it was released, Palmer explains. "The album is clearly the progenitor of much that has sounded radically new in the ongoing fusion of punk rock, black dance rhythms, and free jazz."[5]
Although Coleman's compositions never achieved popularity, AllMusic critic Scott Yanow says they succeeded within the context of an album that showcased his distinctive saxophone style, which was high-brow yet catchy.[35] Joshua Klein from The A.V. Club recommends Of Human Feelings as the best album for new listeners of Coleman's harmolodics-based music, while Chicago Tribune rock critic Greg Kot included it in his guide for novice jazz listeners; he named it one of the few albums that helped him both become a better listener of rock music and learn how to enjoy jazz.[53]
In 2008, New York magazine's Martin Johnson included Of Human Feelings in his list of canonical albums from what he feels had been New York's sceneless yet vital jazz of the previous 40 years; Of Human Feelings exudes what he describes as a spirit of sophistication with elements of funk, Latin, and African music, all of which are encapsulated by music that retains a jazz identity.[54]
Track listing
All compositions were written by Ornette Coleman.[55]
Side one
No.
Title
Length
1.
"Sleep Talk"
3:34
2.
"Jump Street"
4:24
3.
"Him and Her"
4:24
4.
"Air Ship"
6:11
Side two
No.
Title
Length
1.
"What Is the Name of That Song?"
3:58
2.
"Job Mob"
4:57
3.
"Love Words"
2:54
4.
"Times Square"
6:03
Personnel
Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.[55]
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. His pioneering works often abandoned the harmony-based composition, tonality, chord changes, and fixed rhythm found in earlier jazz idioms. Instead, Coleman emphasized an experimental approach to improvisation rooted in ensemble playing and blues phrasing. Thom Jurek of AllMusic called him "one of the most beloved and polarizing figures in jazz history," noting that while "now celebrated as a fearless innovator and a genius, he was initially regarded by peers and critics as rebellious, disruptive, and even a fraud."
Jamaaladeen Tacuma is an American jazz funk avant-garde bassist, composer and producer born in Hempstead, New York. He was a bandleader on the Gramavision label and worked with Ornette Coleman during the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in Coleman's Prime Time band.
Harmolodics is a musical philosophy and method of musical composition and improvisation developed by American jazz saxophonist-composer Ornette Coleman. His work following this philosophy during the late 1970s and 1980s inspired a style of forward-thinking jazz-funk known as harmolodic funk. It is associated with avant-garde jazz and free jazz, although its implications extend beyond these limits. Coleman also used the name "Harmolodic" for both his first website and his record label.
In All Languages is a 1987 double album by Ornette Coleman. Coleman and the other members of his 1950s quartet, trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Billy Higgins, performed on one of the two records, while his electrified ensemble, Prime Time, performed on the other. Many of the songs on In All Languages had two renditions, one by each group.
Dancing in Your Head is a studio album by Ornette Coleman, released in 1977 by Horizon Records.
Song X is a collaborative studio album by American jazz guitarist Pat Metheny and saxophonist Ornette Coleman. It is a free jazz record that was produced in a three-day recording session in 1985. The album was released in 1985 by Geffen Records.
Free-funk is a combination of avant-garde jazz with funk music that developed in the 1970s. Leaders of the genre include Ornette Coleman and his Prime Time group, Ronald Shannon Jackson and his group Decoding Society, Jamaaladeen Tacuma and his group Spectacle and James "Blood" Ulmer. The music has also been quite influential on the M-Base genre.
Denardo Ornette Coleman is an American jazz drummer. He is the son of Ornette Coleman and Jayne Cortez.
Body Meta is an album by Ornette Coleman and Prime Time, released in 1978.
Opening the Caravan of Dreams is a 1985 live album by jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman and his Prime Time ensemble. It was recorded at a concert inaugurating the Caravan of Dreams, a then-newly opened performing arts center in Coleman's hometown of Fort Worth, Texas.
Discography for American jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman.
Tales of Captain Black is an album by American guitarist James Blood Ulmer, featuring Ornette Coleman, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and Denardo Coleman, recorded in 1978 and originally released on the Artists House label. It was coproduced by Ornette. The album was remastered and rereleased on CD with a new mix by Joe Ferla approved and co-produced by Ulmer on the Japanese DIW label in 1996.
Tone Dialing is an album recorded in 1995 by the American jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman and his Prime Time ensemble. It was released in September 1995 by Coleman's Harmolodic record label, in partnership with Verve/PolyGram. It was the Harmolodic label's first release, and "the first disc fully devoted to Coleman's music in eight years."
Sound Museum: Hidden Man is an album by the American jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman recorded in 1996 and released on the Harmolodic/Verve label. It is dedicated to Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell.
Sound Museum: Three Women is an album by the American jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman recorded in 1996 and released on the Harmolodic/Verve label. It is dedicated to Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell.
Layin' in the Cut is the seventh album by American saxophonist James Carter, released on the Atlantic label in 2000. Devoted to free funk in the style of Ornette Coleman's late 1970s and '80s bands, it was one of two Carter albums released on the same day. The other was Chasin' the Gypsy, a tribute to guitarist Django Reinhardt.
Prime Time was an American free funk band formed by Ornette Coleman in 1975. The band utilized Coleman's theory of harmolodics to create their music. Founding members included guitarists Bern Nix and guitarist Charles Ellerbee, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and drummers Denardo Coleman and Ronald Shannon Jackson. Later members included bassist Albert MacDowell and drummer Sabir Kamal.
Jazzbühne Berlin '88 is a live album by Ornette Coleman and his band Prime Time. It was recorded on June 5, 1988, at the Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin, and was released in 1990 by Repertoire Records as Volume 5 of their Jazz Bühne Berlin / Rundfunk der DDR series.
Mirakle is an album by guitarist Derek Bailey, electric bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and drummer Calvin Weston. It was recorded on November 29, 1999, at Orange Music in West Orange, New Jersey, and was released in 2000 by Tzadik Records as part of their Key Series.
Grant Calvin Weston is a drummer best known for his association with Ornette Coleman's band Prime Time.
Christgau, Robert (February 22, 1983). "Pazz & Jop 1982: Dean's List". The Village Voice. New York. Archived from the original on August 15, 2013. Retrieved April 11, 2013.
Christgau, Robert (January 2, 1990). "Decade Personal Best: '80s". The Village Voice. New York. Archived from the original on August 15, 2013. Retrieved April 11, 2013.
Harrison, Max; Fox, Charles; Thacker, Eric; Nicholson, Stuart (2000). The Essential Jazz Records: Modernism to Postmodernism. The Essential Jazz Records. Vol.2. Mansell. ISBN978-0-7201-1822-3.
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