This Is Our Music (Ornette Coleman album)

Last updated
This Is Our Music
This Is Our Music (Ornette Coleman).jpg
Studio album by
The Ornette Coleman Quartet
ReleasedMarch 1961
RecordedJuly 19 and 26,
August 2, 1960
Genre Free jazz
Length38:46
Label Atlantic SD 1353
Producer Nesuhi Ertegün
The Ornette Coleman Quartet chronology
Change of the Century
(1960)		This Is Our Music
(1961)		 Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation
(1961)

This Is Our Music is the fifth album by saxophonist Ornette Coleman, recorded in 1960 and released on Atlantic Records in March 1961. It is the first with drummer Ed Blackwell replacing his predecessor Billy Higgins in the Coleman Quartet, [1] and is the only one of Coleman's Atlantic albums to include a standard, in this case a version of "Embraceable You" by George and Ira Gershwin. [2]

Contents

Two recording sessions for the album took place in July and one in August 1960 at Atlantic Studios in New York City. [3] The seven selections for this album were culled from 23 masters recorded over the three sessions. [4] The 16 outtakes from the two July sessions would later appear on the 1970s compilations The Art of the Improvisers , Twins , and To Whom Who Keeps A Record , along with the 1993 box set Beauty Is A Rare Thing , [4] named for a track on this album. Coleman was evidently pleased with the recordings, stating: "In July, 1960... we did thirty tunes in three weeks. All originals. Everything I've ever recorded has been a piece of my own. Until I heard these last tapes, I hadn't realized all the different approaches we'd been developing in the past few months. I think the new albums will give the public and the musicians a more accurate idea of what we're trying to do." [5]

In his liner notes, Coleman was careful to place his music in historical context, writing:

the most important part of our music is the improvisation, which is done as spontaneously as possible, with each man contributing his musical expression to create the form. Now - let's look back. Group improvisation is not new. In early jazz, that kind of group playing was known as Dixieland. In the swing era, the emphasis changed and improvisation took the form of solos based on riffs. In modern jazz, improvisation is melodic and harmonically progressive. Now we are blending the three together to create and give more freedom to the player and more pleasure to the listener. [6]

He also paid tribute to his bandmates, writing: "The experience of playing with these men is unexplainable and I only know that what they know is far beyond a technical explanation for me to convey to you." [6] He concluded the notes by writing: "Since there isn't too much I haven't told you about my music, I really told you about myself through it. The other autobiography of my life is like everyone else's. Born, work, sad and happy and etc. We do hope you enjoy our music." [6]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [2]
DownBeat Star full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [7]
Tom Hull A− [8]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [9]
Pitchfork 9.4/10 [10]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [11]

In a review for AllMusic, Steve Huey noted that the word "our" in the title of the album "makes clear just how important the concept of group improvisation was to Coleman's goals. Anyone can improvise whenever he feels like it, and the players share such empathy that each knows how to add to the feeling of the ensemble without undermining its egalitarian sense of give and take." He wrote: "All in all, This Is Our Music keeps one of the hottest creative streaks in jazz history going strong." [2] Mark Richardson of Pitchfork stated: "What amazes me about this era of Coleman... is how accessible it is. Back in the day, this band had the intelligentsia calling for Coleman to be fitted for a straightjacket, but to one weaned on the 60s Impulse! catalog, the music sounds joyous, pretty, sensible and sane." He wrote that "[t]he uptempo tracks here are teeming with life" and noted that "sporadic surges in tempo are early experiments in elastic time (a trend that would be explored at great length as the 60s progressed), and these bursts of energy make these pieces seem, well, bountiful." He concluded by stating that, on this album, Coleman's music "just sounds exceptionally fresh and timeless." [10]

Writing for All About Jazz , C. Michael Bailey called This Is Our Music "the militantly expressed jumping-off point... on the way to the epochal Free Jazz", and stated that Coleman "takes a stand here, pushing his vision of musical freedom farther than on any previous release", and "fully leaps the edge of tradition into the chaotic and sublime future he, himself, was forging." According to Bailey, "This is Our Music is Coleman at the point of completely letting go. He and his most sympathetic supporters had evolved through varying musical perimeters to the point that he was prepared to forsake any limiting quantity or quality to his creation and performance. Coleman was introducing what Coltrane would perfect before the end of the 1960s, Coleman playing Vivaldi to Coltrane's Bach." [12]

Pianist and composer Ethan Iverson called the version of "Embraceable You" on the album "probably the ultimate Rorschach test for Ornette’s fans and skeptics", and wrote: "These days I no longer hear the form as constantly getting lost, but instead as a through-composed collective improvisation. Ornette uses pure melody to shape his solo. Haden is right there, abstracting the tune’s changes and humbly serving Ornette’s broken-hearted smear. Blackwell’s mallets are perfect... The searing, Coleman-composed introduction may be better than the Gershwin tune. It’s a performance that requires compassion to be understood." [13]

Jake Cole, writing for Spectrum Culture, stated that "the album's title is a confrontation, a statement of purpose that primed to agitate the hordes of resistors even within jazz circles. Yet the militancy of the album's name and the legacy of Coleman's impact belies the sheer beauty of the compositions." Regarding the faster tempo tracks, he wrote that they are "keen examples of the throughline of jazz history running through Coleman’s work, in particular how heavily it leans on early, Dixieland-style playing. If this is Dixie jazz, though, it’s Dixie of the future. Coleman's saxophone swings and blurts and challenges as Cherry darts around him and sometimes syncs up in terrifying harmony. Throughout, Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell do not so much provide rhythm as yet more instruments in simultaneous collusion and opposition with the others, pushing forward in a composition through attrition." Cole concludes: "Coleman was and remains principally absorbed in the immediacy of human emotion, and his impressionism is still the high-water mark in transposing a feeling." [14]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Ornette Coleman except as noted

Side one
No.TitleDateLength
1."Blues Connotation"July 195:16
2."Beauty Is A Rare Thing"August 27:13
3."Kaleidoscope"July 196:36
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)DateLength
1."Embraceable You"
July 264:54
2."Poise" August 24:40
3."Humpty Dumpty" July 265:23
4."Folk Tale" August 24:44

Personnel

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ornette Coleman</span> American jazz musician and composer (1930–2015)

Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He was 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. 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."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Cherry (trumpeter)</span> American jazz trumpeter (1936–1995)

Donald Eugene Cherry was an American jazz trumpeter. Beginning in the late 1950s, he had a long tenure performing in the bands of saxophonist Ornette Coleman, including on the pioneering free jazz albums The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959) and Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation (1960). Cherry also collaborated separately with musicians such as John Coltrane, Charlie Haden, Sun Ra, Ed Blackwell, the New York Contemporary Five, and Albert Ayler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Haden</span> American musician and educator (1937–2014)

Charles Edward Haden was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. Building on the work of predecessors such as Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped to revolutionize the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz, evolving a style that sometimes complemented the soloist, and other times moved independently, liberating bassists from a strictly accompanying role, to allow more direct participation in group improvisation.

<i>The Shape of Jazz to Come</i> 1959 studio album by Ornette Coleman

The Shape of Jazz to Come is the third album by jazz musician Ornette Coleman. Released on Atlantic Records in 1959, it was his debut on the label and his first album featuring the working quartet including himself, trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Billy Higgins. The recording session for the album took place on May 22, 1959, at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, California. Although Coleman initially wished for the album to be titled Focus on Sanity after the LP's fourth track, Atlantic producer Nesuhi Ertegun suggested the final title, feeling that it would give consumers "an idea about the uniqueness of the LP."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old and New Dreams</span>

Old and New Dreams was an American jazz group that was active from 1976 to 1987. The group was composed of tenor saxophone player Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden, trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Ed Blackwell. All of the members were former sidemen of free jazz progenitor and alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, and the group played a mix of Coleman's compositions and originals by the band members.

<i>Change of the Century</i> 1960 studio album by Ornette Coleman

Change of the Century is the fourth album by jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, released on Atlantic Records in May 1960. It sold very well from soon after its release. Recording sessions for the album took place on October 8 and 9, 1959, in New York City.

<i>Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation</i> 1961 studio album by Ornette Coleman

Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation is the sixth album by jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, released on Atlantic Records in September 1961: the fourth of Coleman's six albums for the label. Its title named the then-nascent free jazz movement. The recording session took place on December 21, 1960, at A&R Studios in New York City. The sole outtake from the album session, "First Take," was later released on the 1971 compilation Twins and subsequent CD reissues of Free Jazz.

<i>Skies of America</i> 1972 studio album by Ornette Coleman

Skies of America is the 17th album by jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, released on Columbia Records in 1972. It consists of one long composition by Coleman taking up both sides of the album, played by the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by David Measham. Coleman himself only plays on a few segments, and there is no other jazz instrumentation.

<i>The Avant-Garde</i> (album) 1966 studio album by John Coltrane and Don Cherry

The Avant-Garde is an album credited to jazz musicians John Coltrane and Don Cherry that was released in 1966 by Atlantic Records. It features Coltrane playing several compositions by Ornette Coleman accompanied by the members of Coleman's quartet: Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Ed Blackwell. The album was assembled from two unissued recording sessions at Atlantic Studios in New York City in 1960.

<i>Expectations</i> (Keith Jarrett album) 1972 studio album by Keith Jarrett

Expectations is an album recorded by Keith Jarrett in 1972 and released on Columbia Records the same year. In addition to Jarrett, musicians on the recording include his "American quartet": Dewey Redman on tenor saxophone, Charlie Haden on bass, and Paul Motian on drums. Also featured are Sam Brown on electric guitar, Airto on percussion, as well as brass and string sections whose members are not credited in the album information. Expectations was produced by George Avakian, Jarrett's manager since 1966.

<i>Something Else!!!!</i> 1958 studio album by Ornette Coleman

Something Else!!!! is the debut album by jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman. It was released by Contemporary Records in September 1958. According to AllMusic, the album "shook up the jazz world", revitalizing the union of blues and jazz and restoring "blues to their 'classic' beginnings in African music". It is unusual in Coleman's output in that it features a conventional bebop quintet instrumentation ; after this album, Coleman would omit the piano, creating a starker and more fluid sound.

<i>Intensity</i> (Art Pepper album) 1963 studio album by Art Pepper

Intensity is a 1960 jazz album by saxophonist Art Pepper playing with pianist Dolo Coker, bassist Jimmy Bond and drummer Frank Butler. The album was released in 1963.

<i>Twins</i> (Ornette Coleman album) 1971 studio album by Ornette Coleman

Twins is an album credited to jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman, released by Atlantic Records in 1971. The album was assembled without Coleman's input, comprising outtakes from recording sessions of 1959 to 1961 for The Shape of Jazz to Come, This Is Our Music, Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation, and Ornette! Sessions for "Monk and the Nun" took place at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, California; for "First Take" at A&R Studios in New York City, and all others at Atlantic Studios also in Manhattan. The track "First Take" was a first attempt at "Free Jazz" from the album of the same name.

<i>Ornette!</i> 1962 studio album by Ornette Coleman

Ornette! is the seventh album by alto saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, released in February 1962 on Atlantic Records. The album features Scott LaFaro in place of Charlie Haden, who had left the Quartet but would work again with Coleman in the future.

<i>Old and New Dreams</i> (1977 album) 1977 studio album by Old and New Dreams

Old and New Dreams is the debut album by the jazz quartet Old and New Dreams. The record features trumpeter Don Cherry, saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell and was recorded in 1976 for the Italian Black Saint label. It is not to be confused with their 1979 album of the same name for ECM.

<i>Playing</i> (album) 1981 live album by Old and New Dreams

Playing is a live album by American jazz quartet Old and New Dreams recorded at the Cornmarket Theater in Austria and released on ECM the following year. The quartet consists brass section Don Cherry and Dewey Redman and rhythm section Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell.

<i>The Art of the Improvisers</i> 1970 studio album by Ornette Coleman

The Art of the Improvisers is an album credited to jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman, released by Atlantic Records in 1970. The album was assembled without Coleman's input, comprising outtakes from recording sessions of 1959 to 1961 for The Shape of Jazz to Come, Change of the Century, This Is Our Music, Ornette!, and Ornette on Tenor. Recording sessions in 1959 took place at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, California; those in 1960 and 1961 at Atlantic Studios in New York City.

<i>Beauty Is a Rare Thing</i> 1993 box set by Ornette Coleman

Beauty Is a Rare Thing: The Complete Atlantic Recordings is a box set by American jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman compiling his master recordings made for Atlantic between 1959 and 1961, released on Rhino Records on November 16, 1993.

<i>The Golden Number</i> 1977 studio album by Charlie Haden

The Golden Number is an album of four duets by bassist Charlie Haden recorded in 1976 and released on the Horizon label in 1977. Haden’s duet partners are trumpeter Don Cherry, tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, pianist Hampton Hawes and alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman. Hawes died shortly before the album’s release, and Haden dedicated the work to him in the liner notes.

<i>The Belgrade Concert</i> 1995 live album by Ornette Coleman

The Belgrade Concert is a live album by Ornette Coleman. It was recorded in November 1971 in Belgrade, and was released by Jazz Door in 1995. On the album, which was recorded one day after the concert documented on Live in Paris 1971, Coleman is joined by saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Ed Blackwell.

References

  1. ↑ Morton, Brian; Cook, Richard (2010). The Penguin Jazz Guide. Penguin Books. p. 157.
  2. 1 2 3 Huey, Steve. "Ornette Coleman: This Is Our Music". AllMusic. Retrieved November 3, 2020.
  3. ↑ Golia, Maria (2020). Ornette Coleman: The Territory and the Adventure. Reaktion Books.
  4. 1 2 "Ornette Coleman Discography". Jazzdisco.org. Retrieved November 3, 2020.
  5. ↑ Hentoff, Nat (1961). The Jazz Life. Da Capo. p. 244.
  6. 1 2 3 This Is Our Music (liner notes). Ornette Coleman. Atlantic Records. 1961. SD 1353.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  7. ↑ DeMicheal, Don (May 11, 1961). "This is Our Music". DownBeat . p. 25.
  8. ↑ Hull, Tom (n.d.). "Jazz (1940–50s) (Reference)". tomhull.com. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  9. ↑ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 274. ISBN   978-0-141-03401-0.
  10. 1 2 Richardson, Mark (March 25, 2002). "Ornette Coleman: This Is Our Music". Pitchfork. Retrieved November 3, 2020.
  11. ↑ Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 45. ISBN   0-394-72643-X.
  12. ↑ Bailey, C. Michael (August 25, 2011). "Ornette Coleman: This Is Our Music". All About Jazz. Retrieved November 3, 2020.
  13. ↑ Iverson, Ethan. "Ornette 2: This Is Our Mystic". EthanIverson.com. Retrieved November 3, 2020.
  14. ↑ Cole, Jake (August 25, 2014). "Rediscover: The Ornette Coleman Quartet: This Is Our Music". Spectrum Culture. Retrieved November 3, 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.