Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation (1961)
2 tracks, 54 minutes (1998 CD version)
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This is a manifesto in sound. It gave a name to the exciting new direction in jazz, the natural progression from be-bop to hard-bop to post-bop to...free jazz. Ornette Coleman had already been exploring more avant-garde solos and compositions for a few years, but this was the next level – eight musicians improvising non-stop for a full album. It’s intense! The original two sides are nearly 40 minutes long in one unbroken track, but it remains an enjoyable listen as it leaps into the void. That it was made by eight of the top jazz players of the day probably helps, too.
It’s not ‘free jazz’ as the stereotype would suggest: it’s no free-for-all of everyone playing random unplanned notes, everyone is in the same key and on basically the same rhythm, which is probably just as well. There is a structure to it – all eight players get their solo while the others interject when they feel appropriate, interspersed with group sections introducing the next soloist. But everyone is still doing their own thing. Dissonances and consonances come and go, sometimes players pick up on something their mate is doing and go along with that for a bit before they diverge once again. It’s chaos, but it’s managed chaos. It all sounds like great fun, too.
Stereo is used really well in this album. The ensemble is not an octet, it’s a double quartet – two ensembles of two winds, bass and drums – with each hard-panned to each side of the stereo. It makes listening on headphones a barrage from all sides, especially in the more fanfarical sections.
This isn’t dinner jazz. It requires concentrated listening, but it’s all the more rewarding for that. Ornette Coleman created something powerful, and this is where he let it free.
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