Ornette Coleman

In February and March 1958, Ornette Coleman recorded his first LP, sparking no small controversy for the new kind of jazz he introduced to the public. Fans and musicians alike reacted with shock and often outright indignation at the overturning of a theoretical cornerstone that had governed jazz improvisation for more than thirty years: staying tied to preset chord progressions and changes during the solos played by the various instruments. In this way, avant-garde jazz took full shape, though for the moment it was still confined almost exclusively to the subversion of soloing conventions. The Texan musician developed its potential in New York over the following years, cutting a string of excellent tracks with his first quartet. In July and August 1960 (at age thirty), he laid down his fifth record in just two years and five months: "This Is Our Music", seven compositions (six avant-garde jazz and one free jazz) for a total of roughly thirty-nine minutes. These sessions, incidentally, also yielded numerous other tracks that would later surface on precious compilations throughout the 1970s.

The lineup backing Coleman (alto sax) here is nearly the same one with which he had launched his bold venture back in '58: Charlie Haden on bass and Don Cherry on pocket trumpet (a smaller trumpet with a slightly softer, more muted sound than the standard instrument). There is, however, one change on drums: Ed Blackwell steps in for the excellent Billy Higgins shortly before this album was made, bringing a more singular, unusual percussive style and opening up an even wider range of possibilities for Coleman's revolutionary ideas. This change, while leaving the band's overall quality unaltered, allows for a deeper exploration of the musical research that, in "This Is Our Music", reaches its most important destination: the birth of the free jazz genre.

This marks a hugely important transition in the history of jazz. It is defined by the dismantling of every predetermined structure (rhythm, fixed compositional form, etc.) in favor of an almost total freedom that privileges immediate emotion and melody over the construction of a coherent, organized arrangement. Moreover, the separation of roles between the solo instrument and its accompanists disappears, replaced by a sonic egalitarianism in which everyone contributes without hierarchical distinction or any preset path to follow. In short, to put it simply, the players don't know precisely what shape the piece they're about to play will take, nor along what lines they'll have to interact with one another.

A few months after the recordings we're discussing, in December 1960, the same quartet led by Coleman recorded the LP "Free Jazz", officially codifying the genre that is informally anticipated here by track two: "Beauty Is A Rare Thing". Composed by Coleman, like everything else on this record (except "Embraceable You"), it's also the longest piece on an LP whose tracks otherwise average 4-5 minutes. In this piece, the strict adherence to the functions each instrument performed disappears — both in hard bop, the dominant jazz genre of the era, and in avant-garde jazz (the furthest frontier experimentation had reached at that point).

The drums, played with mallets, stop keeping time and instead set off on mysterious, self-determined excursions. The bass no longer marks out the bars, tracing faint, dark-hued sonic arches with the use of a cello bow, its dreamlike sound occupying the space once held by a tightly rhythmic, clearly defined piano accompaniment. The leader's alto sax hints at an opening theme, from which it begins to narrate the feeling evoked by the title through signs that are at once abstract and melodic. Cherry's pocket trumpet is delicate, carefree and sunny as it carries the narrative forward, before joining Coleman's sax in a calm dialogue that closes with a brief reprise of the final theme.

As the first fully realized piece of free jazz ever released, "Beauty Is A Rare Thing" represents a hugely significant turning point for jazz, made even more remarkable by the fact that this piece is a ballad, in contrast to most of the free jazz that would follow, which was frequently built on higher speeds.

The other six tracks, on the other hand, belong to avant-garde jazz. This is due to the coexistence between solo improvisations freed from adherence to preset rules and a rhythm section that, in substance, remains tied to the linearity of hard bop. It should be added, though, that in these pieces we can spot no shortage of hints of the free jazz that is only openly displayed in "Beauty Is A Rare Thing". This is the case with "Folk Tale", where we find an extremely complex theme (both at the start and the end), with repeated shifts in rhythm and melodic facets. What's more, Coleman's lively solo reveals a trait that would come to strongly define free jazz: the alto sax's freewheeling line progressively slows down during its own solo, immediately followed by drums and bass (from 1:30 to 2:04), before picking back up to the previous speed. This impromptu shift in pace, placed at the heart of an improvisation, was unthinkable in the hard bop or cool jazz of 1960, and it's a device that would be echoed by many free jazz artists right up to the present day.

Similarly, we can notice how in "Embraceable You" the bass and drums temporarily become livelier (from 2:57 to 3:17) while the alto sax carries on down the gently winding path of its solo. Finally, "Kaleidoscope" also offers us an example of this variation on rhythmic steadiness during solos: from 3:51 to 4:13, Haden and Blackwell slow the pace of their instruments, while Cherry keeps up his frantic, evocative run unchanged.

"Poise" too presents, in embryonic form, a trait that would come to define free jazz in the years ahead: the overlapping of multiple instruments soloing at the same time. We can see it in Coleman's improvisation, throughout which Cherry repeatedly steps in with discreet remarks that echo the saxophonist's bold, expressive phrases. In "Kaleidoscope" we likewise witness two intertwining solos, alto sax and pocket trumpet, producing something like the parody of a lively squabble made up of short, sharp, quarrelsome notes (from 4:56 to 5:22).

This album features the only cover ("Embraceable You") that Coleman allows himself across the eleven LPs that make up this first, fundamental phase of his career. The piece (classifiable as "highbrow pop") was written in 1928 by George and Ira Gershwin for the Broadway musical "Girl Crazy", and here it's reinterpreted as an avant-garde jazz ballad. The theme becomes elusive, something to be carefully sought out in the introduction, while fragments of it are used by the alto sax to build a highly intricate improvisation that is, at the same time, steeped in lyricism. Coleman thus proves capable of transfiguring tradition while respecting its essence, yet completely altering its formal shape, aided too by Blackwell's supple, sensitive and imaginative drumming (once again played with mallets).

The quartet does not include piano, an instrument widespread in the jazz of the era but one Coleman set aside for three reasons. The first was to ensure a drier, clearer sound for the compositions. The second reason concerns the ability to exchange ideas more directly among the members of the group. The third and final reason touches on one of the roles the piano played in 1960s jazz, often responsible for laying out the chord progression underpinning a piece — precisely what Coleman's music was trying to upend and revolutionize.

Beyond the exclusion of the piano, another thing that sets the avant-garde jazz Coleman lays out in "This Is Our Music" apart is his use of irony, both in the themes that open and close the tracks and in his solos. A clever humor, vividly conveyed by the alto sax through miniature melodies: satirical vignettes sketched with wit within his improvisations, which our imagination is invited to flesh out and bring to life.

This sonic approach to irony, foreshadowed during the 1950s by Thelonious Monk, would become, from '59 onward, a distinctive hallmark of Coleman's music. On this record, the saxophonist's ingeniously witty and at times impertinent phrasing can be traced, for example, in his solo on "Blues Connotation" (from 0:24 to 3:18) or in the themes of "Folk Tale" and "Humpty Dumpty".

More broadly, the whole record is suffused with the saxophonist's elegant musical humor, departing from it only to spotlight melodic figures where immediate, urgent improvisation takes precedence over everything else (as in "Folk Tale" from 1:22 to 1:35, or in "Humpty Dumpty" from 2:17 to 2:40).

Coleman, who reserves most of the time for solo instruments, also offers a tribute to Charlie Parker in the first part of the solo on "Humpty Dumpty" (from 0:53 to 1:17), with a clear nod to the style of the towering alto saxophonist who, at the time of these recordings, had been gone for seven years.

The leader of the "This Is Our Music" sessions brings to them his light, refined, contemplative sound, yet one that is also erratic and mercurial, able to hold the listener's attention and curiosity from start to finish with stylistic innovations never heard before. In his solos, the symmetry of the melodic line is supplanted by an irregular arrangement, one that shapes notes and phrases according to inner impulses. In this way, Coleman puts the hard-bop vocabulary that preceded his arrival on the scene at the service of a fearless language, accessible in its most melodic facets and shining with renewing passion in its overall effect. His way of playing the alto saxophone, already revealed over the previous two years, continues here its revolutionary, destabilizing work, radically asserting the freedom of feeling and thought over the discipline of harmony and chords. Moreover, in this early phase of his artistic journey, Coleman possesses a playing style so lucid that it proves compelling and engaging even for those less accustomed to venturing down new paths in jazz.

Don Cherry (twenty-three years old in 1960) fills the spaces left open by the bandleader with a command of expression that is astonishing for a genre, avant-garde jazz, that had officially been around for less than two years. Although he doesn't step forward, beyond taking part in the theme, on the album's most important track ("Beauty Is A Rare Thing"), his solo work is, overall, very good. We can hear it in the short, irritable notes of the jittery solo on "Kaleidoskope" (from 3:18 to 4:55), or in the phrases played in the upper register and suddenly cut short that mimic an outburst on "Poise" (from 2:52 to 3:54). However, the trumpeter's finest performance comes on "Humpty Dumpty", where he builds a sequence of gripping melodic improvisations that distill a deeply original style: a clear tone, agile and dynamic phrasing, a decisive yet evocative intonation, delightfully stimulating and never predictable.

The rhythm section made up of Blackwell and Haden (respectively thirty-one and twenty-three years old at the time of these recordings) also deserves a mention. Both settle perfectly into the arduous creative process required to develop the rhythmic underpinnings of new jazz forms. This is no small feat, given the irregular, constantly shifting cadences that run through, in part, the six avant-garde jazz tracks and, entirely, the album's one free jazz piece.

Abandoning the traditional task of simply keeping time, they respond with great inventiveness to the cues coming from alto sax and pocket trumpet, reshaping the flow of each piece as circumstances demand, with flexibility and quickness. It's a new way of conceiving the rhythm section, elevated for the first time onto the same plane as the horns, and one for which the two musicians would become famous (and widely imitated) to this day. If the double bass finds its finest expression in the elusive tenderness of "Embraceable You", Blackwell delivers four solos crackling with ideas (particularly the one on "Poise") and several passages that showcase his flair (as on "Kaleidoscope" from 2:30 to 3:06).

With "This Is Our Music", the group led by Coleman (with Haden the only non-Black member) marks a rather significant milestone in the history of jazz, paving the way for free jazz while simultaneously giving a decisive push to avant-garde jazz.

From the album's title alone one can sense the uncompromising courage shown by musicians who refused to make concessions, boldly defying the judgments of conservative critics and an audience not yet ready to accept the sonic revolution set in motion by Coleman's music.

The fearless mission successfully carried out by this band produced disorienting effects on the jazz landscape of the early 1960s, effects that would go on to shape the path followed by countless artists working in the field afterward. A great historical and musical achievement, stemming from three main sources: the band's remarkable technical ability; Coleman's learned creativity; and the unprecedented stylistic experiments on display here, unfolding in ways both thrilling and pleasantly disorienting.

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19/03/2026