Ornette Coleman - Something Else!!!!:The Music of Ornette Coleman

These are tunes that Coleman wrote in his early 20s, that he finally got a chance to record in his late 20s, in 1958. He had, meanwhile, been leading the life of a musical maverick, often-fired by leaders perturbed by his idiosyncratic approach. He was, after all, intent on digging up and replanting jazz. Hearing the startling exuberance in Coleman's compositions, and in his own whinnying playing, one senses that--truly--an annunciation is being made: Here is Something Else. With sublime assurance, Coleman was breaking free from the dictates of chordal playing, in search of increased melodic and harmonic opportunities. Pianist Walter Norris obliges by generally staying out of the way, after session producers put him in it--it is clear that the piano was not the instrument that would assist Coleman's mission. --Peter Monaghan Amazon.com

classic embryonic Ornette--leave Walter alone!

Great tunes that we're all still playing more than 40 years later. This is one of the seminal early albums that spawned some of his later, even more memorable work a few years later: Shape of Jazz to Come, This is Our Music, Change of the Century, etc. The approach to chordless playing isn't as refined as it would become later on, but, it's good to keep in mind that a lot of the tunes Ornette was writing at the time were based on popular tune harmonies like I Got Rhythm and Out of Nowhere. If you ask me, Ornette hadn't fully abandoned traditional harmony at the time of this recording. Hence, Walter Norris' piano playing, while retrospectively incongruous with the kind of chordless playing that has defined most of Ornette's career, fits fine for my ears in the context of this recording. While I don't think he would have sat well with Broken Shadows or Beauty is a Rare Thing, Norris' bop lines sound good here. Check out some of the bop influence in Don Cherry's blowing too! December 17, 2005

Tense debut

Ornette Coleman generated quite a stir when he appeared on the jazz scene, although listening to his debut record nearly fifty years later, it's actually quite difficult to understand. "Something Else!!!!" actually sounds quite conventional and tame to modern ears, certainly not like the leap forward that his Atlantic debut, "The Shape of Jazz to Come" was.

A lot of this probably has to do with the band-- while Coleman (playing his trademark white plastic alto sax) is accompanied by his then-usual frontline partner Don Cherry on trumpet, his rhythm section-- pianist Walter Norris, bassist Don Payne, and drummer Billy Higgins-- play within conventional constraints. Higgins' place in this is actually quite interesting to hear, given how advanced his drumming would be on that Atlantic debut. As a result of this conventional rhythm section performance, there are implied changes on the pieces. Coleman plays far more conventionally than he usually does, and when he does venture into his style of bending the notes or trying to force the rhythm section to follow him (as on "Jayne"), they don't. Net result-- Coleman introduces tension when playing the way that makes sense to him, and as a leader, he (and to a lesser extent, Cherry) is in total opposition to the rest of the band.

The music itself is decent enough-- most of the pieces are blues forms of some sort or another, somewhat advanced at times, but by and large pretty straightforward, and its pleasant enough, but similar to Cecil Taylor's early records, there's little indication of what advancements he'd make in the very near future. Coleman has indicated in books that the songs on here were written several years beforehand-- if this is the case, it explains their relative unadvanced state. Still, it's a quite listenable record, and it's a decent album, but it's better as a historical document than anything else. Interested parties in Coleman's music are encouraged to check out his work on Atlantic first (in particular "The Shape of Jazz to Come") before coming to look for this album. September 2, 2005

A breakthrough disc

I had this for years on tape, mislaid it, & now just got the CD. It's automatically a very important album because it's Coleman's first as a leader; but I'd never thought of it as a first-rank Coleman album--of his two Contemporary discs, probably I'd give the 2nd, _Tomorrow Is the Question_, the edge, & unquestionably the Atlantics are the peak of Coleman's early career. However, revisiting the disc I'm reminded of how sheerly enjoyable it is, & I think it deserves the full 5 stars. The "sound" of the disc is a surprisingly effective blend of brisk West-Coast swing & Coleman's already completely wayward, unorthodox sax. Don Cherry plays a normal trumpet (with a pronounced Miles Davis inflection) rather than the oddball "pocket trumpet" that sounds so marvellously alien on the Atlantics--he sounds basically like a confident bopper but already makes a few lateral swerves that suggest his future musical direction.

Reviewers often blame the comparative conservatism of the music here on the presence of Walter Norris, a fine bop pianist but hardly a necessary presence given Coleman's later preference for pianoless ensembles. (Norris is reported in Litweiler's bio of Coleman as having been rather mystified by Coleman & Cherry's frequently ignoring the chord changes they'd decided on for the tunes during their improvisations.) But to criticize Norris is to miss the point: Coleman's music here is much more closely tied to bop orthodoxy than it would be in the following years. Tunes like "Chippie" & "Angel Voice" are straightahead "I Got Rhythm" variants, despite their nicely individual melodies ("Angel Voice" for instance has a calypso tinge to its A section). Even more surprising, "Jayne" turns out to be a variation on "Out of Nowhere", a Parker favourite. This last instance is certainly enough to scotch the idea that Coleman was ignoring standard 32-bar structures or chord changes.

Anyway, why need we judge the music on how "advanced" it is? Sure, Ornette never sounded like this again, but it's still a solid, grooving jazz date. & it's got some of Coleman's greatest tunes on it--"The Blessing", "Invisible", "Chippie", "The Sphynx", "When Will the Blues Leave?"...all classics. The album is mostly uptempo swingers, carried along by Billy Higgins' springy drumming--it's a delight to listen to. March 19, 2002

This is a severely underrated album

The piano sounds fine! This is rediculous. In fact, you hardly notice it. It's very low in the mix. What a great album! All the tunes are his, the saxaphone playing is excellent (incredibly smooth). The notes Coleman puts together on this album are definitely strange, but the overall effect is not overwhelming cacophony, like found on Free Jazz. In fact, it's an incredibly straight forward album. Coleman was an innovator, but sometimes you just want to relax and take a break from his edgier music, regardless of how innovative it may have been. In summary- the songs are relatively simple, but certainly not boring. The sax playing is EXCELLENT. I like it better than "shape of jazz to come" which, i think, is an overproduced album. What is that crappy treble sound in Atlantic Jazz recordings? Anyway, you won't find it on this album. October 5, 2000

Joyous, early Ornette

Ornette Coleman's tunes on this early album are bouncy and melodic. The overall mood is up-beat and optimistic. Purists will prefer "The Shape of Jazz to Come" and other recordings by his more austere pianoless quartet recorded a few years later. But for me the piano and bass playing fairly conventional jazz changes behind Ornette and Don Cherry "works"-- even if it really shouldn't. And Billy Higgins' light touch on the drums adds just the right tone: I can picture him smiling as he plays. "The Blessing" has become a jazz standard, and all the quirky melodies stay in your head for a long while. This should be in your Ornette collection, whether it is the first or last recording of his you buy. August 30, 2000

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