Ornette Coleman: Classic Or Dud?

berle says "ornette coleman; let's hear it, once more!"

which implies there was a previous performance, but maybe it wasn't aired?

i like to imagine that uncle miltie was actually a huge fan of harmolodic funk

Okay that ruled

I saw that when it was broadcastL already trippin on Uncle Miltie---and then there was Ornette! Didn't know he was gonna be on. Always wondered what they were chatting about while the credits rolled; looked like old friends, and maybe they were. From WSJ---haven't ordered the album yet:

Completely New Yet Pleasantly Familiar
Ornette Coleman’s ‘New Vocabulary’ is his first studio album since 1996.
By
Martin Johnson
Jan. 7, 2015 6:10 p.m. ET
With shockingly little advance publicity, a new recording featuring jazz great Ornette Coleman has been released. The album, “New Vocabulary” (System Dialing Recordings), became available late last month via the label’s website, and it features the innovative saxophonist and composer in a collective ensemble that includes trumpeter Jordan McLean, drummer Amir Ziv and keyboardist Adam Holzman.
The release comes at a time when new music from Mr. Coleman has grown scarce. He made a guest appearance on one track of “Road Shows Vol. 2” (Doxy), a 2011 release by fellow saxophone legend Sonny Rollins. His last official recording was “Sound Grammar” (Sound Grammar), a live recording from 2006, which received the Pulitzer Prize for music the following year. His last studio recording was “Sound Museum: Three Women” (Harmolodic/Verve) in 1996.

Mr. Coleman, who is 84, is one of the most pivotal figures in jazz history. In the late ’50s, he arrived on the scene, first in Los Angeles and then in New York, with an approach to music that loosened the rules of harmony and freed musicians to play more of what they felt. The approach was often called free jazz, a name taken from one of Mr. Coleman’s best recordings of the time. Later in the ’60s, he was one of the first jazz musicians to compose string quartets. His band in the ’70s produced classic recordings like “Science Fiction” (Columbia, 1971), and in 1976 he released his first recording with Prime Time, a band featuring electric guitars and basses that seamlessly combined jazz and funk.
Although its arrival was a surprise, the timing of the release of “New Vocabulary” is entirely appropriate. Mr. Coleman’s music was the subject of two heralded tributes in 2014. In October, The Bad Plus performed the entire “Science Fiction” recording in a series of concerts; in June, music luminaries including Mr. Coleman himself played his works in a Celebrate Brooklyn concert called “Celebrate Ornette.”
The new album was recorded in 2009. A year earlier, Mr. Coleman had attended the musical “Fela!” Afterward, he went backstage and met Mr. McLean, who was assistant musical director for the production and is a member of Antibalas, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Afrobeat band that arranged and performed the show’s music. The two men became friends, and Mr. Coleman invited Mr. McLean, who is 40, to his home to play music. Those sessions evolved to include Messrs. Ziv and Holzman, Mr. McLean’s bandmates in an electronic music group called Droid. Mr. Ziv, who is 43, has been a leading sideman for more than 20 years; his credits include work with Sean Lennon, Lauryn Hill, and Medeski, Martin and Wood. Mr. Holzman, who is 56 and leads several bands, has played with Miles Davis and Chaka Khan. Informal jamming gradually became more rigorous rehearsals as the musicians honed the 12 songs that appear on the recording.
“New Vocabulary” is a concise 42 minutes, and it begins with two spare tunes, “Baby Food” and “Sound Chemistry,” that contrast Mr. Coleman’s bright, often gleeful saxophone tone with electronic effects by Mr. McLean and piano from Mr. Holzman. From there the intensity picks up on pieces like “Alphabet,” “Bleeding,” “If it Takes a Hatchet” and “H20” as Mr. Ziv’s drumming becomes more prominent and both Mr. Coleman and Mr. McLean accent and play off of his driving rhythms. The album ends with “Gold is God’s Sex,” a ruminative piece that lends the recording a bit of symmetry.
Most Ornette Coleman projects offer either something completely new or something closely related to what he has done in the past. Prime Time and the band on “Sound Museum” were radical shifts. “Science Fiction,” built on the Blue Note recordings that preceded it, and “Sound Grammar” placed Coleman in a familiar setting—a quartet—with repertoire from his lengthy career. “New Vocabulary” does a little of both. Without directly quoting melodies, Mr. Coleman’s playing at times recalls his work in the early ’60s, early ’70s and late ’80s. Yet the backing is completely new for those who know his work only via recordings, and Mr. Coleman sounds energized by his bandmates. One can only hope it is a direction he will continue to pursue. Despite its under-the-radar launch, “New Vocabulary” is a valuable addition to Ornette Coleman’s extraordinary discography.

wait what? new ornette? !!

http://systemdialingrecords.com/market/albums/new-vocabulary/

kind of annoying that it's not on CD(?), but i guess i can buy the WAVs and burn them to a CDR.

Wow $30 for FLAC files. Ornette is approaching Neil Young levels of album pricing.

wooo, yeah that SNL ornette clip smokes.
friend said the "new" ornette record is great, but I haven't heard it.

it steams maybe

shit is positively dry cleaned

i doubt ornette himself has much to deal with the album's release much less its pricing, but yeah, it's not cheap. i guess i'm willing to pay the premium considering the album has a small niche and is being released by a tiny boutique label. that seems to be the way things are.

Oh man thanks for letting us know there was a new (2009) Ornette record. It is pricey but hey, it's Ornette and he could probably use the cash.

Wait this record is from 09?

upthread: The new album was recorded in 2009.

Interestingly the band behind him was into live drum and bass circa 99-2000 (in the 'market' section of that website) - now there was a Prime Time direction I would have liked to have heard

can't remember where I read it, but I think ornette has built up a LOT of unreleased material over the past two decades or so...
so who knows, maybe there is a drum n bass thing somewhere lurking in the archives.

Ornette there is this thing called Bandcamp

yow that SNL performance is/was bonkers

Getting Bill Dixon "Vade Mecum" vibes off this new one so far

Getting Bill Dixon "Vade Mecum" vibes off this new one so far

OK, now I'm definitely gonna check this out.

In terms of the sound I mean. It's a lot less intense

That SNL clip is tremendous. Does anyone know what piece that was and if its on an LP? Thx.

"Times Square," from "Of Human Feelings."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dA5qoTOa3Q

i love "on human feelings," but i think the SNL performance nearly smokes the studio version

yeah i think so too. so was that the only thing he played that night?

and what did milton berle think?

milton berle says "let's hear it again, once more!" which implies there was a previous performance, but the only in the episode as it appears on hulu is "times square"

someone on Facebook was saying that (speaking of early TV legends) Ernie Kovacs was a big fan of avant-garde jazz (!) -- if only he hadn't died in a car crash, he could be hosting SNL with Ornette as a guest. wouldn't that be somethin'?

bizarrely, just before the prime time performance, Milton Berle does a "joke" in which he speaks to a bunch of suited japanese businessmen in a kind of pidgin Japanese.

Buck Henry seemed genuinely reverent in his introduction to Sun Ra's performance in season 3.

man, people on youtube be shittin' all over denardo's playing. he's great! he also seems like an incredibly cool guy.

Thx Josh. Just got it on Discogs.

I've never understood the rap against Denardo. He was literally born to play drums for Ornette.

I wasn't aware there was a rap against him?

Denardo's fantastic to watch live. They put him behind those big plexiglas baffles and he just demolishes the kit.

Yeah he's great. I'm sure for ornette detractors back in the day it was more ammunition -- ornette got his 10 year old to play drums! But he's plenty talented.

Digging the musical excerpts in this review:

http://www.npr.org/2015/02/20/387772281/ornette-coleman-returns-with-his-unmistakable-sound

85th all-day birthday broadcast today:
https://www.cc-seas.columbia.edu/wkcr/story/ornette-coleman-birthday-broadcast-monday-march-9

(fair warning: Phil Schaap is currently on minute four of a wall of speech)

schaap is gonna tell us what ornette had for dinner the night before he recorded skies of america

happy b-day ornette!!!!!

I clicked their Listen Now link but this chamber music doesn't seem very Ornetteish?

Huh, my mistake, I'd never heard "Sounds and Forms" before.

I just watched Ornette: Made in America recently. Great movie, just love the man.

if i liked the harmelodic funk insanity of that live tv appearance posted upthread, what else should i check out?

body meta!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23QVY94tAj0

happy b-day ornette!!!!!

― tylerw, Monday, 9 March 2015 17:36 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"sulk"

love ornette and tbh i love phil schaap

ha i kid but i kind of love phil schaap too, in all his ridiculousness.

Yeah, I do too...honestly, my first thought when I tuned in yesterday morning was, "When does Phil's shift start?"

did anyone end up taking the $$$ plunge for the new vocabulary record? is it worth it?

I haven't bought the New Vocabulary disc, and honestly now I'm more excited to get this previously unknown to me 2014 expanded remaster/reissue of the Naked Lunch soundtrack.

one of the best