Customer Reviews

In All Languages

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I need to chime in here to counteract the review below. This album (along with Ornette's gritty collaboration with Pat Metheny on 1986's Song X which I'm sure sent many a Metheny fan to change the record during dinner parties across the world...those not hip enough to know anything about Orntte anyway)was a personal starting point in developing a deeper understanding of the avant garde movement. I had heard Free Jazz, but wasn't prepared to digest all it had to say at the time. In In all Languages (and Don Cherry's wonderful Art Deco)I found a basis for appreciation of what Ornette, Cherry, Haden and Higgins represented to the history of the music.

The Prime Time Cuts of roughly the same song list gave me further insight into a musician not willing to stand pat at a time when young Jazz revisionists were taking the movement backwards (no disrespect to the great work of the Marsalis brothers intended). 1989's Virgin Beauty doesn't quite live up to the Prime Time magic here.

So, while arguably not the greatest of Ornette's efforts...probably not as good even as Tone Dialing (for Prime Time fans) or either of the recent Sound Museums (for acoutic Ornette fans), and certainly not the statement that Something Else! or the Shape of Jazz to Come were in "the begining," In All Languages is a VERY worthwhile ride!

Long live Ornette and all hail the continuing growth of appreciation for Eric Dolphy. Peace

It's great to hear Ornette's classic quartet (Haden, Cherry, Higgins) get together again. The other disk features some of the same compositions played by Ornette's funk group "Prime Time." This is great music--the 4 stars indicates only that it cannot match the achievement of the original Atlantic recordings of 1959-1960.

Since my introduction to Ornette Coleman's art, I haven't been able to get enough recordings of his various groups and projects. This album brought so many things together for me and offered a new understanding of Harmelodic music. Hearing the two varied perspectives of the same concepts between Prime Time of 1987 and the original quartet of 1957 was astonishing. Hearing the varience from his original quartet to his experimentation with the two bass players and extravegent rhythm section including one my favorite bass players of all time: Jamaaladeen Tacuma was almost more than I could handle. If you're a true lover of harmelodic music or free jazz or the avant-garde, you've got to have this album. If you have this album or are getting it and like the stylings of Jamaaladeen Tacuma as much as I do, check out his other albums (Dreamscape is one of my favorites).

I keep coming back to this recording, finding more magic in. Great playing from both bands. I learn more each time I hear it.

"In All Languages" is a split-in-two CD where the 'old guys' play a bunch of songs, and the 'new guys' play a lot of the same songs. Ornette Coleman's idea is to bridge the gap between rock and jazz styles, though the end result is the 'old guys' sound a lot more vital than the 'new guys'. The CD starts with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins accompanying Ornette Coleman. More of the songs are taken at a very fast tempo, which makes the music sound boppish. It sounds great, and there's a lot of energy in the ten songs with the old quartet. Of the first ten, "Peace Warriors", "Africa...", "Word For Bird", and "Cloning" are really energetic, only "Feet Music" and the first title track lag. "Space Church" is more impressionistic, and does the most to close the gap between the two halves of the CD. "Latin Genetics", "Sound Manual", and "Mothers Of The Veil" are taken at a middle-of-the-road tempo, and you can hear the freedom in the playing much better.

The second half of the CD (a big half -- 13 of 23 songs and 37 of 71 minutes) opens with "Music News". It's a good start, Ornette sounds inspired and the guitars are chittering away. The big disadvantage is the recorded sound. It sounds like they band is in a basketball arena - there's a lot of reverb and the bass is mushy. Plus, the drum sound is dated, Denardo Coleman may have used electronic drums which haven't aged well. Either that, or they got acoustic drums to sound electronic. "Mothers Of The Veil" is played at a similar tempo to the first version, though the rhythm is less keyed in. "The Art Of Love Is Happiness" sounds a bit like it could have been on the first half of the CD. "Latin Genetics" sounds more Caribbean the second time through. The harmodolic rhythms on "Today..." and "Feet Music" get disjointed, though they're separated by the aptly named "Listen Up". "Cloning" is somewhat like the first version, though with guitarists Charles Ellerbee and Bern Nix percolating away, the sound is quite different. The second version of the title track is extremely different. The band sets up a stomping beat, and it makes a nice setting for the melody. "Biosphere" is a fast blast. "Story Tellers" starts with a Jamaaladeen Tacuma bass solo, then gets into some pretty Coleman saxophone. The CD ends on a furious version of "Peace Warrior". The second half of the CD is musically pretty good, but the cavernous sound takes away from the music.

This is a good CD, all Ornette Coleman fans (i.e. of any vintage) should get this, and almost anyone else would have their ears opened, since it's almost an Ornette Coleman career sampler.

i bought this cd 10 years ago, and i'm afraid to say apart from very random listening it has gathered dust! i love coleman up to around tales of capt black, this cd seems to be just posturing - empty at that. much as it grieves me to critise a great icon of modern jazz i'd advise you to avoid this one - sorry ornette!