Customer Reviews

Sound Grammar

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jazz legend Ornette Coleman has returned with his first new album in over a decade, "Sound Grammar". Recorded live in Germany in October 2005, "Sound Grammar" is a major throwback to the sound that made Ornette famous in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Here, he performs the music in a stripped down quartet setting consisting of himself on alto sax, trumpet and violin, his son Denardo on drums and a dual bass section of Gregoary Cohen and Tony Falanga.
As you would expect, the performances are loaded with Ornette's freeform interplay with plenty of jolts and surprises. The opening track "Jordan" would not at all sound out of place alongside Ornette's classic album "The Shape of Jazz To Come" while "Sleep Talking" is a haunting mood piece that features an excellent spotlight on the two bassists - Tony Falanga is especially impressive with his ghostly bowed strokes.
Elsewhere on the album are intense moments such as those heard in "Matador" and "Waiting For You". "Once Only" is just plain bizarre with its sax lead lines that don't stick to any one key accompanied by equally meandering bass lines and rhythmless drumming.
The highlights of the album will no doubt have to be the two piece which will be familar to longtime Ornette followers. "Turnaround", while presented in a slightly different context here, is a classic Ornette blues originally from 1958. The rhythm is less straightforward here than on the original version and almost tends to go into doubletime without actually fully going into it. "Song X" was originally from 1985 and was the title track to his classic collaboration with guitar great Pat Metheny. Ornette's version here extends the piece to 10-minutes and includes great solo spots from everyone. Denardo's drum solo is a real standout here as is Ornette's shreiking violin solo which follows the drums.
After over a decade of absence from the spotlight audio-wise, it's great to finally have a brand new CD by Ornette Coleman after a long wait. This CD presents Ornette in a revitalized manner and is probably his best work in years. As mentioned above, the music is similar to his classic early work and has plenty of energy and surprises.
For the diehard Ornette fan, "Sound Grammar" is a definite must and dare I say it, this is also recommended as a great first buy for those just discovering Ornette's music despite it being a brand new CD.
Classic Ornette for the 21st Century!!!

For a moment in the mid-1990s, it looked as though Ornette Coleman, one of the visionaries of jazz, was entering a period of heightened activity-- no less than four albums were released in about 18 months and through his then-record label Harmolodic's partnership with Verve. Add to this several key reissues and it looked like a renaissance for Coleman-- but corporate mergers changed all this and the emphasis in jazz shifted from exploratory to "safe" and the seeming golden days of free jazz reissues and new Ornette Coleman albums came to a grinding halt.

A decade later, Coleman seems significantly more active, with a new band playing sporadic shows, including the one captured on "Sound Grammar", taken from a late 2005 show in Germany. For a luminary such as Coleman to release something new would alone be cause for celebration-- for that album to be fantastic (as this one is) makes it really special.

In case you're unfamiliar with Coleman-- Ornette Coleman, a Texas born alto saxophonist, stumbled upon something really new in jazz. A system by which the key and changes of the music become significantly less important, instead the moment of the music is what matters. This music, termed free jazz by the press and Harmolodics by Coleman, has propelled a career spanning nearly 50 years now, from the early classic quartet recordings to the electric free funk Coleman would later explore. His music is not for everyone-- it's lack of reliance of regular pattern can leave one hanging and his alto playing can often be rather angular, but Coleman in his own way is a natural extension of Charlie Parker and is being recognized for his accomplishments.

This particular recording features Coleman on alto, trumpet and violin (although he barely plays the latter two), his son Denardo on drums, and a pair of bassists-- Tony Falanga (who I'm unfortunately fairly unfamiliar with) and Greg Cohen (best known as the anchor for John Zorn's Masada). Ornette tends to blow over the top of the band, with Falanga running arco counter and Denardo and Cohen supplying both a rhythmic pulse and a free association with the melody voices. At times, one is reminded as much of Coleman's older material as Albert Ayler's bands with cello or violin, albeit with a somewhat "cleaner" sound. Coleman resurrects three classics for the performance-- "Song X" from the album of the same name from 1985, "Sleep Talking" from 1979's "Of Human Feelings", and "Turnaround" drawn from 1959's "Tomorrow is the Question". The remaining five pieces are new.

Like Coleman's best recordings, this one has that endless sense of ecstatic freedom to it-- racing figures ("Jordan"), deep grooves ("Call to Duty") and a bizarrely angular lyricism ("Waiting For You") filter throughout. The quartet's performance is tightly in sync-- it's hard to point out any one performer, although as a fan of Greg Cohen's, I can't help but marvel at his ability to lock in sync with a drummer while constantly being ready to respond to the solo voice-- his performances with Denardo are nothing short of staggering. Likewise Falanga has such an odd focus for a bassist in jazz, his arco performances throughout can be frantic and explosive ("Turnaround") or delicate and gentle (check his theme statement on "Once Only"). Coleman for his part sounds pretty much the same as he always does-- unique, visionary, and ahead of his time, even fifty years later.

This is an album that's going to appeal to fans, but like Coleman's best work, it's as welcome an introduction to his music as anything else. If you're new to him, this is a great start, but don't shy away from "The Shape of Jazz to Come" or "Dancing In Your Head" if you enjoy this. If you're an old hat, this one's right up your alley. Highly recommended.

Of the few remaining legends in jazz, Ornette Coleman is the only one that doesn't record fairly often. Sonny Rollins had long running deal with Milestone before starting his own label, and Ornette has followed that route in starting his own imprint and releasing Sound Grammar, his first album in nine years and a recording of a concert from Germany in 2005 where he performed on alto saxophone, violin and trumpet with his son Denardo Coleman on drums, Gregory Cohen on bass, and Tony Falanga on bass. The music is classic Coleman with sweeping joyful arcs of alto on some reinterpretations of classics and a few new compositions.

"Jordan" leads things off with a choppy start-stop feel with Ornette improvising over bowed and plucked bass. There's an interlude where the two basses improvise together before Coleman contributes a few trumpet blasts. "Sleep Talking" begins with mournful bowed bass with some light alto sax comments. A bass duet over drums contributes a very open sound to the music. "Turnaround" has an almost "Saints Go Marching In" fell to the melody. Ornette has a gently sweeping solo over a bed of bass and drums. The group gets a beautifully unique sound with Ornette's keening alto and two basses. "Matador" takes things on a faster pace with some jaunty, smiling alto before two basses, both plucked, duke it out before Ornette sweeps back in and takes everybody out.

Both "Waiting" and "Once Only" convey a deep sense of plaintive loss and yearning with Coleman's saxophone nearly crying the blues in these deeply emotional performances. Contrasting those performances are a couple of free up-tempo numbers, "A Call To Duty" and Song X." The first is a fast paced, full throttle improvisation with ominous bass and drums keeping a wicked beat while Ornette contributes some slurred trumpet and sharp alto saxophone. Finally "Song X" ends the concert on a very high note with some daredevil heart-stopping alto improvisation over frantic basses and drums. Denardo Coleman gets his lone drum solo and there a cool bass duet interlude, but the moment belongs to the leader who is absolutely on fire. This is an endlessly exciting and powerful disc proving that Ornette Coleman is still a vital force in jazz. Very highly recommended.

This CD reminds me, for obvious reasons, of his 1977 duet album with Charlie Haden, "Soapsuds Soapsuds". Not only is the instrumentation similar (mostly bass and Ornette), but the lyricism is also similar. Most listeners will not find this as jarring as some of Ornette's output, although this is still adventurous stuff. One pleasant surprise is Coleman's playing on trumpet and violin. This time out, he doesn't seem to be just farting around, and the results are some pretty fair playing. "Soapsuds" is probably my favorite Ornette album, and this one comes in pretty close.

Two bassist, one bowed on plucked. On first listen this might sound like a mess but it works really well. Under Colemans bluesy,lyrical playing. The very fast drumming. The whole becomes like one of those magic pictures that on first sight looks like static but instead of your eyes you have to soft focus your mind. This is a very exciting jazz record. My favorite from Coleman in a long while. The slower numbers remind a little of the Dirty Three, which is a good thing. The only reason that it doesn't get five stars is the recording is a little muddy, hearing the separation of the basses a little more would have been great. But get it anyway!

1. The sound quality is sometimes poor, particularly the drumset, with the sounds of the individual instruments merging together in an indistinct mess. The audience applause after solos irritates me too.

2. The music is typically Ornette: as he's said in the past, in a sense he's been playing the same tune most of his career. In this live performance he continues the tradition, re-using his elegant licks: a type of bebop as a previous reviewer stated. Sure it may seem very old-fashioned by now but the soulful execution is usually timeless. (Mozart used an already well established musical language but trancended any need to develop it.)

There's very little of Coleman's idiosyncratic trumpet and violin work which after my 30 years as an Ornette fan I find generally more exciting than his sax playing. (For example the cut Falling Star from a live concert in Copenhagen 1965 has some delicious offerings of both: see "all my reviews".)

3. With regard to the drumset work by Denardo, as well as being poorly recorded it tends to a busy, unrelenting style often with simplistic cymbal sizzle overkill which for me is often quite irritating. If only he could appreciate silence and more of a sense of space - in some of the more reflective passages I longed for a total absence of percussion. Still, as Coleman often seems to favor what some people have unflatteringly called "scrambled egg music", the drumset style and arrangements may be at Coleman's direction.

The good:

5 stars for the beautiful rendition of "Sleep Talking" which makes this CD a must have for my collection of about 30 albums under the Ornette name.

5 stars for the elegantly arranged "Waiting for You" which also has tasty individual performances, particularly the arco bass work and Coleman's sax work.

5 stars for "Once Only", again an elegant arrangement which tells a story over time.

Overall, for those new to Ornette: there are much better Coleman albums available with superior drumming and groove. (E.g. Ornette! recorded Jan 1961 with drumming to die for by Ed Blackwell, very tasty bass playing from the brilliant Scott LeFaro and some excellent work by Don Cherry on pocket trumpet.)

Sound Grammar, recorded live in 2005 and released in 2006, is a reminder of how lucky we are to have had the opportunity to listen to Ornette Coleman's glorious compositions and inspired playing on records for more than fifty years now.

This is a particularly attractive combo. The two bases match in tonality and complement in approach: Cohen's pizzicato plucking underpinning and reinforcing Denardo's pulse and Falanga's bowing providing melodic counterlines to Ornette's. The passages where the two basses play alone, or with only drumming behind them, are electrifying. As always, Ornette's solos on alto sax are gold, and his work on trumpet and violin appropriate to the music, though not the virtuoso display his sax work is. While not a perfect recording (Denardo's drums are muffled, and sound too far back in the mix), this is a near-perfect playing session (another one).

Fifty years later, it's easy to minimize how alien Ornette's playing and compositions seemed when the first records appeared. I bought my first Ornette album (The Shape of Jazz to Come, 1959) as soon as it appeared in the record stores. I bought several more well into the 60s. But I had trouble listening to him. It wasn't just the way he shaped his solos but the sheer sound of his sax, not to mention Don Cherry's teensy weensy trumpet. At the time, my chief pleasure was the rhythm section: Charlie Haden`s (and then Scott LaFaro's) bass, Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins on drums; then in the sixties the phenomenal bass playing of David Izenson on the Stockholm sets. I knew Ornette was something special, but I didn't enjoy listening to him. The first album where I felt thoroughly comfortable with Ornette himself was Dancing in Your Head (1976), which was step one on the road to Prime Time, Ornette's electrically amplified double guitar and shuffle rhythm group. Suddenly everything clicked for me. Since then, I've liked some of Ornette's albums better than others, but Ornette's playing has always felt comfortable to me. Comfortable, I said, not stale. For there's nothing stale in Ornette's music. His compositions, now accepted and played by numerous other musicians, have become staples of modernist jazz. (And now he's own a Pulitzer Prize. There is some hope for jazz!) His playing is as fiery and lyrical and blues-drenched as it was when he was a young man.

Two of the compositions on this live album are old favorites -"Turnaround" and "Song X." He still finds new things to say about them when he plays. "Sleep Talking" is a reminder of how well Ornette can play a lyrical ballad. (Reviewer Bourland is right about "Once Only." It's wild.)

If someone were looking for the one Coleman album to buy, this wouldn't be it. That would have to be either The Shape of Jazz to Come or, my favorite, Colors (1997), a recording of live duets with German pianist Joachim Kuhn. But this exciting album shows clearly how alive Ornette's music, and his playing, still are as Ornette enters his seventies. He has refused to rest on his laurels for more than fifty years.

It was announced today that this album won the Pulitzer Prize for music. Congratulations Mr. Coleman!

The return of acoustic Ornette Coleman, beautifully recorded, a wonderfully intuitive and interactive band, and the leader playing as sweetly as he ever has in his life. This is my favorite album of Ornette's since <em>Song X</em> and a reminder that the jazz greats just get better and better as they age.

6 stars would not be enough.

As a bass player, and a longtime Ornette fan, this is beyond some of my wildest dreams come true.

It's been a while since I got real chills up and down my spine from listening to some music, but this CD got me shivering ecstatically a few times.

I'm guessing that, say, Kenny G fans might be put off by the sound.

But on the other hand, those of us who live and die for those kinds of sounds (that might, say, put off Kenny G fans), this is the bomb, this is the Ebola.