This Is Our Music [Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

Ornette Coleman | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 5, 2002)
• Original Release Date: 1961
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Sepia Tone
• ASIN: B000060O15
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #275,043 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Blues Connotation

2. Beauty Is A Rare Thing

3. Kaleidoscope

4. Embraceable You

5. Poise

6. Humpty Dumpty

7. Folk Tale

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Never has a title been more accurate than the Ornette Coleman Quartet's This Is Our Music. With Coleman in the lead, the legendary quartet (which also included bassist Charlie Haden, trumpeter Don Cherry, and drummer Ed Blackwell) literally created a new "harmolodic" jazz language that destroyed popular conventions of harmony, melody, and rhythm. It's an accepted concept that Coleman still uses today, but it was never more controversial than when the band cut this music in 1960. Even though Coleman fans can find the material that made up this album on Rhino's Beauty Is a Rare Thing box set, this is the first time that the original landmark album is available domestically on CD in its original format. Unfortunately, there is no new deluxe packaging or additional material, but the music has been remastered to give this album its best production values ever. Released on the Sepia-Tone archive label, this reasonably priced reissue is required listening for any fan of adventurous jazz. --Tad Hendrickson

Product Description

Originally released in 1961, 'This Is Our Music' marked Coleman's third release for the label and certainly one of his finest. Sepia-Tone has newly re-mastered this important release, presenting it with the best sound quality it's ever had. The Ornette Coleman Quartet made music that was simultaneously radical and beautiful - 'This Is Our Music' is incontrovertible evidence.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ornette reunited with Ed Blackwell, July 7, 2003

By 

R. Hutchinson "autonomeus" (a world ruled by fossil fuels and fossil minds) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: This Is Our Music (Audio CD)

"This Is Our Music" is one of the essential discs Ornette Coleman recorded for Atlantic from 1959 to 1961, and the most important thing about it is that it reunites Ornette with Ed Blackwell for the first time on record. Blackwell was the first drummer to collaborate in making Ornette's music, and played a critical role, but was not able to play on the first several albums. Billy Higgins is a phenomenal drummer, and added something special of his own to "The Shape of Jazz to Come" and "Change of the Century," but Blackwell's New Orleans polyrhythms are documented for the first time with "This Is Our Music." As the story goes, Ornette, from Ft. Worth, was touring the South with an R&B band. Some locals objected to his innovative style, beat him up, and threw his tenor off a hill, leaving him stranded in New Orleans in 1949. He stayed with a friend's family for several months, borrowing his friend's brother's horn so he could practice while he tried to secure another gig. It was during that time that he met Ed Blackwell, and they played together as Ornette first developed his innovative style. Later in the mid-50s they were both in L.A., and played together, practicing Ornette's large and growing number of compositions, along with Don Cherry and Charlie Haden.

It takes some effort to piece together the chronology of Ornette's recordings, and so here is the list of the Atlantic records (the first two on Contemporary, "Something Else!" and "Tomorrow Is the Question" were compromises, not featuring Ornette's regular band):

The Shape of Jazz to Come -- recorded 5/22/59, released October, 1959

Change of the Century -- recorded 10/8-9/59, released June, 1960

This Is Our Music -- recorded 7/19, 7/26, 8/2/60, released February, 1961

Free Jazz -- recorded 12/21/60, released September, 1961

Ornette! -- recorded 1/31/61, released February, 1962

Ornette On Tenor -- recorded 3/22, 3/27/61, released December, 1962

Blackwell played drums on the last two dates, "Ornette!" and "Ornette on Tenor," and both Blackwell and Higgins played on "Free Jazz," with a double quartet. One of the tracks on "Ornette!" features a long Blackwell solo. Higgins, with a solid background in swing and bop, went on to play with many a jazz leader over the years. Blackwell was always associated with Ornette, playing with him later in the 1960s, and then forming "Old and New Dreams" with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Dewey Redman in the 1970s to play music that extended the Coleman Quartet in the direction of pan-African styles. Cherry and Blackwell made two excellent duet albums as well, "Mu" in 1969 (see my review) and "El Corazon" in 1982. Ed Blackwell, who suffered from kidney disease and underwent kidney dialysis for many years, died in 1992. Don Cherry died in 1995.

Anyone who decides that they seriously dig Ornette's music should save up and get "Beauty Is a Rare Thing," a 6-disc box that contains ALL the Atlantic recordings, not only the 6 original releases, but all the additional tracks that were collected in the later "Art of Improvisers" (released in 1970) and "Twins" (released in 1971), as well as tracks that were released only in Japan and some that were never released in any form. The summer 1960 sessions with Blackwell that produced "This Is Our Music" include more rare and never-before-heard tracks than any of the other dates. (A warehouse fire in 1976 destroyed tapes of additional Atlantic sessions, perhaps twice as much material as was saved.) The 70-page booklet, with great black-and-white photos, includes a 28-page essay by Robert Palmer, which is my source for much of the above information.

One further note to those interested in Ornette -- start with "Free Jazz" at your peril. It is the most difficult of his recordings, not his most successful, and should be heard only after hearing his fantastic quartet sessions. Personally, I recommend beginning with "The Shape of Jazz to Come" with Billy Higgins and "This Is Our Music" with Ed Blackwell. Peace.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great work available for a new generation, April 7, 2002

By 

Pen Name? "fluxus" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: This Is Our Music (Audio CD)

Ornette Coleman was the first artist to really get me interested in jazz. I already had Kind of Blue and a couple Coltrane albums before I encountered Free Jazz, but was not too interested in the genre. Coleman changed that for me. This cd is representative of Coleman's work in the late 50s and early 60s which to me were the height of his brilliant career (also the height for a great many others, as well.) This album, for me, has a very similar vibe to Tomorrow is The Question and is just as good. I'm pretty sure this is the first place you'll find Coleman's quartet playing on a standard, "Embraceable You", which is excellently done, and very distinct from any other rendition I've heard.
Some jazz fans may be scared off by Coleman's association with the "free jazz" labeling, expecting chaos and lack of structure, but Coleman's improvisation is heavily rooted within a solid structure. The higher pitched playing of Don Cherry may take some getting used to, but all in all, this cd is an excellent representation of Coleman's work and deserves a place amongst the many landmark recordings of the era.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Finally Found It!, October 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: This Is Our Music (Audio CD)

This CD contains some of Ornette Coleman's best work on Atalantic Records. This album is not unavailible, because it is included in the "Bueaty is a Rare Thing" Box set. But, that is the only place in America you can find it! For listeners that enjoy the interplay between Don Cherry-Trumpet, Ed Blackwell-Drums Ornette Coleman-Sax(Alto)and Charlie Haden-Bass on Ornette's other early Atalantic albums should really invest in this one! Also, the original cover art for this album is one of the coolest in jazz history!