Description

Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation is the sixth album by jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, recorded in 1960.

The album features a double quartet, one in each stereo channel; the rhythm sections play simultaneously, and though there is a succession of solos as is usual in jazz, they are peppered with free form commentaries by the other horns that often turn into full-scale collective improvisation.

The material is a series of brief, dissonant fanfares for the horns which serve as interludes between solos. Not least among the album’s achievements was that it was the first LP-length improvisation, nearly forty minutes in length, which was unheard of at the time.

The album was identified by Chris Kelsey in his Allmusic essay “Free Jazz: A Subjective History” as one of the 20 Essential Free Jazz Albums. It served as the blueprint for later large-ensemble free jazz recordings such as John Coltrane’s Ascension. The best way to listen to this is to forget what everyone tells you about it, and just let it happen in the room.

Featuring Don Cherry, Eric Dolphy, Charlie Haden, Scott LaFaro, Billy Higgins, Ed Blackwell.

Original Label. Original Issue.  2 Discs. Atlantic 1364. 1960. NM*****