Ornette Coleman 'Sound Grammar'

[Lazaro Vega]

Thanks for that insight, Larry.

He quoted "When the Saints Go Marching In" on "Turnaround" during a performance in Ann Arbor.....

Edited October 7, 2006 by Lazaro Vega

[rostasi]

Ornette on NPR Morning Edition (audio available):

Ornette

[clifford_thornton]

This is a fantastic record. The two-basses-and-drums lineup is off the hook!

My dad, who's normally a little leery of the "free" stuff, was blown away by this one, which is a testament in itself (especially if any of you knew my dad).

Will get to the NPR article - thanks for posting!

[(BB)]

Ornette on NPR Morning Edition (audio available):

Ornette

Nice enought story, but what the hell is with that jacket?

[clifford_thornton]

It's obviously harmolodic!

[ep1str0phy]

It's obviously harmolodic!

Oh--and why does everyone talk about the first GC album over the second? Though they're both great, I've always felt as if Vol. 2 was the more nuanced document (a violin/trumpet burnout, a ballad, a fast-tempo free blower, a latinish groover...). Is everyone just turned off by "Snowflakes and Sunshine"?

[clifford_thornton]

"Snowflakes and Sunshine" is cool, for sure.

Maybe part of the reason is that Vol. 2 wasn't on CD for quite a while.

[Chuck Nessa]

"Snowflakes and Sunshine" is cool, for sure.

Maybe part of the reason is that Vol. 2 wasn't on CD for quite a while.

?

[Lazaro Vega]

Recall hearing Ornette quote "Beautiful Dreamer" during his Ann Arbor concert, too.

[Lazaro Vega]

p.s. The Great London Concert is perhaps an even better representation of what the trio could do.

[ep1str0phy]

Complete tangent, but I'd like to know how that (rumored) Revenant box is coming along (hopefully it will have some of the OOP material back in action).

[clifford_thornton]

"Snowflakes and Sunshine" is cool, for sure.

Maybe part of the reason is that Vol. 2 wasn't on CD for quite a while.

?

I know it is now, but I recall the Manhattan CD being OOP for several years. Whatever.

[ornette]

It's obviously harmolodic!

I read an interview once with Ornette where he explained harmoldic theory by saying that when you get up and get dressed 'your clothes don't tell you where to go - you tell them'.

[sal]

Before picking this one up, the most recent release from Ornette Coleman that was in my collection was "Dancing In Your Head", and "Song X" (if you consider that an Ornette album).

What Ornette records between these two periods would you all consider essential? The more I listen to Sound Grammar, the more I realize that this may very well be a gaping hole in my collection that needs to get filled!

[ep1str0phy]

If by "two periods" you mean early Prime Time and Sound Grammar, then there are lots... but if your interest in this period is based mainly on your enthusiasm for the most recent album, then prepare to be jarred. From the late 70's up to the mid-90's or so, Ornette on record pretty much was Prime Time. To qualify (with the most readily availabe exceptions): the quartet with Cherry, Higgins, and Haden re-teamed for one half of the double-LP In All Languages (which also features a pretty stirring Prime Time set); for my money, though, it's a few notches below Sound Grammar and the 60's/70's acoustic material (all the sides are really short, so there's virtually no stretching). The Three Women/Hidden Man albums featuring Geri Allen, Charnett Moffett, and Denardo anticipate the present two-bass group, but the inclusion of a piano here is special (and, I think, successful)--it's the same sort of rhythmically open (and metrically obscure), polyphonic approach that we've heard from Ornette in recent years. The duet with Jochaim Kuhn is notable as both an Ornette + piano album and as a full-length duet record, and it's every bit as successful as anything he's put together in recent decades.

If you were in any way put off by Dancing In Your Head-vintage Coleman, then the other Prime Time sides will probably turn you off. A better "sampling" of Prime Time might be found on Body Meta or the much more accessible (but hard to find) In All Languages, but the formula of the band remains essentially the same--with certain abstract and commerical permutations, in varying degres--for years. I actually think that Tone Dialing (IIRC) the most recent Prime Time album, might be the best overall album of the bunch. It's a what-you-see-is-what-you-get sort of thing, but the rewards are ample if you want to look in that direction.

Edited January 3, 2007 by ep1str0phy

[clifford_thornton]

To be honest, I haven't really investigated Prime Time that hugely. I can see the present band as an extension of his ideas with that group, however.

[clifford_thornton]

p.s. The Great London Concert is perhaps an even better representation of what the trio could do.

Agreed, the Croydon material is amazing. I am not sure if it is currently on CD, and am too lazy to look it up.

[sal]

If by "two periods" you mean early Prime Time and Sound Grammar, then there are lots... but if your interest in this period is based mainly on your enthusiasm for the most recent album, then prepare to be jarred. From the late 70's up to the mid-90's or so, Ornette on record pretty much was Prime Time. To qualify (with the most readily availabe exceptions): the quartet with Cherry, Higgins, and Haden re-teamed for one half of the double-LP In All Languages (which also features a pretty stirring Prime Time set); for my money, though, it's a few notches below Sound Grammar and the 60's/70's acoustic material (all the sides are really short, so there's virtually no stretching). The Three Women/Hidden Man albums featuring Geri Allen, Charnett Moffett, and Denardo anticipate the present two-bass group, but the inclusion of a piano here is special (and, I think, successful)--it's the same sort of rhythmically open (and metrically obscure), polyphonic approach that we've heard from Ornette in recent years. The duet with Jochaim Kuhn is notable as both an Ornette + piano album and as a full-length duet record, and it's every bit as successful as anything he's put together in recent decades.

If you were in any way put off by Dancing In Your Head-vintage Coleman, then the other Prime Time sides will probably turn you off. A better "sampling" of Prime Time might be found on Body Meta or the much more accessible (but hard to find) In All Languages, but the formula of the band remains essentially the same--with certain abstract and commerical permutations, in varying degres--for years. I actually think that Tone Dialing (IIRC) the most recent Prime Time album, might be the best overall album of the bunch. It's a what-you-see-is-what-you-get sort of thing, but the rewards are ample if you want to look in that direction.

Thanks for your helpful response! Yes, the period I was refering to is basically the stuff between "Dancing in your Head" and "Sound Grammar". I like the Prime Time sound just fine, but I really prefer his acoustic stuff.

[kh1958]

For Prime Time, there is also:

Of Human Feelings

Opening the Caravan of Dreams (LP only)

Virgin Beauty

Jazz Buhne Berlin

The superior edition of Prime Time is the one with Bern Nix and Charlie Ellerbee on guitars, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Al McDowell on bass guitars.

The soundtrack to Naked Lunch is another worthy Ornette recording during this underdocumented period.

[7/4]

The soundtrack to Naked Lunch is another worthy Ornette recording during this underdocumented period.

I love it, in fact I over listened to it and only spin it once in a while. Twisted film too.

[ep1str0phy]

Yeah! Barre Phillips really smokes on that one.

[Lazaro Vega]

Did an half hour radio program with interviews (phoners) by Howard Shore and Ornette Coleman about the soundtrack to Naked Lunch. 1992.

[medjuck]

Speaking of that Ornette quote from "If I Loved You" at the beginning of his "Turnaround" solo, I just checked out how Hammerstein's lyric continues:

"If I loved you,

Time and again I would try to say

All I'd want you to know.

If I loved you,

Words wouldn't come in an easy way

Round in circles I'd go!"

"Round in circles I'd go" on "Turnaround" -- pretty neat if that's part of what stirred the allusion into being in Ornette's mind. Also IIRC (I don't have a version of "If I Loved You" at hand, so I can't be sure), what's happening musically in the phrase "Round in circles I go" bears a fairly intense, at once circular and somewhat off-center, resemblance to what's happening musically in "All I'd want you to know."

The If I Loved You quote is hard to miss, but I thought Larry was pushing it a bit with his reference to the lyrics. But I was just listening to Turnaround on Tomorrow is the Question from nearly 50 years ago and at about the 5:12 mark Ornette quotes If I loved You! Since the songs have nothing in common melodically (at least as far as I can hear) I presume that Larry is right and Ornette uses it because of the lyrics. BTW Are there other versins of Turnaround that quote it?

[AndrewHill]

Just picked up a copy of Sound Grammar today, and I'm enjoying this quite a bit. I know Greg Cohen from a DIW disk I have of his called 'Way Low' so I found it interesting to hear him in Ornette's company. I was kind of hoping that similar to Bill Dixon's Berlin Abozzi, that both Cohen and Tony Falanga would both be plucking their basses, but it appears that Tony bows for the entire disk. It sounds like Dernardo is drumming much like he drummed for Prime Time, which is not a bad thing, but in this context, maybe not entirely appropriate. Regardless, its nice to hear something new since when, Tone Dialing?

[clifford_thornton]

I love Sound Grammar.

It's kinda funny that one criticism levied against it is that it sounds "just like an Ornette record."