Ornette Coleman

These records provide an eloquent case for the universality of music. The Texas blues
evolution to free-form expressiveness practiced by alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman
makes implicit reference to the music of several of the West Africans represented on the
Antilles anthology. At surface level there would seem to be little connection between such
a luminary of avant-garde jazz as Coleman and African pop musicians influenced... More >

Some may have hoped the greatest saxophone player alive would go the Weather Report route on his first small-group record since 1971, but I'm reminded more of the programmed synthesizers of Eno and Philip Glass. Basically, the record consists of charged repetitions of one motif from Coleman's symphony, Skies of America. The difference is that where most such music aims for a hypnotic effect, Coleman wants more: a sustained and formally satisfying version of the kind of galvanic intensity John McLaughlin used to create at climatic moments. He gets it, too. (Grade: A)