Ornette Coleman - The Atlantic Years

10LP 180-gram box set from the great saxophonist and composer

Newly remastered audio by John Webber at AIR Studios

Ornette Coleman recorded one of the greatest bodies of work in jazz during a 22-month-long burst of creativity. Between 1959 and 1961, the saxophonist and composer released six studio albums on Atlantic Records that helped usher in the avant-garde, free jazz movement.

Those albums, along more than two hours of session outtakes, are featured together in the 10-LP boxed set Ornette Coleman: The Atlantic Years, featuring newly remastered audio by John Webber at AIR Studios. Several of these titles are long out-of-print on vinyl. The Ornette Coleman Legacy, featuring six songs originally released for the first time in 1993 as part of Rhino's CD boxed set Beauty Is A Rare Thing, is making its vinyl debut.

On most of his Atlantic albums, Coleman recorded with a quartet that included trumpeter Don Cherry, plus either Charlie Haden or Scott LaFaro on bass, and either Billy Higgins or Ed Blackwell on drums. One notable exception is Free Jazz, a ground-breaking single-track album where Coleman led a double quartet through a nearly 40-minute collective improvisation. The stereo mix used for the album separates the quartets into different channels; one on the right and the other on the left.

Coleman worked extensively with producer Nesuhi Ertegun on the music featured in this collection. Their partnership began in 1959 with Coleman's Atlantic debut, The Shape of Jazz To Come, an album the Library of Congress added to its National Recording Registry in 2012.

Among the albums included in The Atlantic Years are three compilations that Atlantic released in the 1970's: The Art Of Improvisers (1970), Twins (1971), and To Whom Who Keeps A Record (1975.) These albums include outtakes from recording sessions for all six of Coleman's studio albums.

LP 1 - The Shape of Jazz to Come:

Side A:

1. Lonely Woman

2. Eventually

3. Peace

Side B:

4. Focus On Sanity

5. Congeniality

6. Chronology

Ornette Coleman, alto saxophone

Don Cherry, cornet

Charlie Haden, bass

Billy Higgins, drums

LP 2 - Change of The Century:

Side A:

1. Ramblin'

2. Free

3. The Face of The Bass

Side B:

4. Forerunner

5. Bird Food

6. Una Muy Bonita

7. Change of The Century

Ornette Coleman, alto saxophone

Don Cherry, pocket trumpet

Charlie Haden, bass

Billy Higgins, drums

LP 3 - This Is Our Music:

Side A:

1. P.S. Unless One has (Blues Connotation)

2. Beauty Is A Rare Thing

3. Kaleidoscope

Side B:

4. Embraceable You

5. Poise

6. Humpty Dumpty

7. Folk Tale

Ornette Coleman, alto saxophone

Don Cherry, pocket trumpet

Charlie Haden, bass

Ed Blackwell, drums

LP 4 - Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation:

Side A:

1. Free Jazz (part 1)

Side B:

2. Free Jazz (part 2)

Ornette Coleman, alto saxophone

Don Cherry, pocket trumpet

Scott LaFaro, bass

Billy Higgins, drums

Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet

Freddie Hubbard, trumpet

Charlie Haden, bass

Ed Blackwell, drums

LP 5 - Ornette! (remastered versions):

Side A:

1. W.R.U.

2. T & T

Side B:

3. C. & D.

4. R. P. D. D.

Ornette Coleman, alto saxophone

Don Cherry, pocket trumpet

Scott LaFaro, bass

Ed Blackwell, drums

LP 6 - Ornette On Tenor:

Side A:

1. Cross Breeding

2. Mapa

Side B:

3. Enfant

4. EOS

5. Ecars

Ornette Coleman, tenor saxophone

Don Cherry, pocket trumpet

Jimmy Garrison, bass

Ed Blackwell, drums

LP 7 - The Art of The Improvisers:

Side A:

1. The Circle With A Hole In the Middle

2. Just For You

3. The Fifth of Beethoven

4. The Alchemy of Scott Lafaro

Side B:

5. Moon Inhabitants

6. The Legend of Bebop

7. Harlem's Manhattan

Ornette Coleman, alto & tenor saxophone

Don Cherry, pocket trumpet, cornet

Charlie Haden, bass

Scott LaFaro, bass (4)

Jimmy Garrison, bass (7)

Billy Higgins, drums

Ed Blackwell, drums

LP 8 - Twins:

Side A:

1. First Take

2. Little Symphony

Side B:

3. Monk and The Nun

4. Check Up

5. Joy of A Toy

Ornette Coleman, alto saxophone

Don Cherry, pocket trumpet, cornet

Charlie Haden, bass

Scott LaFaro, bass (1, 4)

Billy Higgins, drums (1, 3)

Ed Blackwell, drums

Freddie Hubbard, trumpet (1)

Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet (1)

LP 9 - To Whom Who Keeps A Record:

Side A:

1. Music Always

2. Brings Goodness

3. To Us

4. All

Side B:

5. P.S. Unless One Has (Blues Connotation No. 2)

6. Some Other

7. Motive For Its Use

Ornette Coleman, alto saxophone

Don Cherry, pocket trumpet

Charlie Haden, bass

Billy Higgins, drums (1)

Ed Blackwell, drums

LP 10:

Side A:

1. Rise and Shine

2. The Tribes of New York

3. I Heard It Over the Radio

Side B:

4. Revolving Doors

5. Mr. and Mrs. People

6. Proof Readers

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