Ornette Coleman - Something Else

Hybrid Stereo SACD

Mastered direct to DSD from the original stereo tape

Acclaimed alto saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman's debut album

It is to the lasting credit of the late Lester Koenig, founder of Contemporary Records, that he gave Ornette Coleman his first exposure on records, thus launching a career that would exercise a worldwide influence. Coleman's vision of the future, as he said in 1958, foretold that "music will be a lot freer. The pattern for a tune, for instance, will be forgotten and the tune itself will be the pattern." Recorded in 1958, this is the first of two albums Coleman made for the West Coast label before moving on, the following year, to New York and global renown. It is, by any yardstick, a vital collectors' item.

Coleman was from Texas, but he was in Los Angeles when he got his big break from Koenig at Contemporary Records. Coleman had begun to play with Don Cherry, who would begin recording on the "pocket trumpet" and the great drummer Billy Higgins. For this first set of nine tunes, Coleman also worked with pianist Walter Norris and bassist Don Payne. Pop Matters says: "Well, if you were a jazz fan in 1958, you might have thought that this Coleman kid had taken a poop in his horn and then lit it afire. Such was the reaction of many to this crazy music. Fifty-three years later, the music sounds positively tame - well within the conventions of bebop that ruled the time."

Founded in 1951 by film producer, screenwriter and record collector Lester Koenig (1917-1977), Contemporary Records became the epicenter of the West Coast jazz scene, while its cutting-edge approach to sound and design attracted some of the era's most exciting artists.

 

 

1. Invisible

2. The Blessing

3. Jayne

4. Chippie

5. The Disguise

6. Angel Voice

7. Alpha

8. When Will The Blues Leave?

9. The Sphinx

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