Ornette: Skies of America, Forms & Sounds, etc...

[Rooster_Ties]

After two years of having nearly all my 'classical' discs still in boxes from a recent move, I've been unboxing everything (finally!!) this past weekend. In doing so, I stumbled across Ornette's "Skies of America" and the Bluebird disc "Forms & Sounds" - which may be less well-known than "Skies..." (I suspect).

• And yeah, I had plum forgotten I even had these discs, cuz oddly enough I must have briefly had them filed in with my 'classical' discs for some reason, though I always remember having them in with the rest of my Ornette.
  

By the way, in case anyone hasn't heard "Forms...", it is made up of the 21-minute title track for classical wind quintet (oboe, flute, clarinet, bassoon, and French horn), with 'trumpet interludes' by Ornette himself. And then two works for classical string quartet, "Saints and Soldiers" (20 minutes) and "Space Flight" (4 minutes).

I'm listening to "Skies..." now, after not having heard it in two or three years. I had forgotten what an interesting recording this is. I go back and forth about it's worth as a true orchestral work, but there's something undeniable about it's impact, on purely aural terms ('viscerally' speaking).

I'll get to "Forms..." next in my listening, but I remember it being a slightly thornier listen, if I remember right – harder to approach than "Skies..." – fewer themes, less 'tunes'.

But "Skies..." really works for me, and I can't quite put my finger on why, hence this thread.

Edited June 16, 2004 by Rooster_Ties

[JSngry]

I think it works becasue the orchestra seemed to take it at face value and didn't spend a lot of time thinking about how goofy (in the "legit" sense) it really was (I don't think that they HAD the time, actually). They just came in, did what they were asked to do, and Ornette took care of the rest.

FWAH-LAH! Instant classic!

On FORMS, I think the musicians DID spend too much time trying to think about it, and since what they were thinking and what Ornette was thinking were probably two totally different things, interpretation did not meet intention. But nevertheless, it's something that shouldn't be ignored .

Edited June 16, 2004 by JSngry

[dave9199]

Skies Of America is my favorite Ornette album.

[Saxophone__Vagina]

I place Skies of America in a different league than most other albums, it is just an amazing recording, 100% solid frim start to finish.

What other albums can even be compared to Skies...?

[Spontooneous]

Another "Skies" fan here.

Didn't Ornette get a chance to perform "Skies" again in the '90s, or '80s? Did anybody here hear it?

Don't care much for "Forms and Sounds," though.

[Lazaro Vega]

I'm high on the Soundtrack to Naked Lunch which seems to more organically meld Ornette's jazz trio with the London Symphony as well as musical textures from Morrocco and North Africa. Of course, this is music of Howard Shore and not completely the compositions of Ornette Coleman.

It would seem with all of those instruments on hand in a symphony, Coleman would employ his multi-linear approach to group organization, but the Skies strings seem more employed in unison to create weight, say the same weight as brass instrument or saxophone. That produces a sort of mono chrome, a swinging one, yet I think the world has yet to hear a fully realized Harmolodic Symphony.

???

[David Ayers]

I heard Ornette perform Skies in London with Prime Time in the later 80s (I think). It was an exciting occasion, structured differently to the LP version. Here the emphasis was on alternating the movements of Skies with improvised comment by Prime Time, who sort of kick started off the back of Jamaaladeen Tacuma's bass when each movement ended. It was a unique thing to hear an electric band with double (almost) everything playing with a full orchestra. I believe there is a VHS of a US performance but I have never seen it.

As for forms, I haven't played it in ages. It is no use implying a criticism of the musicians for 'trying to understand it' - they had to attempt to parse it and were evidently unable to based on what they were given or told.

If it is wind quintets you like I'd say start with the Nielsen which has just appeared on the cover CD of BBC Music Magazine over here along with Ligeti's Bagatelles. I'll be comparing them to the Ornette myself. My copy of F&S is an original issue, though there was a CD which some here may have picked up.

Edited June 17, 2004 by David Ayers

[kh1958]

Another "Skies" fan here.

Didn't Ornette get a chance to perform "Skies" again in the '90s, or '80s? Did anybody here hear it?

Don't care much for "Forms and Sounds," though.

He played Skies with Prime Time and the Fort Worth Symphony in 1983, but I wasn't able to attend. It was recorded, but never released.

[Nate Dorward]

Any thoughts on the Croydon Hall concert by the way? It's got another string-quartet piece on it. I seem to recall it as painfully dull. But it was written at the last minute to get around a British musician's union loophole so that may explain it....

Why's it never been reissued anyway? I have it on LP & though my turntable is currently not plugged in, I remember the trio tracks as being rather better than the Golden Circle recordings.

[jlhoots]

I like Skies Of America too, but it's not my favorite Ornette album.

Everything in the Atlantic box gets played a lot more.

[dave9199]

Nate, I believe you're speaking of the album An Evening with The Ornette Coleman Trio. I have it on CD. It's out there as an import and I believe you're right about the string piece as I haven't listened to it in a while, but the rest of it is really good. The piece is called "Sounds & Forms For Wind Quintet".