best ornette Blue Note Album?

[paul secor]

Poor Foxhole has zero votes right now. I love 'em all for different reasons!

Foxhole would be my second choice.

[ep1str0phy]

Incidentally I played though the atlantics recently after a (very) long period without them. Not so 'free'? Maybe. BUT incredibly lucid, much more thought-through and composed and less belonging-to-nature than I guess I used to think. I never found as much in Cherry as I do here, where the context or guidance or just sheer on-the-day in-that-band form makes him sound like a genius, and the genius he sounds like is Ornette.

I think that listening to both the post-Atlantics groups and any number of Ornette repertory projects have heightened my appreciation for those late 50's/early 60's bands. For one thing, I don't think that either Old and New Dreams or the post-70's Ornette/Cherry pairings were as effortlessly virtuosic as the Atlantic bands. It's interesting that Ornette is identified as this primitivist par excellence--first and foremost. The blues is, of course, there, but it's been transmogrified/transported; the sound of the Ornette/Cherry/Haden bands always struck me as both primeval and staggeringly futuristic. Laying down something like "Eventually"--with its ridiculously dense unison line and breaking-the-sound-barrier fast tempo--is more like a riff on/logical conclusion to the verticality of bebop. Anyway, everyone talks about "Lonely Woman" and "Ramblin'" and the blues, but JESUS was there a lot of straight up (not just, "post," but like "supra" bebop) technique on the Atlantic sides.

Edited August 13, 2011 by ep1str0phy

[ep1str0phy]

do u guys like love call more than new york is now. im listening to jsngrys clip, do not dig the violin. not to much into ornette really but i DUG love call. it all made sense and was attractive music i thought

]

To be fair, there's only one violin cut on New York Is Now, and it's very brief (as JS noted, it's supposed to be an "interruption"). New York is more dispersed than Love Call--that is, the energy is more decompressed--but I feel like there's a lot more going on in the rhythm section on the New York sides. Basically, I hear at as Love Call = the shredders, New York Is Now = the more introspective, interactive cuts. Granted that, all of this music is from the same set of dates, so the basic group "sound" of the two albums is the same.

Edited August 13, 2011 by ep1str0phy

[clifford_thornton]

Very, very interesting comments, ep1.

As usual - ep1 is astute as hell.

I had a tough time choosing between Gyllene Cirkeln 1 and 2; I chose 1 just because it was among the first Ornette records that I bought, and spent years with a tape of it in my car. So, familiarity and the joy of personal discovery are part of my choice, though "Snowflakes and Sunshine" kills.

Also, what the CD does to "We Now Interrupt For A Commercial" is just wrong. First of all, it leads off side two, so you got that impact/"purpose" thing going on. Second, the elimination of the interruptional spoken bits blatantly violates the whole premise/purpose of the piece. It was Ornette's idea, so WTF w/removing it,, eh? F

I had no idea they did that to the CD! The version as I know it is hilariously awesome...

[Pete C]

Golden Circle 1 for sure. It's even a contender for my favorite Ornette album, period. Amazing rhythm section, infectious tunes. Moffett completely underrated. For me this is the sax trio that gave birth to the funky-free sounds of Rivers-Holland-Altschul, Surman-Phillips-Martin and Romano-Sclavis-Texier.

[Gheorghe]

I´d vote for "Empty Foxhole"

that album has a special meaning to me. It was my first Ornette Album, maybe because I purchased it during the 70´s when a lot of the BN albums where OOP. It happened that this was the only album my record dealer had for sale.

I had listend a lot to Dolphy with Mingus and thought I might be "ready" for more stuff beyond bebop or hardbop.

That album had the perfect balance. The first tune "Good Old Days" still had something I could "hold on", since it´s more a blues line and swings. It made it easier for me to "swallow" the more far out stuff with violin and trumpet, and there still is that beautiful ballad on it.

Sure, late I purchased all the other albums, but "Foxhole" has a special meaning to me.

[JohnS]

Golden Circle One for me. It's a valuable document and probably the best exanmple of thre group live. Luckily I was able to see them several times. Great music.

[AndrewHill]

I voted for Foxhole for essentially the same reasons Georgehe did; it was my first Ornette BN (cd!) , right out of the Conn series. Although Denardo's drumming at this stage is an acquired taste for me, his drumming actually started to grow on me, and to a degree, even started to make sense here too. Close follow up would actually be New and Old Gospel, another soft spot for that record too.

[Rooster_Ties]

Though the two dates with Dewey are the best (imho), I think I like Foxhole a little better than the Golden Circle sides.

Not 100% sure what I think of Denardo's drumming on Foxhole, but that's half the fun of it.

[Gheorghe]

I voted for Foxhole for essentially the same reasons Georgehe did; it was my first Ornette BN (cd!) , right out of the Conn series. Although Denardo's drumming at this stage is an acquired taste for me, his drumming actually started to grow on me, and to a degree, even started to make sense here too. Close follow up would actually be New and Old Gospel, another soft spot for that record too.

Thank you for exchanging that experience with me!

On thing I noticed about Ornette on BN (as well as Don Cherry and Cecil Taylor):

They became BN-Artists when they already were „established masters“, so their music was easier to understand. It seems that the label didn´t take „risks“ like during the beginnings when they recorded Monk when nobody else did.

So, Ornette´s albums in general where much more accessible for the public. This is especially the case for „Love Call“ and „New York is Now“ from 1968. I´d say it´s something like free jazz „light“, much easier to listen to than let´s say some New Thing stuff on Impluse! or E.S.P.

On the other hand, it seems that during the late sixties things started to slow down, jazz records where not selling like they did 10 years before.

This might explain why it was so difficult for me as a kid to purchase most of the classic BN albums, most of them where OOP, some stuff was reissued on that double LP packages (BN-LA Series), but no Ornette was re-issued, so I discovered that „Empty Foxhole“ just by chance when I browsed through the records at my record dealer.

[ep1str0phy]

I half agree--I think that music like Vol. 1 of Golden Circle and the alto features on Love Call and New York Is Now is as accessible and unabashedly swinging as any music Ornette had made up to that point. At the same time, much of Ornette's mid-60's music--captured on Blue Note and elsewhere--is as abstract as anything he's ever done. Most of this has to do with his doubling. Ornette's untutored sound on trumpet and violin went, in a way, a step further than Ayler, since Ornette's facility on those instruments was not predicated on an understanding of even basic technical facility. Same result, in a way, since Ayler got to "the point" of complete tonal denaturation--in that respect, Ornette's violin work strikes me as an early string analog to the sort of brute force sound exploration that would prevail here and there in subsequent times--but Ornette was among the first to get at the point that you didn't even really need to "play" the instrument in order to make it sing. (And yes, as Ornette has pointed out, there are elements of his trumpet technique that, developed via auto-didacticism, would cause problems for a more conventionally schooled cat.)

Granted all that, I think that "Love Call," "Snowflakes and Sunshine," and especially the masters thesis of untutored improvisation--The Empty Foxhole--would still freak a lot of people out (including those well-versed in free jazz/free improv, since, again, even the "basic technique" is hard to hear). I think those works are closer, in at least a conceptual-spiritual-philosohpical sense, to a lot of Euro/Asian free improv and EAI, in that sound production and feel are the prominent focus. The blues/folk basis that most of what is recognized as free jazz has internalized is still there, of course, but I think that these elements are less ostensibly the focus (or even "the point") than in Ornette's Atlantic music, stuff like Old and New Dreams, or even stuff as visceral as Ayler or some Cecil Taylor. Ornette's mid-60's music is really singular since it is simultaneously emotionally gripping and daringly technically abstract, and it calls attention to what it aspires to be (or, rather, the thing that it "is" other than jazz) by virtue of being so casual with the cylinders it fires on. Or, rather, there's something in there that doesn't necessarily make you shout or move your body, and it is weird.

Edited August 19, 2011 by ep1str0phy

[jeffcrom]

I love this place.

[clifford_thornton]

Oh yeah.

Just for the record, Ornette had some trumpet discussions with Bill Dixon in the 1960s. I'd hesitate to call them "lessons" because I don't think that either musician really thinks/thought in that way, but Ornette wanted to play the trumpet and Bill helped him with that.

[AmirBagachelles]

The Golden Circle music, to me, is near the apex of trio jazz. It gets my pulse racing, doesn't let up.

[AllenLowe]

I like NY is Now because that's the basic group I saw at Slugs (though Charlie Haden was on bass), that was how the group sounded, and it's the closest thing I can get to being 15 again.

does anyone know if NY is Now has had a later remastering? The only version I see is a 1989 issue.

[paul secor]

I never thought that the Elvin/Garrison rhythm section meshed all that well with Ornette. I listened to Love Call again today and had the same impression.

I'd forgotten that Leonard Feather did the liner notes for Love Call. I never had the impression that he had much use for Ornette's music. Anything for a buck, I guess.

Too bad that Rudy Van Gelder never got a shot at doing CD releases for New York Is Now! and Love Call. (I know that he didn't do the original recordings, but he didn't record the Golden Circle dates, and he did a very good job on those CDs.) The original LPs blow the Malcolm Addey remastered CDs out of the water, at least to my ears. But the CDs do have additional music.

Edited August 19, 2011 by paul secor

[ep1str0phy]

Whoa, Allen--was this the band with Haden/Blackwell, or really Haden/Elvin?

The RVG remasters of the Golden Circle music are a mixed bag. I love how beautifully foregrounded the alto is, and the separation is wonderful. As a live recording, though, the remastered GC albums have this sort of digital sheen that is really pungent in spots, and the stereo image can come across as slightly artificial. Part of me loves the sheer muddiness of the 80's reissues, but--when it comes down to it--the quality of that music carries everything over.

I do wish that Love Call/New York Is Now had gotten the RVG treatment, seeing has how they're studio albums and reasonably well recorded. Might-have-beens are always kind of beside the point, but I can't fathom how amazing those albums (compositions, arrangements, etc.) would sound anchored by Haden/Blackwell or even Haden/Denardo. The superimposition of Ornette's concept over the Coltrane rhythmic logic is interesting but lacks that crackling energy that a "real" Ornette band brings to the table.

"Classic" Coltrane rhythm is dispersed and multifaceted, turgid and magnificent, whereas "classic" Ornette rhythm is sharp, linear, and almost anxiously energetic. Granted, Garrison/Jones is one of my favorite rhythm sections--maybe my favorite--but one of the things they couldn't really do was that breathless, vertical sort of burnout swing time that the Atlantic Ornette rhythm sections excelled at. I guess the Coltrane bag is more physical (maybe more "African") in how enveloping and polyrhythmic it is, but Ornette's early rhythmic construction struck me as an even more logical conclusion to bebop--faster, faster, faster until the broad strokes start sounding like short strokes and the short strokes just disappear into swatches of sound. More than anything else, Haden and Blackwell (or Higgins) were propulsive and sparse, which is ideally suited to a melodically-based music. Garrison and Elvin don't shine like that on the Blue Note albums.

Interesting comparison to Denardo on what could very well be my favorite Ornette album ever, Crisis--Denardo's tendency (for lack of technique, at the time) is to break up the time. He's still a melodic player--ala Blackwell--but something about the sound of his drums, his touch/articulation, and his melodic sense just sounds inherently fatter and less sharp than Higgins or Blackwell (even when playing the same sort of stuff). Haden knows this and stops doing his walking bag, playing more like he did with the Jarrett group and a similarly dispersed (but melodic) drummer, Paul Motian--double stops, melodic phrases that play against (rather than with) the tempo, pedal points, etc. The overall effect is vaguely Coltraneish, or at least in a middle ground between the Atlantic Ornette feel and mid/late Trane. This, also, makes the band sound more "turgid and magnificent," and Crisis renders some of the most effective versions of some epic themes that don't sound quite as epic with, say, Blackwell or Higgins--"Song for Che," "Broken Shadows," etc.

Edited August 20, 2011 by ep1str0phy

[AllenLowe]

it's been many years, but the band I saw was Ornette/Redman/Hayden/Higgins, so a hybrid of sorts - I just remember that they reminded me, sound-wise, of the NY is Now group. But it's been 40 + years, so who knows? It was an incredible experience, on the same level of when I saw Muddy Waters at Newport - visceral and intellectually complex. We were young, loved the music, but did not quite understand it - and then, between sets, Charlie Haden, who clearly had noticed us (we were the youngest ones in the club) sat down with us and explained, basically, what he did musically in the band. Interesting night -

Edited August 20, 2011 by AllenLowe

[ep1str0phy]

Whoa. Sounds like an amazing night! I had a (vaguely) similar experience with Andrew Hill in Los Angeles years ago--I talked to him for something in the area of fifteen minutes way before the concert, quizzing him about the "state of jazz" (or whatever "relevant" phrase or term I was bandying about at the time...). Funny thing was, I didn't know it was Andrew Hill at the time. I had heard most of his Blue Note albums, so I knew what he looked like, but something about seeing the guy in person didn't trigger any mental alarms. He kind of winked at me when he strode on stage, which pretty much made the evening for me.

[AllenLowe]

yeah slugs was pretty incredible - another night I saw Jean Genet -

[Pete C]

I never thought that the Elvin/Garrison rhythm section meshed all that well with Ornette. I listened to Love Call again today and had the same impression.

I agree.

[TedR]

I've said this very rarely but felt it many times here. This is the kind of thread that brings me out of my lazy listening habits and helps me hear with a new concentration and enjoyment similar to when I first experienced this music.

[Chuck Nessa]

GREAT!

[Pete C]

The proposal about the Trane rhythm section made me think of just how different the two saxophonists are/were temperamentally. I might even say that Ornette is Dionysian to Trane's Apollonian. I love Trane, but I'd never describe him as playful the way I would of Ornette. Moffett and Blackwell were IMO perfect for Ornette, and I don't think either would have fit so well with Trane. FWIW, I never thought the Coltrane/Cherry meeting on Atlantic worked very well.

[jeffcrom]

I never thought that the Elvin/Garrison rhythm section meshed all that well with Ornette. I listened to Love Call again today and had the same impression.

I agree.

I totally understand where you guys are coming from. Garrison and Jones don't respond to Ornette's moves like Izenzon and Moffett or Haden and Higgins (or Blackwell). But I hear the interplay as different, not inferior. There's definitely lots of listening and responding going on - it just takes a different form than that of Ornette's "classic" bands. I'm listening to New York is Now right now, and I'm struck at how often Elvin dictates the changes of tempo and mood, rather than Ornette.

In any case, this band produces beautiful music. And Dewey Redman's entrance, ten minutes into "Garden of Souls," is still one of the most weirdly wonderful moments in recorded music.