best ornette Blue Note Album?

[David Ayers]

Well the combination of Ornette front line and (pianoless) classic quartet rhythm section is of course mightily interesting! It's an experiment, a kind of forbidden Yes-meets-King Crimson supergroup-fest, in a way its not real - but it was done and it's quite a document.

PS no need to correct me on Yes/Crimson, I know, I know...

[ep1str0phy]

...which leads us to harmolodics. Judging by any number of often contrary opinions (by bandmates, "official" critics, and armchair commentators alike--no slight to any one, naturally), a length's time of listening habits, and conversations with friends (some of them at least occasional musical intimates of Ornette's), "true" harmolodicism has something to do with achieving a sort of uncompromised self expression within a group and with others. I think that at least one of the reasons the term/ethos of harmolodicism has never been textbook defined is because textbook definition sort of defeats the purpose. Harmolodics is/are what you make it/them, and external definition just sort of institutionalizes everything (and transforms said everything into that very thing that harmolodics is opposite of--i.e., prescribed methodologies and idiomatic strictures).

I actually had a conversation about this after criticizing Christian McBride's impromptu performance with Ornette at the big Rollins extravaganza like a year or so ago. To me, McBride's pseudo-aping of Charlie Haden's idiom--the double stops, pedal points, etc.--struck me as forced and halfway; my sense/conclusion was that it took a special "kind" of musician to play harmolodic music convincingly. Ornette's thought on this might be (and again, I can't speak to this either directly or even first-degree indirectly) that in not "trying" to play a certain way to "fit in," and in playing what came naturally in that moment (consisting of, I suppose, the Hadenisms), McBride did the music right.

The essential "problem" here is that this leads to a degree of artistic relativism and it becomes difficult to weigh the relative merits of one guy/gal or the other. Ultimately, I don't see this as a bad thing, especially when viewed from the perspective of Ornette's career--he's spent decades creating music that has bucked even his own listeners' expectations (incontrovertibly true, even if just looking at the post-Atlantic music--(1) trumpet/violin, (2) chamber music excursions, where the rail between totally composed and totally improvised is actually pretty wobbly, (3) orchestral work, (4) vocal-centric music, (5) Prime Time, (6) Prime Time/Time Design, (7) electric music with Pat Metheny, (8) playing with Jerry Garcia, Lou Reed, Claude Nougaro, etc., (9) multimedia spectacle with Prime Time, (10) integration of electronic music, rap, etc. and other post-jazz/contemporary idioms into his music, the list goes on...). Nothing in this ethos is necessarily "better" because it is/can be just a different experience. This is what I was getting at talking about Denardo above, because (especially in his preteens) Denardo has barely a fraction of the chops of a Blackwell or Jones--but he's perfect for that music and he's committed to both himself and his role. In that music (and not necessarily, say, a repertory performance of Le sacre du printemps or even recreationist Coltrane modalism), that's all that it takes for the art to work. Ultimately, it just has to operate and operate well on its own terms.

None of this means that one shouldn't have a preference for one style or the other, and I genuinely think that Jones & Garrison don't have as strong of a feel for what I like about Ornette's music than, say, Blackwell and Haden. It's just that New York Is Now and Love Call aren't necessarily less legitimate pieces of Ornette's discography than the Atlantic stuff is, taken on harmolodic terms.

As for The Avant-Garde--I don't really like it, either, if only because Trane at that point was looking for lateral motion in his rhythm section and the band is trying to play either (a) in a generalized, post-1st Miles Quintet/post-Monk mode or (b) like Ornette. It sounds like the band is literally waiting for something to happen, whereas Trane figured out that, for him, motion could happen sideways--inside of the idea and not necessarily in the bridges between concepts. It's a testament to just how mutually challenging Ornette and Trane were/are that Ornette had a difficult time finding musicians for his music and those musicians, in turn, had a difficult time making Trane sound his "best." Ironically, and indicative of how narrow the walls between these idioms may have actually been, the Ornette crew later found their own ways to turn stasis into motion. Old and New dreams is rife with that stuff--"Mopti" and "Togo" being brilliant examples of this. (When Cherry nails that piano entrance on the ECM version of "Togo," go the fk home. That's it right there.)

As far as moods and emotional personalities are concerned, I love Ornette and Trane equally (as my #1 and my #1, in certain respects), but Ornette does make me feel "happier" in a mundane sort of way. Trane's music is ecstatic and large, but its emotions are so unfailingly operatic in scope that the ground view is kind of obscured. (The solo intro to "Song of Praise" on One Down, One Up is one of the times in Trane's recorded legacy that this is not the case, and it scared me to death when I first heard it.) At the same time, I think both musics are equally confrontational. Trane's music is often harder in content and energy, but Ornette's music is striking to me for the sheer kaleidoscope of grounded, naked emotion it evokes--not just happiness or elation but often rage, confusion, and hurt. I'm the last guy to say that free jazz is intrinsically "angry people's music," but I don't blame the guy for flashing a little cynicism or edge--and it might be more cutting precisely because it isn't so exalted. Listen to "Crossroads"/"The Circle with a Hole in the Middle," "Written Word" on the Science Fiction sessions, or some of the music on Who's Crazy. If you're listening for what inflicts your gut (rather than what triggers your formal mind), that some bruising music.

[7/4]

nice post ep1str0phy.

[DobermanBoston]

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.

I VERY much agree here.

In order I would say, for me, ...Golden Circle Two, ...Golden Circle One and New York is Now.