Chronology

Ornette Coleman (alto sax), Don Cherry (cornet), Charlie Haden (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums). From the album The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959).

In 1960 Ornette Coleman recorded the album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation, featuring a double quartet and whose only track lasts almost 40 minutes, the longest continuous jazz interpretation ever recorded. As usual in jazz, there is a time for each musician to make his solo, but the other members of the group are free to intervene at will, providing outstanding passages of collective improvisation. Coleman came up with the words “free jazz” as a mere album title, but they became the term that described the whole movement. In 1962, Coleman considered that the clubs and his recording label didn’t pay him enough, so he retired for a while.

In 1965 he came back making some recordings, first with a trio and then with a quartet. In the early 1970s, Coleman began the second half of his career and, like Miles Davis, incorporated electrical instruments into his music. In 1976 he formed another double quartet, this time composed of himself with his own alto saxophone, two guitarists, two electric bass players and two drummers, whose first album was Dancing in Your Head. In the group, called Prime Time, all musicians were meant to be equally important, but the leader always ended up highlighting.

The group exposes a warm and cheerful theme whose main melody is interpreted by Coleman and Cherry in unison, but the bridge is played by Coleman alone in AABA structure. Cherry immediately enters with a dynamic and imaginative solo based on very different concepts. Then Coleman arrives playing phrases confidently and firmly with inventiveness and an uncommon speech. To close, the group re-exposes the theme.