Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation

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Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation is an album by jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, recorded in 1960. It involves two separate quartets, one to each stereo channel; the rhythm sections play simultaneously, and though there is a succession of solos as is usual in jazz, they are peppered with freeform commentaries by the other horns that often turn into full-scale collective improvisation. The pre-composed material is a series of brief, dissonant fanfares for the horns which serve as interludes between solos. Not least among the album's achievements was that it was the first LP-length improvisation, nearly forty minutes in length, which was unheard of at the time. It served as the blueprint for later large-ensemble free jazz recordings such as John Coltrane's Ascension and Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun.

Track listing

1. "Free Jazz" – 37:10
2. "First Take" – 17:02 (included on some reissues)

Personnel

Left channel

• Ornette Coleman – alto saxophone
• Don Cherry – pocket trumpet
• Scott LaFaro – bass
• Billy Higgins – drums

Right channel

• Freddie Hubbard – trumpet
• Eric Dolphy – bass clarinet
• Charlie Haden – bass
• Ed Blackwell – drums

Production

• Nesuhi Ertegün – producer

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Last updated on Wednesday January 30, 2008 at 06:20:32 PST (GMT -0800)
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