Personnel:
Ornette Coleman (as), Don Cherry (pocket tp), Walter Norris (p), Don Payne, Red Mitchell, Percy Heath, Charlie Haden (b), Billy Higgins, Shelly Manne (d)
Reference: FSRCD 569
Bar code: 8427328605694
Includes a 40-page booklet with recording details, extensive notes and rare photos.
With his harsh, shrill tone and weird white plastic alto saxophone, Ornette Colemans sudden arrival on the unsuspecting late 50s jazz scene came as an out-of-the-blue shock.
On his first album, Something Else! he was accompanied by his pocket-trumpet-playing partner Don Cherry and a traditional piano-bass-drums rhythm section. In the light of his later work it was an immature debut. The feel of his themes recalled the early Parker-Gillespie quintets, unjustly casting him back to the days of early bop. His subsequent albums Tomorrow Is the Question and The Shape of Jazz to Come dropped the piano, and a responsive bass allowed his music to come through vividly, more reassuring and provocative. His voice was his alone, and the quartets playing as a unit was cohesive and empathetic. He proved he was not just another Parker. His essential contribution to jazz was himself. Many critics and musicians thought he would point the way to a new direction in jazz, while others felt he had been pushed into the limelight before his time.
Ornette Coleman has always been bigger than life and, quite often, far ahead of his peers. But his debut was, for some, too much, too soon.
Jordi Pujol, from the CD liner notes.
"Coleman has been the subject of the kind of extravagant praise normally reserved for a musician backed by years of big-time experience. Though it is much too soon to determine how important his contribution will really be, the indications are that he has indeed found a style both of writing that is valid, fresh, and exciting."
Leonard Feather, 1960
