180 Gram Gatefold LP
This Is Our Music features Ornette Coleman’s (1930-2015) wonderful piano-less quartet with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. The group consisted of modern players working with the same concept: a freer way of playing jazz, which transcended the strict confines of melody, harmony and rhythm. They would create a whole new idiom by constructing music via the interplay of simultaneous collective improvisation. Coleman had made his debut on records in February/March 1958 with the LP Something Else!!!! The quartet of Coleman/Cherry/Haden and Billy Higgins on drums was heard on The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century. This Is Our Music came after the two aforementioned albums, and featured Ed Blackwell on drums in place of Higgins. This remains the only recording of this “classic” lineup in a quartet format: Ornette on alto saxophone, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass, and Ed Blackwell on drums.
PERSONNEL:
ORNETTE COLEMAN, alto sax
DON CHERRY, pocket trumpet
CHARLIE HADEN, bass
ED BLACKWELL, drums
Atlantic Recording Studios, New York, July-August 1960.
A1, A3, B1 & B3: Tuesday, July 19, 1960. (Note: B1 & B3 were previously thought to have been recorded on July 26, 1960.) A2, B2 & B4: Tuesday, August 2, 1960.
*BONUS TRACKS:
Same personnel except BILLY HIGGINS (drums) replaces Blackwell. Hollywood, California, October 8, 1959. Original session recorded by Bones Howe & produced by Nesuhi Ertegün. From the LP Change of the Century.
SIDE A:
1 BLUES CONNOTATION
2 BEAUTY IS A RARE THING
3 KALEIDOSCOPE
4 FORERUNNER*
SIDE B:
1 EMBRACEABLE YOU
2 POISE
3 HUMPTY DUMPTY
4 FOLK TALE
5 BIRD FOOD*
Label: Jazz Images