BOOKER ERVIN – Back From The Gig (Blue Note – BN-LA488-H2 / 2LP-1976)

Label: Blue Note – BN-LA488-H2

Series: The Blue Note Re-Issue Series –

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released: 1976

Style: Hard Bop, Post Bop, Avant-Garde, Improvisation

A1 to B3 recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on February 15, 1963.

C1 to D2 recorded Rudy Van Gelder's, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on June 24, 1968.

Design [Album] – Bob Cato

Producer [Original Sessions] – Alfred Lion

Producer [Produced For Released By], Liner Notes – Michael Cuscuna

Supervised By [Project Director Blue Note Jazz Re-Issue Series] – Charlie Lourie

Matrix / Runout (Side 1 Runout etched): BN-LA 488-1- UA

Matrix / Runout (Side 2 Runout etched): BN-LA 488-2- UA

Matrix / Runout (Side 3 Runout etched): BN-LA 488-3- UA

Matrix / Runout (Side 4 Runout etched): BN-LA 488-4- UA

side 1

A1 - Home In Africa ................................................................................................. 8:45

A2 - A Tune For Richard ......................................................................................... 6:05

A3 - Back From The Gig ......................................................................................... 5:50

side 2

B1 - Dexi ................................................................................................................. 5:45

B2 - Kucheza Blues ................................................................................................. 5:35

B3 - Happy Frame Of Mind ..................................................................................... 6:10

Personnel:

Horace Parlan – piano

Booker Ervin – tenor saxophone

Johnny Coles – trumpet

Grant Green – guitar

Butch Warren – bass

Billy Higgins – drums, percussion

side 3

C1 - Gichi ................................................................................................................ 7:25

C2 - Den Tex ........................................................................................................... 7:32

C3 - In A Capricornian Way .................................................................................... 5:47

side 4

D1 - Lynn's Tune ..................................................................................................... 6:10

D2 - 204 ................................................................................................................. 10:15

Personnel:

Booker Ervin – tenor saxophone

Woody Shaw – trumpet

Kenny Barron – piano

Jan Arnet – bass

Billy Higgins – drums, percussion

"Back from the Gig" is a double LP by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1963 and 1968 but not released on the Blue Note label until 1976.

The earlier session was later released in 1988 as originally intended under Horace Parlan's name as "Happy Frame of Mind" and the later session was finally released in 2005 as "Tex Book Tenor".

Booker Ervin – tenor saxophone

When the session that comprised the Happy Frame of Mind record was released as a Booker Ervin album, it was titled Back From the Gig. Horace Parlan, however, was the leader for the session, and the album was originally scheduled to be released in the mid-'60s by Blue Note as Happy Frame of Mind. After remaining unreleased for over a decade, it was issued as Back From the Gig, but once the CD revolution struck in the '80s, the music was reissued as it originally was intended -- that is, the Happy Frame of Mind album. Happy Frame of Mind/Back From the Gig finds Horace Parlan breaking away from the soul-inflected hard bop that had become his trademark, moving his music into more adventurous, post-bop territory. Aided by a first-rate quintet -- trumpeter Johnny Coles, tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin, guitarist Grant Green, bassist Butch Warren, drummer Billy Higgins -- Parlan produces a provocative set that is grounded in soul and blues but stretches out into challenging improvisations. None of the musicians completely embrace the avant-garde, but there are shifting tonal textures and unpredictable turns in the solos which have been previously unheard in Parlan's music. Perhaps that's the reason the session sat unissued in Blue Note's vaults until 1976, when it was released as part of a double-record Booker Ervin set, but the fact of the matter is, it's one of Parlan's most successful efforts, finding the perfect middle ground between accessible, entertaining jazz and more adventurous music.

(Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine)

Tex Book Tenor was recorded in 1968 as a follow-up to Booker Ervin's debut date for Blue Note, The In Between, which was released in January of the same year. (Ervin had made two records for Pacific Jazz, which is now owned, like Blue Note, by EMI.) The album remained unreleased until 1976, when it was issued with an also unreleased Horace Parlan date on a double LP called Back from the Gig. The lineup is stellar and includes Billy Higgins, Woody Shaw, Kenny Barron, and bassist Jan Arnet from Czechoslovakia. Barron and Ervin had worked together before, and Arnet had worked with Ervin three years earlier as a touring partner in Germany. The music here includes three Ervin originals, Barron's wonderful "Gichi," and Shaw's "In a Capricornian Way." The Afro-Latin-influenced grooves of "Gichi" display Ervin playing his solo in prime snake-charmer mode. His own "Den Tex" is classic hard bop with Barron and Ervin going head to head throughout. "Lynn's Tune" is a beautiful midtempo ballad with wonderful work by Arnet and a loping solo by Shaw. The closer is "204," a steaming hard bop tune with a killer head featuring the two horns just pushing the tempo before Ervin goes off the map into his solo. Barron's playing is totally inspired, pushing huge chords at both players as they dig into the changes and come out breathing fire. This is a wonderful addition not only to the Blue Note catalog, but to Ervin's own shelf as well, and should be picked up by anyone interested in him as a bandleader and composer.

(AllMusic Review by Thom Jurek)

If you find it, buy this album!

JACKIE McLEAN – Hipnosis (1962/67) Blue Note–BN-LA483-J2/UA – 2LP-1978

Label: Blue Note ‎– BN-LA483-J2

Series: Blue Note Jazz Classic Series –

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released: 1978

Style: Hard Bop, Post Bop

A1 to B3 rec. at Rudy Van Gelder's, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on June 14, 1962.

C1 to D3 rec. at Rudy Van Gelder's, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on February 3, 1967.

Design [Album] – Bob Cato

Photography By – H. Nolan

Compiled By – Michael Cuscuna

Liner Notes – Ben Sidran

Producer [Original Sessions Produced By], Producer – Alfred Lion

Supervised By [Project Director Blue Note Jazz Classic Series] – Charlie Lourie

Matrix / Runout (Side 1): BN-LA483-1 (SET 1) 2 ECK UA

Matrix / Runout (Side 2): BN-LA483-2 (SET 2) 1 ECK UA

Matrix / Runout (Side 3): BN-LA483-3 (SET 2) 1 ECK UA

Matrix / Runout (Side 4): BN-LA483-4 (SET 1) 2 ECK UA

side 1

A1 - The Three Minors ............................................................................................... 6:00

A2 - Blues In A Jiff ..................................................................................................... 7:00

A3 - Blues For Jackie ................................................................................................. 7:45

side 2

B1 - Marilyn's Dilemma ............................................................................................. 5:00

B2 - Iddy Bitty ........................................................................................................... 8:10

B3 - The Way I Feel .................................................................................................. 7:15

Personnel:

Jackie McLean – alto saxophone

Kenny Dorham – trumpet

Sonny Clark – piano

Butch Warren – bass

Billy Higgins – drums, percussion

side 3

C1 - Hipnosis .......................................................................................................... 11:15

C2 - Slow Poke ........................................................................................................ 7:40

side 4

D1 - The Breakout .................................................................................................... 6:17

D2 - Back Home ....................................................................................................... 6:05

D3 - The Reason Why .............................................................................................. 6:45

Personnel:

Jackie McLean – alto saxophone

Grachan Moncur III – trombone

LaMont Johnson – piano

Scott Holt – bass

Billy Higgins – drums, percussion

All selections are released here for the first time. All selections are in stereo.
Hipnosis is a studio album by saxophonist Jackie McLean, featuring selections recorded for Blue Note Records in the 1960s, but not released until 1978. The album was released in the US as a two-fer (BN-LA 483-H2), which included five tracks from a 1967 session, plus six tracks recorded in 1962.  In Japan, it was released the same year as a standard LP (ST-83022) with a different cover, featuring only the 1967 tracks.

The first session's from his wailing hard bop days, and features Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Sonny Clark on piano, and Billy Higgins on drums. Tracks from this one include "Blues For Jackie", "Blues In a Jiff", and "Iddy Bitty". The other set's from the tail end of his "new thing" days, and features Grachan Moncur on trombone and Lamont Johnson on piano. Tracks here include "The Breakout", "Hipnosis", "Slow Poke", and "The Reason Why".
It is interesting to compare Hipnosis with the other UA McLean two-fer offering, Jacknife. I find this Jazz Classics Series sonically better (probably just by chance)  and musically has the edge, if only for the presence of a bubbling Sonny Clark and a brooding Grachan Moncur III. McLean recorded numerous times with Moncur, something about how the malevolant lower register trombone and offsetting acid-sharp alto gel, sweet and sour, a challenging sort of brass unison.

Both vintage McLean twofers are in my view essential, inexpensive good-sounding double vinyl. I expect most jazz fans already have them, but perhaps like me you have been neglecting to play them, so its good to get them off the shelf and onto the turntable where they belong. The twofers are over thirty years old, nearing forty years, close to nearly a  decade short of originals. That is “vintage”, good enough for me.

Even if you have all the McLean and Moncur Blue Notes, which I do, the two McLean twofers (is that a fourfer?) generously complement your collection, without duplicating any tracks.

And in the end, quite what United Artists thought they were doing releasing two twofer series – The Blue Note Reissue Series and The Blue Note Jazz Classics series –  is a mystery to me. Why call something a re-issue which has never been issued before? They are all Jazz Classics, whatever the word Classics means.         (parts of londonjazzcollector review)



If you find it, buy this album!

GOODBYE Mr. COLEMAN ..... and THANK YOU .....

Label: London Records ‎– LTZ-K15199, London Atlantic – LTZ-K15199

Series: Jazz Series

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: 1961

Style: Free Jazz

The album was originally released as Atlantic 1327 in June, 1960.

Recording dates: Tracks A3, B2, B3, B4 - October 8, 1959, tracks A1, A2, B1 - October 9, 1959, Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California.

Engineer – Bones Howe

Cover / Photo – Lee Friedlander

A1 - Ramblin' ............................................................................. 6:35

A2 - Free .................................................................................... 6:20

A3 - The Face Of The Bass ....................................................... 6:55

B1 - Forerunner ......................................................................... 5:12

B2 - Bird Food ........................................................................... 5:30

B3 - Una Muy Bonita ................................................................. 6:00

B4 - Change Of The Century ..................................................... 4:43

Ornette Coleman – alto saxophone

Don Cherry – pocket trumpet

Charlie Haden – bass

Billy Higgins – drums, percussion

Change Of The Century was an audacious album title, to say the least. On his second Atlantic release—and second with his most like-minded ensemble (trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins)—alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman pushed the freedom principal farther. At the same time, he looked backward too for inspiration. Having eliminated the piano on his Contemporary release, Tomorrow Is The Question! (1959), Coleman opened up wide improvisational opportunities. On that recording, he and his "freedom principle" remained partially inhibited by the presence of traditionalist bassist Percy Heath and drummer Shelly Manne, who resisted coloring outside of the lines as Coleman was attempting to do. But that was not so on The Shape Of Jazz To Come (Atlantic, 1959) and Change Of The Century. While the rhythm section continued to provide enough cohesive swing to propel matters, Coleman and Cherry stretched the melodic boundaries without the previous harmonic anchors.

Change of the Century is compelling in its embrace of contrasts. "Ramblin'" is funky organic, almost early rock and roll. Haden plucks and strums his way through a fractured 12-bar format that never fully resolves itself into the comfort of the anticipated. Coleman's solo over Haden's support is bar-walking rhythm and blues, lowdown and dirty, smelling of beer and Lucky Strikes. Cherry plays his famous pocket trumpet, sounding closer to Lee Morgan than anyone else, squeezing out hard bop lines like sparks from a metal lathe. Haden solos using the figures he has supported the whole piece with. His intonation is middle-of-the-note, relaxed and slightly wooden. "Ramblin'" retains an erstwhile harmonic structure, albeit only barely.

The head of "Free" is an odd premonition for composer/saxophonist Oliver Nelson's "Hoedown" from The Blues and the Abstract Truth (Impulse!, 1961), passing through an ascending and descending blues figure. Haden is rock solid throughout, even when the solo-going gets ragged and frayed. Higgins' accents are as potent as pepper, shoring up the edges of chaos on the briskly-timed piece. "The Face Of Bass" gives prominence to Haden while at the same time sounding strangely traditional for an album entitled Change of the Century. But it is a facade. Coleman encourages a careful abandon in the piece's overall structure and arrangement. Cherry pops on his solo, sometimes sounding like Freddie Hubbard, sometimes, Art Farmer.

"Forerunner" pretends that it is bebop, with a serpentine head and a deft drum break by Higgins. Coleman's solo is inspired, quenched in gospel and the blues. His tonal expanse is as big as his native Texas, informed by the many great tenor saxophone players from that state. Cherry emerges assertive, playing with swagger and attitude. So well constructed and delivered is his solo that it is easy to forget that a move toward a freer musical system is in the works. Haden remains stalwart in time-keeping, shepherding everything between the rhythmic ditches. The same can be said for the Charlie Parker-inspired "Bird Food," which is surveyed at a fast clip over a complex note pattern.

"Una Muy Bonita" is only passing Latin, with pianist Thelonious Monk phrasing and side- winding playing. Haden sets up a familiar clave beat with strummed chords. Coleman stages the piece to more insinuate a Latin vibe than to actually play one. After a lengthy introduction, Cherry solos muted, allowing himself a broad swath over which to play. The disc's closer, the title tune, was the most fully-realized "free jazz" at that point from Coleman. It is a wild phantasm of notes that are to "free jazz" what trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie's "Bebop" was for that virtuosic genre. It is a clarion call played on impulse. Yes, finally things are really beginning to come apart at the seams, properly foreshadowing Free Jazz: A Group Improvisation (Atlantic, 1961). Coleman has fully gained his traction and is now ready.

Label: Fontana – 858 119 FPY, ESP Disk – SFJL923

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: UK / Released: 1965

Style: Free Jazz, Avantgarde

Recorded live on December 21, 1962 at Town Hall, NYC.

Design – Jay Dillon

Engineer – Jerry Newman

Photography By – Charles Shabacon

Blue and silver label with silver and blue letters.

P: 1963 on label (wrong)

A1 - Doughnut .................................................................. 9:00

A2 - Sadness .................................................................... 4:00

A3 - Dedication To Poets And Writers ............................. 8:50

B  -  The Ark .................................................................... 23:24

Ornette Coleman – alto saxophone

David Izenzon – bass

Charles Moffett – drums, percussion

Kermit Moore – cello (tracks: A3)

Julien Barber – viola (tracks: A3)

Nathan Goldstein – violin (tracks: A3)

Selwart Clarke – violin (tracks: A3)

Ornette Coleman's theory of harmolodics set a standard for improvised music that is unrivaled. Coleman closed the synaptic gap between the conception and implementation of the musical idea so that spawning the music became a conjugation of the harmonic relationships that live within it.

Town Hall, 1962 brings the music so close to the experience that the performers seem to be just yards away. The sad fact remains that this is only part of the night's worth of music; the whereabouts of the rest is regrettably unknown.

The bright spirit stemming from Coleman's youth permeates the sound of the four-track recording with innovation. Coleman's searing stepped scale ascension on his alto bursts open the music to carve out his sonic territory; he is accompanied by light touches and constant motion on the snare and cymbal and a relaxed rich pizzicato on the bass. Coleman carries the weight of the music through an endlessly changing tuneful line until he rests and lets bassist David Izenzon's arco fly and Charles Moffett's stick work map the way into a snare/cymbal rendering of the tempo. Coleman holds a high pitch on his horn to wrap up the first song, "Doughnut." The memory of that pitch transfers to the jaw-dropping purity of tone that Coleman illustrates on "Sadness."

"Sadness" has to be one of the best models for evoking the meaning of its title, besides Coleman's classic composition "Lonely Woman." At age 32, having mastered his instrument, Coleman plays unwavering, potent single notes and melodic phrases of compelling poignancy. Contrast the gripping soundscape emanating from the alto with tonal arco vagaries on the bass, precise brushwork on the drums and expansive sibilance on the cymbals and the result is unforgettable.

The presence of a piece for string quartet is no less a distraction than a Rembrandt portrait would be hanging next to a Picasso collage abstraction. The instrumentation may seem antithetical to expectations brought to Coleman's music. But, following the path of every string instrument in relation to one another on "Dedication to Poets and Writers" substantiates the integration in which Coleman staunchly believes.

The final 23-minute "The Ark" widens the distance among the instruments in a true test of improvisational limits. Coleman presses through a loosely defined middle range in the form of ostinatos and relentless melodic bounce. Moffett can only respond with bold polyrhythmic moves and Izenzon with deep pizzicato splurges and assiduous bowing. Nineteen minutes in, Coleman slowly squeezes out a seemingly strained high pitch, a signal for the tonal climb that ensues until closing with the bass's fast paced bowing in its upper register.

In the stream of its apparent freedom, this trio acts with constraints, imposed not by restriction, but by genius. To know what later transpired could only underscore the appreciation of what already exists.

If you find it, buy this albums!

ART PEPPER – So In Love (Artists House / LP-1980)

Label: Artists House – AH 9412

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released: 1980

Style: Contemporary Jazz

Tracks A1, B1: Recorded 2-23-79, New York, NY.

Tracks A2, A3, B2: Recorded 5-26-79, Burbank, CA.

Cover Art by – Alyssia Lazin

Design by – Lazin & Katalan

Art Director by – Carol Friedman

Producer by – John Snyder

A1 - Straight No Chaser ............................................... 6:26

         Composed By – Thelonious Monk

A2 - Blues For Blanche ................................................ 6:49

         Composed By – Art Pepper

A3 - So In Love ........................................................... 11:37

         Composed By – Cole Porter

B1 - Diane ................................................................... 12:22

         Composed By – Art Pepper

B2 - Stardust ............................................................... 10:34

         Composed By – Hoagy Carmichael, Mitchell Parish

Art Pepper – alto saxophone, clarinet

Hank Jones – piano (tracks: A1, B1)

George Cables – piano (tracks: A2, A3, B2)

Ron Carter – bass (tracks: A1, B1)

Charlie Haden – bass (tracks: A2, A3, B2)

Al Foster – drums, percussion (tracks: A1, B1)

Billy Higgins – drums, percussion (tracks: A2, A3, B2)

Pepper's "So in Love" continues his post prison fiery play. Critics who believe his earlier work is his best must not be hearing Pepper's final blowing. It is simultaneously lyrical and hot, as if Art knew that this was, indeed, it - his last chance to say everything he had to say. The actual cut "So in Love" is a favorite. It has an underlying tension that is subtle and yet almost unbearable. Art's early death left a huge hole, but in a way it's inevitability led to some of the best alto work ever recorded.

The altoist stretches out here on a program of standards and blues, backed by alternating rhythm sections from the East and West coasts.

Pianist Hank Jones is all one could ask for in an accompanist, and his aching solo on Diane sustains perfectly the restive mood of Pepper's opening choruses. Overall, the West Coast team pianist George Cables, whose great rapport with Pepper is unmatched, along with jazz legends Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins powers the music along with great care and economy. Pepper had climbed to such a plateau of individuality that he seems often here to be drawing his unconscious influences into the light and remembering what it was he loved about them in the first place.

On a leisurely Stardust, he daffodils his sentiments with the grace and cunning of a Lester Young. The title track, a Cole Porter waltz that agitates into a collective improvisation by its climax, offers the best illustration of the wondrous use Pepper makes of John Coltrane. It isn't in this case a matter of piling up chords or of playing more notes, as it is with so many others, but rather of drawing on extreme registers of the horn to express more conflicting emotions, to reach deeper and higher recesses of the viscera and the psyche.

___________________

Art Pepper, more creatively prolific in his late years than at almost any other time in his troubled life, cuts as sharply as a scythe when he's taking on an edge on this 1979 set. He appears in two different quartet formations, the first with pianist Hank Jones, bassist Ron Carter, and versatile drummer Al Foster, and the second with pianist George Cables and the rhythmic duo Ornette Coleman used so effectively, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins. The Jones-Carter-Foster lineup moves more measuredly than the Cables-Haden-Higgins one. Chalk it up to Coleman's speedy "harmolodic" compressions, but Haden and Higgins dance all over the melodies, pressing Pepper to spray alto lines in multiple directions almost at once. "Diane" is lovingly taken, with Pepper finding in Jones a great, romantic colleague.

And if you find yourself curious about Pepper, try reading his tell-all autobiography "Straight Life", jazz's greatest confessional.

http://straightlife.info/apautobook.html

This album, recorded on 1979, in the period Art Pepper had the support of his sentimental couple, Laurie Pepper, is a masterpiece. And it shows that, as it is affirmed everywhere, this man didn't need to practice a lot, he simply took his saxo and performed a beautiful jazz with great honesty and nobleness. Art Pepper, with all his defects and tortuous life due to drug dependency, is a well bred musician and he shows himself naked before we all. If God finally exists I guess he decided to take him to heaven, because of his honesty and the artistry he gave us all. The two different rhythm sections of this album are excellent. I have no doubt about recommending it.

If you find it, buy this album!

ORNETTE COLEMAN – Twins (recorded between 1959 and 1961, LP-1971)

LP cover originally released in 1971

Label: Atlantic – SD 1588
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo, 180 Gram; Country: US - Released: 1971
Style: Free Jazz, Hard Bop
"First Take" recorded on December 21, 1960, at A&R Studios, New York City.
"Little Symphony" recorded on July 19, 1960, at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York City.
"Monk And The Nun" recorded on May 22, 1959, at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California.
"Check Up" recorded on January 31, 1961, at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York City.
"Joy Of A Toy" recorded on July 26, 1960, at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York City.
Design [Cover Design] – Haig Adishian
Photography [Cover Photo] – Omar Kharem Producer – Nesuhi Ertegun
Design [Cover Design] – Haig Adishian
Liner Notes – Martin Williams
Mastered By – George Piros
Mixed By [Re-mix Engineer] – Geoffrey Haslam

"Ornette Coleman's music has always shown an expressive feel for the playful, the joyful, the whimsical side of human nature. And I'd say it's often there, deep down, in things he plays or writes in quite different moods." _ Martin Williams

A1 - First Take ........................................................................ 17:00
A2 - Little Symphony ................................................................ 5:15
B1 - Monk And The Nun .......................................................... 5:56
B2 - Check Up ........................................................................ 10:11
B3 - Joy Of A Toy ..................................................................... 4:40

Artists on Check Up : DON CHERRY (cor), ORNETTE COLEMAN (as), SCOTT LaFARO (b), ED BLACKWELL (d), recorded NYC, January 31, 1961. Recording Engineer Tom Dowd.

Other tracks: DON CHERRY (pocket tp), FREDDIE HUBBARD (tp), ERIC DOLPHY (bcl), ORNETTE COLEMAN (as), CHARLIE HADEN, SCOTT LaFARO (b) ED BLACKWELL, BILLY HIGGINS (d), sessions May 22, 1959, July 19, July 26, December 21, 1960.

Ornette Coleman

Freddie Hubbard

Ornette Coleman's Twins (first issued on LP in 1971) has been looked at as an afterthought in many respects. A collection of sessions from 1959, 1960, and 1961 with different bands, they are allegedly takes from vinyl LP sessions commercially limited at that time to 40 minutes on vinyl, and not initially released until many years later. Connoisseurs consider this one of his better recordings in that it offers an overview of what Coleman was thinking in those pivotal years of the free bop movement rather than the concentrated efforts of The Art of the Improvisers, Change of the Century, The Shape of Jazz to Come, This Is Our Music, and of course the pivotal Free Jazz. There are three most definitive selections that define Coleman's sound and concept. "Monk & the Nun" is angular like Thelonious Monk, soulful as spiritualism, and golden with the rhythm team of bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins driving the sweet and sour alto sax of Coleman and piquant trumpeting of Don Cherry. "Check Up" is a wild roller coaster ride, mixing meters, tempos, and dynamics in a blender in an unforgettable display of sheer virtuosity, and featuring bassist Scott LaFaro. "Joy of a Toy" displays the playful Ornette Coleman in interval leaps, complicated bungee jumps, in many ways whimsical but not undecipherable. It is one of the most intriguing of all of Coleman's compositions. Less essential, "First Take" showcases his double quartet in a churning composition left off the original release This Is Our Music, loaded with interplay as a showcase for a precocious young trumpeter named Freddie Hubbard, the ribald bass clarinet of Eric Dolphy, and the first appearance with Coleman's groups for New Orleans drummer Ed Blackwell. "Little Symphony" has a great written line with room for solos in a joyful hard bop center with the quartet of Coleman, Cherry, Haden, and Blackwell. All in all an excellent outing for Coleman from a hodgepodge of recordings that gives a broader view of his vision and the music that would come later in the '60s.

Review by MICHAEL G. NASTOS



If you find it, buy this album!