Ornette Coleman Atlantic

Rhino's 2018 box The Atlantic Years offers new vinyl pressings of Ornette Coleman's Atlantic discography. This isn't limited to the nine albums that were recorded between 1959 and 1961 then parceled out on LP between 1959 and 1975 (which is the date when To Whom Who Keeps a Record finally hit the stores, following the comps The Art of Improvisers and Twins to market): the unreleased material gathered on Rhino's definitive 1995 box Beauty Is a Rare Thing is here as a bonus LP dubbed The Ornette Coleman Legacy…

Ornette Coleman - Beauty Is a Rare Thing: The Complete Atlantic Recordings (1993) {6CD Box Set Rhino R2 71410 rec 1959-1961}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.45 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 998 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 105 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1959-61, 1993 Atlantic / Rhino | R2 71410
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Free Jazz / Saxophone

While it's true this set has been given the highest rating AMG awards, it comes with a qualifier: the rating is for the music and the package, not necessarily the presentation. Presentation is a compiler's nightmare in the case of artists like John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, who recorded often and at different times and had most of their recordings issued from the wealth of material available at the time a record was needed rather than culling an album from a particular session.

Like many of Ornette Coleman's Atlantic sides, The Art of the Improvisers was recorded in numerous sessions from 1959-1961 and assembled for the purpose of creating a cohesive recorded statement. Its opening track, "The Circle with the Hole in the Middle," from 1959, with the classic quartet of Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell, and Charlie Haden, is one of Coleman's recognizable pieces of music. Essentially, the band is that quartet with two very notable exceptions: The last tracks on each side feature a different bass player. On the end of side one, the great Scott LaFaro weighs in on "The Alchemy of Scott La Faro," and Jimmy Garrison weighs in on "Harlem's Manhattan" to close the album out. These last two sessions were recorded early in 1961, in January and March respectively. As an album, The Art of the Improvisers is usually undervalued when placed next to This Is Our Music or The Shape of Jazz to Come.

Ornette Coleman - This Is Our Music (1961) {Atlantic}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 255 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 92 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 14 Mb
© 2002 Atlantic / SepiaTone | STONE 02
Jazz / Free Jazz / Saxophone

With two landmark albums already under its belt, the Ornette Coleman Quartet spent nearly a year out of the studio before reconvening for This Is Our Music. This time, Billy Higgins is replaced on drums by Ed Blackwell, who has a similar knack for anticipating the ensemble's direction, and proves a more fiery presence on tracks like "Kaleidoscope" and "Folk Tale." The session is also notable for containing the only standard (or, for that matter, the only non-original) Coleman recorded during his tenure with Atlantic – Gershwin's "Embraceable You," which is given a lyrical interpretation and even a rather old-time, sentimental intro (which may or may not be sarcastic, but really is pretty).