free jazz

Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation‘ is the sixth album by jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, released in 1961. Its title named the then-nascent free jazz movement. The music is a continuous free improvisation with no overdubbing or editing. The album features what Coleman called a “double quartet,” – two self-contained jazz quartets: each with a reed instrument, trumpet, bass, and drums. The two quartets play simultaneously, with the two rhythm sections providing a dense rhythmic foundation over which the wind players either solo or provide freeform commentaries, interspersed with pre-composed passages. The composed thematic material can be considered a series of brief, dissonant fanfares for the horns which serve as interludes between solos. Free Jazz was the first album-length improvisation at thirty-seven minutes, unheard of at the time. AllMusic critic Steve Huey described it in his five-star retrospective review as “a staggering achievement” which “practically defies superlatives in its historical importance.” It served as the blueprint for later large-ensemble free jazz recordings such as Ascension by John Coltrane and Machine Gun by Peter Brötzmann.

Track Listing:

• Free Jazz – Part 1 19:38
• Free Jazz – Part 2 17:32