Album Review: "Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation"
Jazz holds a special place in the heart of America, as it can be traced back as America’s truest art form. Jazz, in its purest essence, is America’s answer to the established historical music periods originating in Western Europe.
As a genre, it holds its own against some of the most influential music to ever be produced. Since its inception in the early 20th century in the African American communities of New Orleans, jazz has always challenged the established status quo set by white composers of European descent in ways of instrumentation, polyrhythms, improvisation and complex chord structures.
Ornette Coleman stands tall as a pioneer of an entire subgenre of jazz – one that rejected the growing commercial structure of the supposed structureless genre. Coleman realized that jazz was moving away from its core ideologies of liberty and he began to release records deep-rooted in the idea of musical liberty and pure artistic expression, thus spearheading the idea of free jazz.
Coleman’s 1959 release, “The Shape of Jazz to Come,” did exactly as the title suggested it would, and it shook the jazz scene with seemingly incomprehensible ideas and boldness of where he was pushing it. However, Coleman would take this energy and seemingly feral sound and create an even more polarizing record to follow this release.
“Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation” turned the jazz scene on its head with its revolutionary take on the ever-growing genre. Coleman abandoned all rules and known boundaries with this release, profusely articulating his vision and radical ideas for the world to consume without speaking a single word in the record. Coleman allowed his music to do the talking, and it undoubtedly had plenty to say. The term “free jazz” fit perfectly to describe what “Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation” was, thus birthing the genre that jazz greats such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Eric Dolphy would use as an avenue to convey their art.
With jazz being the liberation of sonic norms set by composers of the past and free jazz being a further liberation of itself, Coleman’s revolutionary record exists as one of the truest forms of sonic art. While this record is not the easiest to listen to at first, it serves the great purpose of allowing one’s mind to conquer itself, which makes it a necessary experience for any fan of music.
