Loading... 28 view(s) 8 min read

IN THE ASCENDANCY | Return To Tomorrow – The Jazz Avant-Garde 3CD coming soon…

• A 3CD anthology of Free / Avant-Garde jazz.

The landmark albums included here in their entirety are Ornette Coleman's 'The Shape of Jazz to Come', 'Thesis' by The Jimmy Giuffre 3, John Coltrane's '"Live" at the Village Vanguard’ (including the controversial 'Chasin' the Trane'), 'Warm Canto' by Eric Dolphy (his work on flute bass clarinet) and from the astonishing date of 1956, Cecil Taylor's 'Jazz Advance', the earliest recording of the new music.

Featuring key works by the pioneers of the new music; the saxophonists Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and Joe Harriott; the pianists Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra; and the multi-reed men Eric Dolphy and Jimmy Giuffre, whose minimalist abstractions for clarinet are in fascinating contrast to the labyrinthine, raga like lines of Coleman or Coltrane, Ayler's cries from the ghetto, or the Impressionist dissonances of Taylor. If, in the work of Joe Harriott, the flavour of calypso is implicit then similarly that alluring juxtaposition of antique Africa and the cosmos in the music of Sun Ra.

If each of these protagonists sought their own way to challenge the rules of melody, harmony and rhythm, they shared the goal of complete freedom of expression. They antagonised the panjandrums of the establishment, and encountered a hostile press, but continued fearlessly on, sparking a revolution that changed perceptions of where the outer limits of jazz might be, while significantly broadening the landscape (and language) of contemporary music in general.