Return To Tomorrow - In the Ascendancy - The Jazz Avant-Garde, Various Artists 3CD

• 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.

TRACK LISTING

DISC ONE

ORNETTE COLEMAN The Shape Of Jazz To Come

1  Lonely Woman

2  Eventually

3  Peace

4  Focus On Sanity

5  Congeniality

6  Chronology

JIMMY GIUFFRE 3 Thesis

7  Ictus

8  That's True, That's True

9  Sonic

10  Whirrr

11  Carla

12  Goodbye

13  Flight

14  The Gamut

15  SUN RA AND HIS ARKESTRA

Ancient Aiethopia

DISC TWO

JOHN COLTRANE "Live" at the Village Vanguard

1  Spiritual

2  Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise

3  Chasin' the Trane

ERIC DOLPHY Warm Canto (on Flute and Clarinet)

4  Naima (with John Coltrane)

5  To Her Ladyship (with John Coltrane)

6  Stolen Moments (with Oliver Nelson)

7  Glad To Be Unhappy

8  God Bless The Child

9  Warm Canto (with Mal Waldron)

10  Left Alone

DISC THREE

JOE HARRIOTT QUINTET from Free Form

1 Abstract

2  Impression

3  Straight Lines

4  Calypso Sketches

CECIL TAYLOR Jazz Advance

5  Bemsha Swing

6  Charge 'Em Blues

7 Azure

8  Song

9  You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To

10  Rick Kick Shaw

11  Sweet And Lovely

12  ALBERT AYLER Free