Congeniality

Ornette Coleman (alto sax), Don Cherry (cornet), Charlie Haden (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums). From the album The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959).

After a performance in Louisiana, Coleman was attacked and his tenor saxophone was broken, so from then on he used only the alto saxophone. He first played with it in New Orleans and later became a member of Pee Wee Crayton’s group and traveled with them to Los Angeles. There he met other musicians with his same interests, such as Charlie Haden, Don Cherry, Charles Moffet, Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins. In 1958 he recorded his first album Something Else!!!! and played with Paul Bley in a New York club. When he recorded Tomorrow is the Question shortly afterwards, his strange music had already shaken the world of jazz.

Some musicians considered it a fraud, while others praised it. In 1959 he recorded The Shape of Jazz to Come and was hired for two months at the Five Spot club in New York. Lionel Hampton, Leonard Bernstein and The Modern Jazz Quartet were impressed and encouraged him. His unique sound was because he played with a plastic saxophone, but finally he acquired a metal one. His following albums with Atlantic Records influenced other musicians, such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Eric Dophy.

To begin with, Coleman and Cherry play a phrase in unison and then Haden and Higgins join into expose the theme at medium tempo, which has constant changes. The first one to enter is Coleman with a melodic and well articulated discourse created from beautiful motifs. Cherry follows him with a balanced solo, but introducing some accelerated phrases in between. His melodic line, like Coleman’s, doesn’t depart much from the conventional way of playing. To conclude, the group reexposes the theme.