Loading...
Jerry Jacobsen's Collection

Ornette Coleman Three Bass Quintet   08/19/2007

Jazz Middelheim 2007, Park Den Brandt, Antwerpen, Belgium
Source Digital Satellite Broadcast
Media CD-R   1 disc
Notes 1) 0:33 (announcement)
2) 3:41 Following the Sound
3) 8:17 Sleep Talking
4) 4:08 Jordan
5) 7:41 911 (?)
6) 4:21 Call to Duty
7) 4:08 Turnaround
8) 5:16 Bach Prelude
9) 6:15 Those That Know Before it Happens (?)
10) 3:24 Taking the Cure (?)
11) 5:49 The Good Life
12) 7:46 New York
13)10:12 Song X
14) 6:18 Lonely Woman

J-Card Comment Notes with recording:
"Most miraculous to me about this performance was that it made music mysterious again.
How did they decide to begin and end? Why the trumpet, now, the violin, later? How was
the inscrutable relationship between alto and the rest determined? With his spoken
introduction, Coleman offered a seemingly simple answer to all these questions,
and others besides: "If you follow the sound, we'll all be in the same room."

The three bassists mostly kept themselves out of each other's timbral range (Falanga and
Moffett swapping bowing duties, Moffett judiciously applying Milesian wah-wah pedal as
Coleman played trumpet, McDowell chording in the upper register), but three improvising
bassists is never going to be easy for the listener to follow, so perhaps Denardo's steady,
but not unsubtle, pummeling is meant to act as a counterweight to that tangled complexity.

The habitual (though always spine-tingling) encore performance of "Lonely Woman"
(no improvisation, just an interpretation of a melody well-suited to a bass-heavy setting, as
the original recording already featured that amazing bass thrum) highlighted a second
outstanding aspect of Coleman's mysterious music-making. His tone and melodic playing
have a conservative beauty that is startling in the context of the rough and tumble of
Denardo's high-octane drums and the three-bass mêlée. I once read somewhere that
Coleman was unhappy with the way the classic Atlantic quartet albums were mixed,
because he wanted the instruments to be more equal in the mix. Here, though, it is difficult
not to hear him as above the fray, even as he pushes and pulls against it. It is often said that
musicians mellow as they get older, but I wonder if it is not rather that they are rid of all
extraneous elements. Everything Coleman played sounded essential, in any case.
The crowd roared.

"The Good Life" was included in the set-list (along with a Bach prelude that drew some
laughter and some stuff from Sound Grammar). How could you not love this tune, even
though the tumbling section in the middle was absent from this rendition?"



Trades Allowed Yes
Ratings Sound: A+
Lists K-P · ~All~ · ~Texas~ · ~Jazz, Improv., Spoken Word~ · ~~Recently Arrived~~ · Audio
Owned by Jerry Jacobsen · Last Updated May 23, 2023