''The Jazz Composer's Orchestra'' is a 1968 album by the

Jazz Composer's Orchestra The Jazz Composer's Orchestra was an American jazz group, founded by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler in 1965, to perform orchestral avant-garde jazz. Its origins lay in the Jazz Composers Guild, an organization founded by Bill Dixon which grew out ...

recorded over a period of six months with

Michael Mantler Michael Mantler (born August 10, 1943) is an Austrian avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer of contemporary music. Career: United States Mantler was born in Vienna, Austria. In the early 1960s, he was a student at the Academy of Music and V ...

as composer, leader and producer. Many of the key figures in

avant-garde jazz Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Orig ...

from the time contributed on the album including

Don Cherry Donald Stewart Cherry (born February 5, 1934) is a Canadian former ice hockey player, coach, and television commentator. Cherry played one game in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Boston Bruins, and later coached the team for five se ...

Pharoah Sanders Pharoah Sanders (born Ferrell Lee Sanders; October 13, 1940 – September 24, 2022) was an American jazz saxophonist. Known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of "sheets of sound", San ...

Gato Barbieri Leandro "Gato" Barbieri (November 28, 1932 – April 2, 2016) was an Argentine jazz tenor saxophonist who rose to fame during the free jazz movement in the 1960s and is known for his Latin jazz recordings of the 1970s. His nickname, Gato, is Spa ...

Larry Coryell Larry Coryell (born Lorenz Albert Van DeLinder III; April 2, 1943 – February 19, 2017) was an American jazz guitarist. Early life Larry Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas, United States. He never knew his biological father, a musician. He w ...

Roswell Rudd Roswell Hopkins Rudd Jr. (November 17, 1935 – December 21, 2017) was an American jazz trombonist and composer. Although skilled in a variety of genres of jazz (including Dixieland, which he performed while in college), and other genres of musi ...

, and

Carla Bley Carla Bley (born Lovella May Borg; May 11, 1936) is an American jazz composer, pianist, organist and bandleader. An important figure in the free jazz movement of the 1960s, she is perhaps best known for her jazz opera '' Escalator over the Hill'' ...

. The album's finale features a two-part concerto for

Cecil Taylor Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet. Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex ...

and orchestra. Mantler "updated" the album in 2014 as ''The Jazz Composer's Orchestra Update'' on

ECM Records ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's a ...

. It features the Nouvelle Cuisine Big Band, an orchestra with parallel instrumentation conducted by Christoph Cech and new soloists:

(trumpet), Bjarne Roupé (guitar),

Wolfgang Puschnig Wolfgang Puschnig (born 21 May 1956 in Klagenfurt, Austria) is an Austrian jazz musician (saxophone, flute, bass clarinet) and composer. Biography After his studies of saxophone and flute at the Vienna Conservatory Puschnig was the founding ...

(alto saxophone), Harry Sokal (tenor saxophone),

David Helbock David Helbock (born 28 January 1984 in Koblach) is an Austrian jazz musician. Music education Helbock began playing piano at the age of six. After several years of lessons at the music school Feldkirch with Nora Calvo Smith and at the jazz se ...

(piano), and the radio.string.quartet.vienna.Michael Mantler Music, 2014
/ref>

Reception

Langdon Winner's ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' review stated "This is a record which all rock musicians as well as general audiences should listen to with care. The first JCOA album is a summit meeting on the Mount Olympus of contemporary jazz which deserves wide attention... By any standard of musical excellence it is a masterpiece." Brian Olewnick of

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

stated: "The breadth of this piece, its expansiveness, and its tension between order and chaos is one of the single high-water marks of avant-garde jazz. ''Communications'' is a masterwork in and of itself and laid the basis for stunning work by others in decades hence, notably

Barry Guy Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London) is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras ...

and his London Jazz Composer's Orchestra. It's an essential document for anyone interested in avant jazz and late-20th century creative music."

Track listing

All tracks by

# "Communications #8" – 14:03 # "Communications #9" – 8:14 # "Communications #10" – 13:42 # "Preview" – 3:29 # "Communications #11" (part 1) – 15:32 # "Communications #11" (part 2) – 18:14

Personnel

– conductor, composer, producer *

– cornet, trumpet *

Randy Brecker Randal Edward Brecker (born November 27, 1945) is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock, and R&B. Early life Brecker was born on Nov ...

– flugelhorn * Stephen Furtado – flugelhorn * Lloyd Michels – flugelhorn *

Bob Northern Robert Northern (May 21, 1934 – May 31, 2020), known professionally as Brother Ah, was an American jazz French hornist. Life and career Born in 1934 in Kinston, North Carolina and raised in The Bronx, Northern studied at the Manhattan School ...

– French horn *

Julius Watkins Julius Watkins (October 10, 1921 – April 4, 1977) was an American jazz musician who played French horn. Described by AllMusic as "virtually the father of the jazz French horn", Watkins won the ''Down Beat'' critics poll in 1960 and 1961 for Mi ...

– French horn *

Jimmy Knepper James Minter Knepper (November 22, 1927 – June 14, 2003) was an American jazz trombonist. In addition to his own recordings as leader, Knepper performed and recorded with Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman, Claude Thornhill, Stan Kenton, Benny Goo ...

– trombone *

– trombone * Jack Jeffers – bass trombone * Howard Johnson – tuba * Al Gibbons – soprano saxophone * Steve Lacy – soprano saxophone *

Steve Marcus Steve Marcus (September 18, 1939 – September 25, 2005) was an American jazz saxophonist. Biography Marcus was born in The Bronx, New York, United States. He studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, between 1959 and 19 ...

– soprano saxophone * Bob Donovan – alto saxophone * Gene Hull – alto saxophone *

Jimmy Lyons Jimmy Lyons (December 1, 1931 – May 19, 1986) was an American alto saxophone player. He is best known for his long tenure in the Cecil Taylor Unit. Lyons was the only constant member of the band from the mid-1960s until his death. Taylor neve ...

– alto saxophone *

Frank Wess Frank Wellington Wess (January 4, 1922 – October 30, 2013) was an American jazz saxophonist and flutist. In addition to his extensive solo work, Wess is remembered for his time in Count Basie's band from the early 1950s into the 1960s. Critic ...

– alto saxophone * George Barrow – tenor saxophone *

– tenor saxophone *

Lew Tabackin Lewis Barry Tabackin (born March 26, 1940) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist and flutist. He is married to pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi with whom he has co-led large ensembles since the 1970s. Biography Tabackin started learning flute at age 1 ...

– tenor saxophone * Charles Davis – baritone saxophone *

– piano *

– piano, liner notes *

– guitar *

Kent Carter Kent Carter (born June 14, 1939 in Hanover, New Hampshire) is an American jazz bassist. His father, Alan Carter, founded the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. He is also the grandson of American artist, Rockwell Kent. He worked in Steve Lacy's group, ...

– bass *

Ron Carter Ronald Levin Carter (born May 4, 1937) is an American jazz double bassist. His appearances on 2,221 recording sessions make him the most-recorded jazz bassist in history. He has won three Grammy awards, and is also a cellist who has recorded nu ...

– bass * Bob Cunningham – bass * Richard Davis – bass *

Eddie Gómez Edgar Gómez (born October 4, 1944) is a Puerto Rican jazz double bassist, known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio from 1966 to 1977. Biography Gómez moved with his family from Puerto Rico at a young age to New York, where he was raised. ...

– bass *

Charlie Haden Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking ...

– bass * Reggie Johnson – bass *

Alan Silva Alan Silva (born Alan Lee da Silva; January 22, 1939 in Bermuda) is an American free jazz double bassist and keyboard player. Biography Silva was born a British subject to an Azorean/Portuguese mother, Irene da Silva, and a black Bermudian fat ...

– bass *

Steve Swallow Steve Swallow (born October 4, 1940) is an American jazz bassist and composer, known for his collaborations with Jimmy Giuffre, Gary Burton, and Carla Bley. He was one of the first jazz double bassists to switch entirely to electric bass guitar. ...

– bass *

Reggie Workman Reginald "Reggie" Workman (born June 26, 1937 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American avant-garde jazz and hard bop double bassist, recognized for his work with both John Coltrane and Art Blakey. Career Early in his career, Workman worke ...

– bass *

Andrew Cyrille Andrew Charles Cyrille (born November 10, 1939) is an American avant-garde jazz drummer. Throughout his career, he has performed both as a leader and a sideman in the bands of Walt Dickerson and Cecil Taylor, among others. AllMusic biographe ...

– drums *

Beaver Harris William Godvin "Beaver" Harris (April 20, 1936 – December 22, 1991) was an American jazz drummer who worked extensively with Archie Shepp. Early life Harris was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Coming from an athletic family, he played basebal ...

– drums Production *

Paul Goodman Paul Goodman (1911–1972) was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the arts, civil rights, decen ...

– engineer * Paul Haines – liner notes * Paul McDonough – artwork, cover design * Timothy Marquand – liner notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jazz Composer's Orchestra, The 1968 albums Jazz Composer's Orchestra albums Cecil Taylor albums ECM Records albums Albums produced by Michael Mantler JCOA Records albums