''Something Else!!!!'' (subtitled ''The Music of Ornette Coleman'') is the debut album by

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

Ornette Coleman Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Ja ...

. It was released by

Contemporary Records Contemporary Records was a jazz record company and label founded by Lester Koenig in Los Angeles in 1951. Contemporary produced music from a variety of jazz styles and players. West Coast players Contemporary became identified with a style of ja ...

in September 1958. According to

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

, the album "shook up the jazz world", revitalizing the union of

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

and jazz and restoring "blues to their 'classic' beginnings in

African music The continent of Africa is vast and its music is diverse, with different regions and nations having many distinct musical traditions. African music includes the genres like makwaya, highlife, mbube, township music, jùjú, fuji, jaiva ...

". It is unusual in Coleman's output in that it features a conventional

bebop Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early to mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerou ...

quintet instrumentation (saxophone, cornet, piano, bass and drums); after this album, Coleman would omit the piano, creating a starker and more fluid sound.

History

While working as an

elevator operator An elevator operator (North American English), liftman (in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English, usually lift attendant), or lift girl (in British English), is a person specifically employed to operate a manually operat ...

in a

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, Ornette assembled a group of musicians—teenaged

cornet The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. There is also a soprano cor ...

player Don Cherry,

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

player

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 fifty years. Haden helped to revolutionize the harmonic concept of bass playin ...

, and drummers Ed Blackwell and

Billy Higgins Billy Higgins (October 11, 1936 – May 3, 2001) was an American jazz drummer. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop. Biography Higgins was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. Higgins played on Ornette Coleman's first records, be ...

—with whom he could explore his unusual jazz compositions.Ornette Coleman 3 Bass Quintet
. Accessed September 28, 2007. Coleman was introduced to

music producer A record producer or music producer is a music creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions; ensu ...

Lester Koenig of Contemporary Records by a

bassist friend of Cherry's, Red Mitchell, who thought Koenig might be interested in purchasing Coleman's songs. When other musicians found the tunes too challenging, Coleman was invited to perform the compositions himself.

Critical opinion

Though often controversial at the time, music from Coleman's first album is now generally well received. ''

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

'' commented admiringly on the composer's "genuinely original voice" and "freakishly structured tunes".

All About Jazz ''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...

reviewer John Barrett Jr. cautions that, though dissonant, this album is not the first of the

free jazz Free jazz, or free form in the early to mid-1970s, is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventi ...

movement with which Coleman is so associated. Nevertheless, in 2007, All About Jazz credited the album with introducing "a new era in jazz", transforming the genre by demonstrating a style of music "freed from the prevailing conventions of harmony, rhythm and melody". Pianist Ethan Iverson has written at length about this album and other recordings from Coleman's early period. His argument is that on his early albums Coleman's attempts to break free of chords and chorus-structures are hampered by sidemen who are unwilling to follow his cue.

Release history

Originally released under the

Contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

imprint in mono and then later (either in 1959 or 1960) issued with a different cover photo and in stereo. The stereo remix of the album was re-released in 1992 on LP,

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of hol ...

and

compact cassette The Compact Cassette, also commonly called a cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens and his team at the Dutch company ...

in collaboration between Contemporary and OJC.

Track listing

''All tracks composed by Ornette Coleman.'' #"Invisible" – 4:11 #"The Blessing" – 4:45 #"Jayne" – 7:17 #"Chippie" – 5:37 #"The Disguise" – 2:46 #"Angel Voice" – 4:19 #"Alpha" – 4:09 #"When Will the Blues Leave?" – 4:58 #"The Sphinx" – 4:13

Personnel

–

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgians, Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in the key of E♭ ( ...

* Don Cherry –

* Walter Norris –

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

* Don Payne –

–

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

* Lester Koenig – producer *Roy DuNann – engineer *

Nat Hentoff Nathan Irving Hentoff (June 10, 1925 – January 7, 2017) was an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media. Hentoff was a columnist for ''The Village Voice'' from 1958 to 2009. F ...

– liner notes

References

{{Authority control 1958 debut albums Ornette Coleman albums Contemporary Records albums