Ornette Coleman’s compositional legacy stretches from grungy thrash-metal funk to rarely performed symphonic work. But the late composer and saxophonist is best known for the small-group, free-form modernism joyously celebrated here by alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón’s one-off saxes-and-rhythm quartet.
The session, recorded at Basel’s Bird’s Eye jazz club in May 2019 and released to mark what would have been Coleman’s 91st birthday, draws on the musician’s acoustic legacy. The oldest composition, 1959’s “Giggin’”, comes from Coleman’s first piano-free recording and the most recent from the Science Fiction sessions he recorded for Columbia in 1971.
Zenón’s musicians capture the freewheeling spirit and innate sense of form of Coleman’s early years from the outset. Cuban tenor saxophonist Ariel Bringuez reprises the grit and blues-laced phrasing that Coleman delivered on the Atlantic album Ornette on Tenor. Argentine bassist Demian Cabaud and Catalan drummer Jordi Rossy re-enact the rhythm sections Coleman used in his early-years prime. Energy levels are high, the emotional palette vivid, and tightly argued themes remind us that Coleman wrote great tunes.
But it is alto saxophonist leader Miguel Zenón, best known for connecting jazz to his Puerto Rican roots, who adds an original twist. Zenón first encountered Coleman’s music in Puerto Rico while still in his teens, and has, according to album notes, been hooked ever since. Here, his schooled, focused tone delivers emotional bite and his rhythmic fluency melodic flow.
The programme opens with the looping lines and symphonic hints of “The Tribes of New York” and follows the twin-sax joust of “Free” with the elegiac “Law Years”, a feature for bass. The boppish “Giggin’” alternates sweet harmonies with unison thrust, “Broken Shadows” tugs the heart and the two saxophonists romp and intertwine on the up-tempo “Dee Dee”.
The album ends with the bouncy “Toy Dance” twinned with the visceral cry of “Street Woman”, a rumble of drums bringing the album to a clarion-call high.
★★★★☆
‘Law Years: The Music of Ornette Coleman’ is released by Miel Music
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March 26, 2021 at 01:00PM
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Miguel Zenón’s Law Years: The Music of Ornette Coleman — an original homage - Financial Times
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