Featuring Coleman’s six studio albums from 1959 to 1961.
Jazz heads, get your wallets ready. Late alto saxophonist and conceptual/compositional innovator Ornette Coleman will be subject to the reissue treatment in May.
Courtesy of Rhino Records, the six studio albums that Coleman released between 1959 and 1961 during his tenure with Atlantic Records will be reissued on vinyl and included in a box set alongside three compilation albums – of which one comprises outtakes from the Atlantic period recording sessions – and the 1993 release The Ornette Coleman Legacy which sees its vinyl debut. Additionally, the box set will include rare pictures taken by jazz photographer Lee Friedlander. Read further details on the release here.
Coleman is arguably best known for the innovative music released during his time with Atlantic Records, which includes 1959’s The Shape Of Jazz To Come and 1960’s Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation, the record that gave an entire genre its name. Coleman is largely considered to have pioneered many of the typical features of free jazz, with one of the most notable being his rejection of pre-written chord changes, believing that instead freely improvised melodic lines should serve as the basis for harmonic progression in his compositions.
Ornette Coleman: the Atlantic Years releases on May 11th via Rhino Records.
Words by Sam Wilkinson.
Fruit and Grooves Collective 