Robert Louis Stevenson noted that, "The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect." The middle-to-late 1950s in jazz were populated with several "good actions," all considered inevitable evolutionary reactions to earlier genre, specifically swing and bebop—the latter the complex and elevated jazz style that had dominated the creative American musical structure the decade before, and, to some degree has done so since. These unfolding styles included hard bop—perhaps the most direct descendant of bebop; modal jazz, with its harmonic reliance on scales rather than chordal structures; and, finally, free jazz, the most violent reaction possible to all of the above. Today, it is easy to say that free jazz occurred as an evolutionary response to the earlier more restrictive forms, because it is easy to write a story around a revolution that has already happened.
Because of his later, and more noteworthy Free Jazz (Atlantic, 1961), alto saxophonist and erstwhile trumpeter Ornette Coleman is a sensible starting point for the latter and most controversial response to the house that alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie built. But Coleman's free jazz view was not revealed fully formed, but rather as a subtler development that initially retained the trappings of bebop while incorporating cross-sections of hard bop, slowing reforming itself over the five recordings preceding Free Jazz.
Something Else!!!! conservatively employed the standard bebop quintet (saxophone and trumpet plus rhythm section). This was (appropriately, in retrospect) the only time Coleman used this format. Hints to the future tectonic shifts were expressed through using this familiar ensemble configuration as well as the already established harmonic architecture of playing over chord changes. So, the date looks perfectly ordinary in approach. Closer inspection reveals Something Else!!!! altogether.
The opening "Invisible" bears a bebop structure into which Coleman has fitted a note and rhythm assembly that must have sounded as jarring and wrong, at the time, as pianist and composer Thelonious Monk did with his groundbreaking compositions and recordings of the late-1940s. In "Invisible," Coleman employs a fractured head, directly recalling Monk, with a wandering solo section. Integral to the sound is Billy Higgins' precise drumming, punctuating every crag and furrow of Coleman's thought.
Coleman and pianist Walter Morris extrapolate this approach of "square peg—round hole" in the soloing of the more straight forward pieces like "The Blessing" and "Jayne." Their solos are angular and often take a vertical trajectory to that expressed in the themes. Coleman accomplishes these advances while still retaining a discreet momentum and swing. Morris shares in the company of Coleman what pianist Horace Silver shared with trumpeter Miles Davis on Walkin' (Prestige, 1954), a shared blues conception, albeit in separate quantum dimensions. Cornetist Don Cherry serves as a perfect pinched foil to Miles Davis' middle register in Davis' bands.
Never far from the blues, Coleman stretches his chops on "When Will The Blues Leave" (the closest he comes to Charlie Parker soloing at half speed) and the manifold "The Sphinx" (beyond Parker). Coleman's band here could be likened to an antithesis of and outgrowth from Parker's famous quintet with Miles Davis, pianist Duke Jordan, bassist Tommy Potter and drummer Max Roach. Something Else!!!! was Coleman's necessary jumping off-point for something different, if not ultimately novel. While the groundwork for musical revolution is laid, Coleman proceeds slowly, introducing his ideas with care.
Michael Bailey (allaboutjazz)
This 1958 debut recording by the Ornette Coleman Quintet, which featured Coleman on his trademark white plastic alto, Don Cherry on trumpet, Billy Higgins on drums, Walter Norris on piano, and Don Payne on bass, shook up the jazz world -- particularly those musicians and critics who had entered the hard bop era with such verve and were busy using the blues as a way of creating vast solo spaces inside tight and short melody lines. Something Else!!!! is anathema to that entire idea, and must have sounded like it came from outer space at the time. First, Coleman's interest was in pitch, not "being in tune." His use of pitch could take him all over -- and outside of -- a composition, as it does on "Invisible," which begins in D flat. The intervals are standard, but the melodic component of the tune -- despite its hard bop tempo -- is, for the most part, free. But what is most compelling is evident in abundance here and on the next two tunes, "The Blessing" and "Jayne": a revitalization of the blues as it expressed itself in jazz. Coleman refurbished the blues framework, threaded it through his jazz without getting rid of its folk-like, simplistic milieu. In other words, the groove Coleman was getting here was a people's groove that only confounded intellectuals at the time. Coleman restored blues to their "classic" beginnings in African music and unhooked their harmonies. Whether the key was D flat, A, G, whatever, Coleman revisited the 17- and 25-bar blues. There are normal signatures, however, such as "Chippie" in F and in eight-bar form, and "The Disguise" is in D, but in a strange 13-bar form where the first and the last change places, altering the talking-like voice inherent in the melodic line. But the most important thing about Something Else! was that, in its angular, almost totally oppositional way, it swung and still does; like a finger-poppin' daddy on a Saturday night, this record swings from the rafters of the human heart with the most unusually gifted, emotional, and lyrical line since Bill Evans first hit the scene. - Thom Jurek (AllMusic)
Tracks
01 - Invisible
02 - The Blessing
03 - Jayne
04 - Chippie
05 - The Disguise
06 - Angel Voice
07 - Alpha
08 - When Will The Blues Leave?
09 - The Sphinx
ORNETTE COLEMAN alto saxophone
DON PAYNE bass
BILLY HIGGINS drums
WALTER NORRIS piano
DON CHERRY trumpet
All music composed by Ornette Coleman
Recorded February 10 & 22, March 24, 1958 at Contemporary's studio in Los Angeles
Contemporary OJCD-163-2