Ornette Coleman - Beauty Is A Rare Thing: The Complete Atlantic Recordings (MP3) (6 CDs Set) - 1993
Label: Atlantic, Rhino | 6CD | MP3 320 kbps | 957 MB
Genre: Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz, Free Jazz, Saxophone

BEAUTY IS A RARE THING was nominated for Best Album Notes in the 37th Annual Grammy Awards.

BEAUTY IS A RARE THING contains Ornette Coleman's entire surviving recorded output for the Atlantic label from 1959-1961 (a number of other sessions were recorded, but they were destroyed, along with countless other priceless Atlantic masters, in their infamous warehouse fire of the mid-1970s.) BEAUTY IS A RARE THING features over seven hours of music, six previously unreleased tracks, and contains a booklet of photos, a discography and contemporary commentaries by Ornette Coleman and a host of supporters and detractors.

This epic 6-CD set chronicles the joy and controversy that distinguished alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman's coming out party on Atlantic Records. Coleman was a transplanted Texan, a jazzman steeped in the blues, who struggled throughout the '50s on the Los Angeles scene just to find people to play with--let alone to accept his very personal sense of pitch and form. A prodigious composer, Coleman had accumulated hundreds of tunes by the time he made his first two albums for Contemporary, and began recording for Atlantic in 1959 with THE SHAPE OF JAZZ TO COME.

As a result, this music seems suspended in time and space between epochs: casting fond backwards glances at breakthroughs of bebop ("Chronology," "Congeniality," and "Blues Connotation"), even as it foretold a more intuitive style of expression in which soloists were not strictly bound to chord changes and metric time (the symphonic "Free," the melancholy title tune and the gonzo collective polyphony of his bluesy double quartet on "Free Jazz"). Still, it is phenomenal how focused is the ensemble playing, and how endlessly melodic are the themes and variations.

From his classic quartets, through his third stream "classic" work with John Lewis and Gunther Schuller, the temper of the times surrounding Coleman's maiden voyage are beautifully preserved in the enclosed booklet. BEAUTY IS A RARE THING is a perfect introduction to Coleman and trumpeter Don Cherry's hollering, skittering style of vocalized phrasing, and the telepathic responses of bassist Charlie Haden, Scott LaFaro and Jimmy Garrison alone are worth the price of the package. Driven along by the free-floating accents of texturalist Billy Higgins or the rocking second line polyrhythms of Ed Blackwell, this is some of the hardest swinging, most joyous music in the history of jazz.

Personnel: Ornette Coleman (alto & tenor saxophones), Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet), Don Cherry (pocket trumpet, cornet), Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Robert DiDomenica (flute), The Contemporary String Quartet (strings), Eddie Costa (vibraphone), Bill Evans (piano), Jim Hall (guitar), Charlie Haden, Scott LaFaro, Jimmy Garrison, Alvin Brehm, George Duvivier (acoustic bass), Billy Higgins, Ed Blackwell, Sticks Evans (drums).

Tracklist:

CD1
01. Focus on Sanity
02. Chronology
03. Peace
04. Congeniality
05. Lonely Woman
06. Monk and the Nun
07. Just For You
08. Eventually
09. Una Muy Bonita
10. Bird Food
11. Change of the Century
12. Music Always

CD2
01. The Face of the Bass
02. Forerunner
03. Free
04. The Circle With a Hole in the Middle
05. Ramblin'
06. Little Symphony
07. The Tribes of New York - (previously unreleased)
08. Kaleidoscope
09. Rise and Shine - (previously unreleased)
10. Mr. And Mrs. People - (previously unreleased)
11. Blues Connotation
12. I Heard It Over the Radio - (previously unreleased)

CD3
01. P.S. Unless One Has (Blues Connotation No. 2)
02. Revolving Doors - (previously unreleased)
03. Brings Goodness
04. Joy of a Toy
05. To Us
06. Humpty Dumpty
07. The Fifth of Beethoven
08. Motive For Its Use
09. Moon Inhabitants
10. The Legend of BeBop
11. Some Other
12. Embraceable You
13. All

CD4
01. Folk Tale
02. Poise
03. Beauty Is a Rare Thing
04. First Take
05. Free Jazz

CD5
01. Proof Readers - (previously unreleased)
02. W.R.U.
03. Check Up
04. T. & T.
05. C. & D.
06. R.P.D.D.
07. The Alchemy of Scott LaFaro

CD6
01. Eos
02. Enfant
03. Ecars
04. Cross Breeding
05. Harlem's Manhattan
06. Mapa
07. Abstraction
08. Variants on a Theme of Thelonius Monk (Criss-Cross)

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