Ornette Coleman assembled To Whom Who Keeps A Record in 1975 for release in Japan only. He sequenced this batch of unused compositions and alternate takes to spell out a message via track list: “music always brings goodness to us all, unless one has some other motive for its use.” I am firmly of the belief that music has the power to bring goodness, but am intrigued by Coleman’s caveat. Does he ever have some other motive for it use? Beyond pure goodness and badness, what can music pipe into our brains, sideways, disguised, or in some fractured, sub-sensory manner?
The performances on To Whom Who Keeps A Record represent a visionary improviser and outsider composer’s slender ensemble at its peak power: Coleman on alto, Don Cherry on trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass; Billy Higgins played drums at the October ’59 session in Hollywood, then Ed Blackwell takes over by the July ’60 sessions. The tracks are fantastic, and while they appear on the Atlantic masters compilation Beauty Is A Rare Thing, they have never been available on vinyl outside of Japan until this present reissue by the tastefully curated SF reissue label, Superior Viaduct. So many of Coleman’s albums have a futurist presentation, and the nature of his music making often seems antithetical to keeping a record at all. The two-tiered reissue at play here is curious… Imagine Ornette in1975, revisiting a distant musical identity from his past (if only briefly to work on a foreign release) and performing some self-curating with 15 years of hindsight.
Coleman prepped this album while working on Dancing In Your Head, the unprecedented, proto-fusion, Moroccan-influenced LP that was the first to feature Coleman’s electric band, doubled down on guitars played be Charles Ellerbee & Bern Nix. It sounds a galaxy away from the “classic quartet” Atlantic sessions that yielded the material on To Whom Who Keeps A Record, which was cut while Coleman was playing six nights a week at the Five Spot, and his recently pioneered “free jazz” style was shocking and shaping the New York jazz scene. By 1975, the influence of his innovative spirit was obvious, but earlier in Coleman’s recording career, many found his approach to be novelty or worse. Miles Davis famously criticized “Hell, just listen to what he writes and how he plays. If you’re talking psychologically, the man’s all screwed up inside.” For the record, take a listen to how he writes & plays with “P.S. Unless One Has (Blues Connotation No.2).” words / a spoto
excellent stuff. keep the jazz coming!!
I have a wide variety of Coleman’s music, but this might be the best tune I’ve heard yet. Haden and Blackwell really are rocking, and the horns sound fantastic. (Only got to see Ornette once, but it was memorable.)