Ornette Coleman & Collin Walcott [Updated 10/12/11]

It just occurred to me that I have not updated this blaaaggh in a month! Here are some oldies that I've had in the can for a while, but I haven't shared them before.

Ornette Coleman - Macho Woman

This one was recorded by Ornette's Prime Time quintet, and released in 1978 on Body Meta. I will probably be sharing some more tunes from this album from time to time.

Collin Walcott - Margueritte

[Chart updated 10/12/11. Please make sure you download the new version to replace the old.]

This is a beautiful tune, the opening track on Walcott's first album Cloud Dance. I remember reading somewhere (maybe the liner notes??) that Margueritte was the name of Walcott's wife, but I could be just completely making that up.

A different version of this tune was recorded on Oregon's 1974 album Winter Light. I'll post that in the future.

The tune is one of two quartet tunes on the album, with Jack DeJohnette playing drums. I posted the other one at an earlier time; click the "Collin Walcott" label below to find it. The rest of the album consists of duos and trios with Dave Holland and John Abercrombie. This is a really good, very accessible 70's jazz album that I can't recommend highly enough.

I've got a pretty busy July but hopefully I'll get around to doing some serious transcribing at some point. I noticed a couple requests for "Splash", which is definitely encouraging. I'll give it a try soon.

On a side note: readers of this blog might be interested in a series I've been working on over at my other blog. This is a series of the earliest recorded examples of free improvisation that I've been able to find, with the point of demonstrating the wide variety of approaches that have led to it.

Ornette & Collin Walcott

Ornette Coleman - Word From Bird

A short bop head from Ornette Coleman. (Updated 5/20/11)

Appears on:

Ornette Coleman - "In All Languages"
Pat Metheny / Ornette Coleman - "Song X [20th Anniversary Edition]"

Collin Walcott - Cloud Dance

The final track off of Walcott's debut album on ECM Records, also called Cloud Dance. The album features Jack DeJohnette, John Abercrombie and Dave Holland. Two tracks have the full quartet; the rest are duos or trios. The whole album is excellent.

Walcott was a marginal, but important figure on the jazz and improvised music scene. He started out in the Paul Winter Consort, a band that got some commercial and critical acclaim in the late 60's and early 70's. They played adaptations of folk melodies from foreign countries, worked with ethnic instruments, and experimented with free improvisation. Four members, Ralph Towner, Glenn Moore, Paul McCandless, and Walcott, went on to form Oregon, which eclipsed the fame and influence of the Consort. Walcott played sitar and tabla in the band, in addition to many other instruments.

In the late 70's and early 80's, Walcott worked with Don Cherry and Nana Vasconcelos in a trio called Codona, which released three albums on ECM. In addition to "Cloud Dance", he had another album on ECM called "Grazing Dreams" with Cherry, Abercrombie, Dom Um Romao, and Palle Danielsson. He also worked with Meredith Monk, David Darling (who was also a member of the Consort), and others. He was killed in an automobile accident in Germany in 1984, while on tour with Oregon. Check out his work, he was an important and talented artist.