Skies of America

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Skies of America
Ornette Coleman studio album

Publication
(s)

1972

Label (s) Columbia

Format (s)

LP, CD (Japan)

Genre (s)

Crossover , jazz

running time

41:13

occupation
  • Ornette Coleman: Alto saxophone (only [11], [15], [16], [17], [18], [20])

production

Paul Myers

Studio (s)

Abbey Road Studios , London

chronology
Broken Shadows
(1971) 		Skies of America Dancing in Your Head
(1976)

Skies of America is a large orchestra album by jazz musician and composer Ornette Coleman , which was created in 1972.

History of origin

Coleman, who was involved in third-stream experiments by Gunther Schuller in the early 1960s , had introduced himself to the public as a composer of contemporary chamber music since 1962 and presented this in several albums. In May 1967 he had performed the "Inventions of Symphonic Poems", supported by a Guggenheim grant , but not documented on record. For another symphonic work, the Sun Suite of San Francisco , which was completed in 1968, he did not find the opportunity to perform. In the early 1970s he was also involved in the string arrangements for Alice Coltrane's album Universal Consciousness . It was only through his contract with the major Columbia label, which he had had since 1971, that he was able to record a large-format “ Concerto grosso ” for symphony orchestra and jazz combo , which “was only feasible with the resources of a large media company”.

In the fall of 1971 Coleman had completed the composition of Skies of America and went on a European tour with his quartet, which he also used to search for conductors and orchestras with whom he could perform the work. He struck gold in London.

After only two rehearsals with the London Symphony Orchestra , the composition was recorded in London from April 17th to 20th, 1972. Allegedly some members of the orchestra boycotted the recording. Due to the regulations of the British Musicians' Union, it also turned out to be impossible that the composition could be recorded as planned with the Coleman quartet. The piece could "only be recorded in a modified version with Coleman as the sole soloist"; thus the planned character of a “Concerto grosso” was destroyed. The union also prevented "the planned premiere of the play in London". The world premiere took place at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 4, 1972 with Coleman's Quartet and the American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leon Thompson; there the piece lasted 54 minutes.

Columbia insisted that the piece be published by the jazz department; In addition, the piece was divided into different "songs" according to the motif , so that it could be played more easily in radio broadcasts. Ultimately, however, Skies of America acquired a character similar to that of a suite-like jazz composition. According to Coleman, the record company has tried not to make it look like a symphony, also assuming racist reasons. The resulting "songs" were z. Sometimes for less than a minute. Two of these "songs" were eventually left out, so that only part of the entire composition was released on record. The release of the album was therefore not authorized by Coleman.

Structure of the composition

As Coleman emphasizes in his liner notes , the overall quite bright orchestral sound has a programmatic background: “The voices of the orchestra are written in a very bright position because I wanted the orchestra to have a very clear image of the earth and sky and a feeling of Night, stars and daylight generated. "

In the piece, dense, block-like ensemble movements stand out, which are rhythmically different, but are self-contained and layered. The parallel movement of the voices in constant note values ​​is typical of Coleman's "harmonic" approach (which he first names as such in the liner notes).

Only at the end of the first (on LP) side of the record does Coleman join the orchestra. He can only be heard in a total of seven of the 21 "songs" with the symphony orchestra and "strives for simple, clear play". The sound of the orchestra is flanked by two percussionists positioned on the sides: in the left channel a timpanist who occasionally also plays tom-toms ; Jazz drums are operated in the right channel . "Your playing seems to be controlled less by written guidelines than that of the wind instruments and strings."

Some of the motifs are already known from Coleman's earlier albums: the subject of the third “Song” part as “School Work” (later “ Dancing in Your Head ”), the subject of the seventh part as “Forgotten Songs” and the subject of the tenth songs as "Street Woman"; the theme of the eighth part is based on "All My Life". “The New Anthem” takes up motifs from the American national anthem The Star-Spangled Banner , but turns them “subversively”.

Reviews

Bob Palmer , who had played with Coleman himself, emphasized in his review for Rolling Stone that Coleman succeeded with the help of his Harmolodics , "making the London Symphony Orchestra an extension of his unique sensibility". Coleman's modulations have "a fresh, sometimes abrupt sound that appears to be a result of the subordination of the chordal underpinning on which most of the music [on the album] is based to the movement of the melody." Most impressive of Skies of America was " to be." emotional weight. The blues quality of a large part of jazz music can hardly be translated into symphonic writing, but Coleman has long been known as a player with a blues feel ... and he uses certain intervals in Skies that have 'a human quality', intervals, which he originally discovered on his saxophone. This music will leave few listeners unmoved, and it leaves room for a variety of personal responses to the negative and positive qualities of life under the American sky. "

Critic John Rockwell also emphasizes the calm chords of the work and thus the correspondence to the American folk symphonies; he points to similarities to Charles Ives . According to Coleman's biographer Peter Niklas Wilson , Skies of America is “Coleman's most weighty symphonic work”. Thom Jurek from Allmusic rated the work four out of five stars and emphasized that it is still “worthwhile and dangerous music”.

Track list

  1. Skies of America - 2:49
  2. Native Americans - 1:10
  3. The Good Life - 1:33
  4. Birthdays and Funerals - 3:13
  5. Dreams - 0:51
  6. Sounds of Sculpture - 1:20
  7. Holiday for Heroes - 1:10
  8. All of My Life - 3:08
  9. Dancers - 1:17
  10. The Soul within Woman - 0:47
  11. The Artists in America - 3:54
  12. The New Anthem - 0:31
  13. Place in Space - 2:44
  14. Foreigner in a Free Land - 1:19
  15. Silver Screen - 1:10
  16. Poetry - 1:15
  17. The Men Who Live in the White House - 2:48
  18. Love Life - 4:34
  19. The Military - 0:32
  20. Jam Session - 0:39
  21. Sunday in America - 4:29

literature

  • John Litweiler: Ornette Coleman. A Harmolodic Life Morrow & Cie, New York 1992
  • Peter Niklas Wilson : Ornette Coleman. His life, his music, his records Oreos, Schaftlach 1989

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ As he himself emphasized in interviews, he was initially motivated by his work as a classically oriented composer in order to obtain a better status as a “composer” instead of a “popular artist” (with significantly higher royalties) in the collecting society ASCAP . See PN Wilson Ornette Coleman , p. 61
  2. ↑ a b c d e P. N. Wilson Ornette Coleman , p. 156
  3. ↑ The quartet included Dewey Redman and Ed Blackwell . Instead of Charlie Haden , who stayed with his wife Ruth before the birth of his triplets, Barre Phillips was hired as bassist for the first concerts . See J. Litweiler Ornette Coleman , p. 141
  4. ↑ On previous occasions he had not found any classical musicians who had the ability to “play certain passages.” See J. Litweiler Ornette Coleman , p. 144
  5. ↑ a b See J. Litweiler Ornette Coleman , p. 145
  6. ↑ According to Richard Cook & Brian Morton ( The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings London 2006, 8th edition, p. 259) musicians intentionally played wrong notes because they considered the score to be “unplayable”.
  7. ↑ J. Litweiler Ornette Coleman , S. 147
  8. ↑ "They were trying from keep it from having the image of a symphony. I realize now that it was another social-racial problem. " n.J. Litweiler Ornette Coleman , p. 144
  9. ↑ a b R. Cook & B. Morton, Penguin Guide , p. 259
  10. ↑ cit. n. PN Wilson Ornette Coleman , p. 157
  11. ^ A b P. N. Wilson Ornette Coleman , p. 157
  12. ↑ a b review (Rolling Stone, 1972)
  13. ↑ cf. J. Litweiler Ornette Coleman , p. 147

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