LENNIE TRISTANO QUARTET - Live At The Confucius Restaurant 1955 (2007) 2CD | Unofficial Release | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Tracklist 1 :
1    Sweet And Lovely 5:28
Written-By – Arnheim, Tobias, Lemare
2    Background Music 6:03
Written-By – Warne Marsh
3    If I Had You 6:31
Written By – Campbell
Written-By – Connelly, Shapiro
4    317 E 32nd 7:01
Written-By – Lennie Tristano
5    These Foolish Things 5:42
Written-By – Link, Marvell, Strachey
6    'S Wonderful 5:02
Written-By – George & Ira Gershwin
7    You Go To My Head 5:28
Written-By – Gillespie, Coots
8    All The Things You Are 6:17
Written-By – Kern, Hammerstein
9    Lennie-Bird 6:09
Written-By – Lennie Tristano
10    My Melancholy Baby 8:10
Written-By – Burnett, Norton
Tracklist 2 :
1    April 8:14
Written-By – Lennie Tristano
2    Pennies In Minor 6:17
Written-By – Lennie Tristano
3    Mean To Me 7:42
Written-By – Ahlert, Turk
4    Confucius Blues 6:44
Written-By – Lennie Tristano
5    A Ghost Of A Chance 6:08
Written-By – Crosby, Washington, Young
6    Whispering 4:17
Written-By – Schonberger, Coburn, Rose
7    There Will Never Be Another You 7:34
Written-By – Warren, Gordon
8    Donna Lee 6:35
Written-By – Charlie Parker
9    East Thirty Second 4:32
Written-By – Lennie Tristano
10    Line Up 3:33
Written-By – Lennie Tristano
11    Turkish Mambo 3:40
Written-By – Lennie Tristano
12    Requiem 4:53
Written-By – Lennie Tristano
Credits :
Alto Saxophone – Lee Konitz
Bass – Gene Ramey, Peter Ind (tracks: 2-9 to 2-12)
Drums – Art Taylor, Jeff Morton (tracks: 2-9 to 2-12)
Piano – Lennie Tristano
Notas.
Recorded live at the Sing Song Room, Confucius Restaurant, New York City, June 11, 1955.
2-9 to 2-12 recorded at Tristano's home studio, New York City, 1954-55.
Tracks 2-9 to 2-12 previously unissued.

ORNETTE COLEMAN QUARTET - The Love Revolution 'Complete 1968 Italian Tour' (2005) 2CD | Unofficial Release | FLAC (tracks), lossless

Disc two of this two-CD set chronicling Ornette Coleman's two bass quartet tour of Italy in 1968 has been fairly available to fans before as Live in Milano, 1968. The first disc of 2006's Complete 1968 Italian Tour is 45 minutes of unheard prime Coleman with David Izenzon, Charlie Haden, and Ed Blackwell from Rome, where Coleman mixes the reedy shenai and trumpet in with his trademark alto. The sound quality is not the greatest -- these are audience recordings, not board tapes -- but not that bad, either, given those parameters. No pieces are duplicated and Coleman is quite animated and expansive in his playing -- the two-bass interplay sends his alto soaring and stretching out, especially on the Milan disc. The Rome concert is more compact, with four pieces clocking in between 10-13 minutes, and opens with a version of "Lonely Woman" that goes in a far more buoyant and upbeat direction than usual. The sound reduces Haden to a fairly subliminal level here, swallowed up by Izenzon's bowing and Blackwell being, well, Blackwell: his own African-New-Orleans-chop-funk-swing-thing-masterful self.

The midtempo "Monsieur le Prince" jumps into a strong Haden walking foundation, with Izenzon filling the middle arco-style, giving Coleman a broad band connection to bounce around and off rhythmically. Izenzon's bass drops in and out, a very effective sonic guerilla element (or the "X factor") employing radical low string sounds at times. "Forgotten Children" pits Coleman playing bluesy trumpet against the Izenzon arco; shades of Albert Ayler are evident in the melody here and Coleman displays a more impressive command of this secondary instrument than he sometimes does. Be it open bell or muted, he isn't missing or fracturing notes and is conveying deep feeling. When Blackwell lays out later, the exchange between the two bassists nears the chamber zone, before an abrupt reentry by the full quartet is marked by supercharged walking from Haden and Blackwell powerhousing through a brief solo. It is (as usual) impossible to predict where the music may be heading, all part and parcel of Coleman's endless capacity for surprise.

Blackwell shows off his New Orleans roots on "Buddah Blues," setting up a powerful, physical undercurrent with Haden that leaves Izenzon a bit nonplussed concerning how to fit in. The piece quickly veers off towards freer territory with Haden coming through much stronger during this track supporting Coleman's shenai -- all reedy wails, trills, slurs and smears, and bumblebee flurries. "Tutti" is the "Dancing in Your Head" theme five years before it officially took on that name, but the echo-y room in Milan renders Izenzon hard to make out, and Haden fares even worse. But it hardly matters because Coleman and Blackwell are simply flying, and an unusual honking section closing Coleman's solo gets a big crowd response. "Three Wisemen and a Saint" finds Coleman again going for more flurries, honks, and wails than is customary for him. It's enough to make you wonder if something set him off that night (for better or worse) because his playing sounds agitated and notes are just pouring out of the alto. He finally lets more space in on the lyrical ballad "New York," Izenzon supporting with a yearning undertone to the melody. The piece is a reflective summing up, with some detail in phrasing or pure emotion invariably sustaining interest just when you think he's gone back to the central motif once too often.

Coleman's regular group for the prior few years used the same two-bass formation. With Haden, Izenzon, and Blackwell here, though, the arco bass tones seem to offer musical possibilities that inspire Coleman to improvise at great lengths and the music here is hard to argue with despite the sound shortcomings. Coleman wasn't very far removed from his self-imposed mid-'60s creative hiatus here, and Complete 1968 Italian Tour is a worthy addition to the catalog of European concert recordings documenting this era, sound quality and all. Fussy or audiophile ears are hereby forewarned, though. Don Snowden  
Tracklist :
1-1    Lonely Woman    10:32
1-2    Monsieur Le Prince    9:48
1-3    Forgotten Children    11:08
1-4    Buddha Blues    13:12
2-1    Tutti    23:05
2-2    Three Wisemen And The Saint    13:48
2-3    New York    18:48
Credits :
Alto Saxophone, Composed By – Ornette Coleman
Bass – Charlie Haden, David Izenzon
Drums – Ed Blackwell
Trumpet, Shenai – Ornette Coleman (pistas: 1-1 to 1-4)

ORNETTE COLEMAN QUINTET - Complete Live at The Hillcrest Club (1958-2007) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Ornette Coleman's epic 1959 LPs The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century were pivot points in modern post-bop jazz and early creative music. This recording is a prelude to those epics, a live two-night engagement in October of 1958 at the Hillcrest Club in Los Angeles. The Coleman quintet, with trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Billy Higgins, plus a then-young pianist Paul Bley, sets up that new shape of jazz. This eight-selection set features three of Coleman's signature originals, two standards, and three lesser-known, fairly rare pieces that Coleman did at the time. The program kicks off with Charlie Parker's "Klactoveedsedstene," an on-fire free bopper where Coleman's alto sax in tandem with Cherry reflects a quest for cleanliness and innocent, alive freshness, well transferred, balanced, and reproduced digitally. Whoever tagged this music unlistenable needs to revisit the symbiosis of the front-line horns present. Three of Coleman's all-time immortal compositions on call are the relaxed and easily swung harmolodic dream "The Blessing" accented by Ornette's piquant alto, the call-and-response-laden "When Will the Blues Leave?," and the post-bop evergreen "Ramblin'." The stairstep ascending and descending melody for "Free" also remains arresting, taking no prisoners. It's interesting how alleged rebel Coleman pays reverence to two ballad standards, Roy Eldridge's pensive "I Remember Harlem" and Cherry's trumpet-led "How Deep Is the Ocean?" Closing is the frantic, scattershot two-minute improvisation "Crossroads." A major fault of this recording is Bley's piano, which is unfortunately so far down in the mix that it is virtually inaudible. One really has to strain, even with headphones, to hear the true depth of Bley's clearly brilliant, probing, but muffled and muted playing. There's no doubt as to the historical and musical significance of this date, and it belongs in the collection of any follower of Coleman, despite the one production flaw. Michael G. Nastos  
Tracklist :
1    Klactoveedsestene 12:07
Written-By – Charlie Parker
2    I Remember Harlem 3:52
Written-By – Roy Eldridge
3    The Blessing    9:38
Written-By – Ornette Coleman
4    Free    5:39
Written-By – Ornette Coleman
5    When Will The Blues Leave?    14:29
Written-By – Ornette Coleman
6    How Deep Is The Ocean? 4:35
Written-By – Irving Berlin
7    Ramblin'    14:06
Written-By – Ornette Coleman
8    Crossroads    1:54
Written-By – Ornette Coleman
Credits :
Alto Saxophone – Ornette Coleman
Bass – Charlie Haden
Drums – Billy Higgins
Piano – Paul Bley
Trumpet – Don Cherry

ORNETTE COLEMAN - The Paris Concerts 1965-1966 (2007) Unofficial Release | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Tracklist :
1    Sadness 3'19
2    Lonely Woman 11'42
3    Falling Stars 14'39
4    Clergyman's Dream 12'16
5    Reminiscence (Originally Untitled Tune) 7'47
6    Doughnut (First Issued As "All Day Affair") 15'23
7    14 Juillet (Originally Untitled Tune) 6'43
Credits :
Alto Saxophone – Ornette Coleman
Bass – David Izenzon
Drums – Charles Moffett
Notas.
1 to 4 Salle de la Mutualité, Paris France, November 4, 1965
5 to 7 Radio Broadcast from Paris, France, February 12, 1966