The Ornette Coleman Trio – at the ‘Golden Circle’ Stockholm (Volume one)

Years ago I had a cassette tape of Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster that I played a lot, loved that cassette, and I think it may still be up in the loft somewhere, though I have nothing to play it on at the moment. So when I saw this Blue Note re-issue by one of them I bought it. This shows my complete lack of Jazz knowledge of course as it is Ornette Coleman and not Coleman Hawkins, still, a happy mistake.

I then had to go and read up about it a bit and discovered that At the “Golden Circle” Stockholm is a two-volume album, which means I am one short, documenting concerts on the nights of December 3rd and 4th, 1965, in the Gyllene Cirkeln club in Stockholm. It marked the beginning of Coleman’s contract with Blue Note.

The trio are:

• Ornette Coleman — alto saxophone, violin, trumpet
• David Izenzon — double bass
• Charles Moffett — drums

Here is a video of the trio performing, it’s a year later but still a good film.

Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015)[1] was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s, a term he invented with the name of his 1961 album. His “Broadway Blues” has become a standard and has been cited as a key work in the free jazz movement.[2] He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1994. His album Sound Grammar received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for music.

So he is generally regarded as quite important and I have to say, I enjoyed this album. Not that many years ago this sort of jazz would have left me cold and a little confused, but I’ve opened myself up to a lot of new genres over the years and now find myself finding music in just about everything and some merit in just about everything as well. This may all just be part of getting old of course, or, let’s say more experienced.

Here is the opening cut from the album, so you can judge for yourself:

Tracklist

A1 Faces And Places
A2 European Echoes

B1 Dee Dee
B2 Dawn

Rating: 8.4 (I know how highly this is rated elsewhere but this is mine)