Blindfold Test: Ornette Coleman An Exclusive Online Extra by Leonard Feather . 01/07/1960 In the early days, jazz talent took its natural course. Anybody with something new and important to say would find his way to the surface of public acceptance, simply on the strength of the stir he had created among fellow musicians. Today, the situation is very different. The initiative in molding new stars has been seized by other experts, including some who were among the slowest to accord reluctant recognition to Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Ornette Coleman, an alto saxophonist, who, until a few months ago, was virtually unknown, must suffer the judgements applied by the contemporary method. Coleman has been the subject of the kind of extravagant praise normally reserved for a musician backed by years of big-time experience. Though it is much too soon to determine how important his contribution will really be, the indications are that he has indeed found a style both of writing and playing that is valid, fresh and exciting. Coleman.s first Blindfold Test revealed him as no less unusual in his verbal than in his musical expression. The records selected included one by Jesse Powell from Ornette.s hometown (Fort Worth, Texas). He was given no information about the records played. The Records 1. Various saxophonists. "Broadway" (Warner Brothers). Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, tenor saxophones; Herb Geller, Gene Quill, Phil Woods, alto saxophones. Well, it sounded like a combination of an old-style band playing modern phrases together. A combination of old and new. The saxophones sound like the tenor-sax style of Zoot Sims and Al Cohn, and the altos sound like the style of Charlie Mariano and Charlie Kennedy. The arrangement as a whole is very musical, and the modulations within each complete cadence of phrases came out very good. It was a good musical band, and I would give it, for the musical aspects of it, four stars. For the writing also. 2. Miles Davis. "All Blues" (Columbia). Bill Evans, piano; Davis, trumpet; John Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Cannonball Adderley, alto saxophone. I believe that was Bill Evans on piano, and as for the tune itself, it sounded that.Bill Evans played it definite, very beautiful from beginning to end, and it sounded as if Miles Davis was closer to the actual sound of what the tune was expressing than the other two artists, but they did play very beautiful on it. I think the tune as a whole was a very beautiful tune with the modulation in half-step as so many bars that they play of just constantly improvising around a certain direction of a progression, which I believe Bill Evans was the most dominant figure on that particular side, but Coltrane and Cannonball sound very wonderful, playing with them, as far as being professional and beautiful musicians, but Miles seems to have had the closest execution and emotion to blend with the way Bill was playing his chords for the instruments to play by. I would rate it five stars for Bill Evans and soloists I would rate four stars. 3. Bud Shank/Bob Cooper. "Love Nest" (World Pacific). Shank, alto saxophone; Cooper, tenor saxophone. Bud Shank and Bob Cooper. One thing I would like to say about Bud Shank.I heard him play one night at a club, and as far as modern jazz is concerned, there is a certain modern way of playing that has the two-beat form of Dixieland as its roots, and it seemed to me that Bob Cooper and Bud Shank have definite grounds of swingin. in a two-beat style but playing modern, and I heard Bud Shank playing very good like that, and I enjoyed it.there.s something about two-beat jazz that has a swing of its own and mostly the West coast musicians swing from a jazz point in two-beat style. Not that it.s Dixieland, but there is a form of swinging in two-beat, which just seems to generate a happy feeling immediately without working up to a point of pattin. your feet. I like the tune as far as the swing of it.carrying the two-beat feeling, and the blending of the horns sounds good.in fact, it.s a happy-sounding record, in that style. I would give Bud Shank four stars, because I like the way he swings in two-beat.but for the record as a whole I would say three. 4. Mercer Ellington. "Maroon" (Coral). Johnny Hodges, alto saxophone. The style of alto sounds like the style of Benny Carter or Johnny Hodges, in that vein, and it was played beautiful, and the band sounded very even behind the alto.I don.t know who the band was. I don.t know what to say about a thing like this because when I usually listen to a soloist play with a big band, they.re usually improvising, but this soloist sounds like, if he was improvising, it was very well perfected because it didn.t sound like it was very spontaneous, and the band sounded like it was a very wonderful organization together, playing behind a soloist. The only thing I was moved with was the point of blending.I liked the musical blend of the whole thing, but phrase of it stands out in my mind. I would rate it four stars as far as their blending musically together. 5. Yusef Lateef. "Sounds Of Nature" (Savoy). Instrumentation includes earth board, fluegelhorn, Indian reed whistle, flute and ocarina. I would have liked to have heard an improviser of jazz going on at the same time that tune was being played. It.s a very good tune for the effects of improvising. For the tune as a whole, I like it for the freedom of direction, but I mostly like things that have causes more than effects, and this seemed to be a tune that is mostly effects. I don.t get the cause clearly, but I think that if there had been a jazz improviser going on with these effects, the cause would have been expressed much more clearly. I heard the effects of spontaneous execution.I heard those effects.and I heard the effects of different accents crossing each other.which must mean a very intelligent man thinking out things to do like that. It sounded like I heard a guitar, else a bass played very highly, and a trumpet, and either a trombone or a tenor saxophone and a flute, and drums.it sounded like a small combo that has immediately utilized their techniques of playing phrases in the free form of notation. I don.t know if that was notated exactly the way I heard it, but the notation sounds very free. It.s a very good record as far as effects with music, and it sounded like Charlie Mingus. I would say four stars. 6. Charlie Mingus. "Bird Calls" (Columbia). Well, that sounded in the same vein of the previous record, in the Charlie Mingus style of writing and playing, but I have one comment to say about the tune and the jazz improvising. If a person.s going to play an improvised solo without striving to have a beat, then it shouldn.t have anything to do with the previous tune that.s written; and if he.s going to play with an improvised solo with a beat, with the tune that.s written, then I believe that.s what he should do. But I don.t believe it should be a cross between free improvising and a beat at the same time, because they just don.t go together. What I mean by a beat of music is when he.s keeping up with the actual speed of the tune itself.the way the melody is phrased. They.re not phrasing it together.I mean, if you.re going to play together as a free form and still try to make like there.s a beat in it. Maybe it can be done but I don.t think it can be done spontaneously and creatively, as the other way.If it is to be done, then one should realize which one he.s gonna do to make it better; not that that is bad, but I believe if you.d gonna do a thing, even if you do it worse today, you should try and be better tomorrow. The record as a whole, for the musicianship, seems to be as much as they could do at that moment.so for that moment alone, and musically, I would rate it three stars for the concept rather that for the tune or the playing. 7. Jesse Powell. "Jesse.s Theme" (Jubilee). Jesse Powell, tenor saxophone; Eddie Williams, trumpet. That was the Jazz at the Philharmonic style, and it sounds like it could be good blues and rhythm date. I don.t know who the soloists are, but they sound they could be like the Flip Phillips-Illinois Jacquet style of playing tenor sax.The trumpet player I have no idea who it was. It sounds in the Howard McGhee-Roy Eldridge style. I would rate it four stars for jazz and three for performance. You get the impression that they.re trying to say something, but they.re not saying anything of interest to me. Three stars for the jazz. 8. Quincy Jones. A Change Of Pace (Mercury). Harry Edison, trumpet; Phil Woods, alto saxophone. That sounded like a good dance band.I don.t know which one, but a very popular dance band. It sounded like a combination of three bands.Count Basie, Maynard Ferguson and Les Brown. I don.t have any idea who the soloists were, but it was a good dance band.Nothing out of the ordinary. I.ll give it a three. It was very well played and had a good dance beat to it. 9. George Russell. "Livingstone, I Presume" (RCA Victor). Art Farmer, trumpet; Hal McKusick, alto saxophone. That sounded like Hal McKusick and Art Farmer, and then it sounds like Lee Konitz and someone and then Gigi Gryce and Donald Byrd.it sounds like everybody.But the trumpet player sounds like Arthur Farmer to me because of the complete way Arthur has of phrasing. I thought it was Donald Byrd at first, but as I listened more.it might have been two trumpets.one sounded like Art Farmer to me, and the saxophone sounded at first like Lee Konitz and then like Gigi Gryce. As for the tune itself, it was fairly good, but when I hear a tune played, I like to hear the differences between the tune and the improvising.I don.t know if free execution limits a person from improvising, as if he was limited to a certain manner of execution. Like I believe that the execution of improvising should blend with emotion.the emotion and the execution should blend together and then you would get more or less free improvising.But in certain cases where the technical part of a tune hinders the musician from free improvising, it seems I don.t get the message that they actually hear something to play in that style of tune. But I imagine it can be done, and Arthur Farmer, in that short a time, seems more experienced in playing , free-improvising, with that sort of writing, free execution of writing, where the thing they.re playing , the way they.re playing, it doesn.t sound like it.s notated that way, and Arthur.s the only one I know who seems to be able to improvise in the form of playing. Four stars.