Ornette Coleman Something Else

Personnel: Ornette Coleman (alto saxophone); Don Cherry (trumpet); Walter Norris (piano); Don Payne (bass); Billy Higgins (drums).Recorded at Contemporary's Studio, Los Angeles, California on February 10 & 22 and March 24, 1958. Originally released on Contemporary (7551). Includes liner notes by Nat Hentoff.Digitally remastered by Joe Tarantino (1988, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California).This 1958 debut recording by the Ornette Coleman Quintet, which featured Coleman on his trademark white plastic alto, Don Cherry on trumpet, Billy Higgins on drums, Walter Norris on piano, and Don Payne on bass, shook up the jazz world -- particularly those musicians and critics who had entered the hard bop era with such verve and were busy using the blues as a way of creating vast solo spaces inside tight and short melody lines. Something Else!!!! is anathema to that entire idea, and must have sounded like it came from outer space at the time. First, Coleman's interest was in pitch, not "being i