# CD review: Ornette Coleman Trio – At The Golden Circle Stockholm Revisited – 2023: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2023/11/01/cd-review-ornette-coleman-trio-at-the-golden-circle-stockholm-revisited-2023-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2023-11-01T00:04:28+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**To press play in a small apartment in Brooklyn in 2002 and be privy to a well-
preserved 1965 concert is like activating voodoo in your house. Unseen instruments
move the air in secret ways, and I can almost feel the temperature and humidity 
of a room that first filled.**

The concerts were Ornette Coleman’s, and they took place at Stockholm’s Golden Circle,
on a couple of undoubtedly cold and snowy December nights. These powerful Blue Note
recordings have been recently re-issued with new alternate takes and excellent sound
as part of the label’s RVG Series. (Rudy Van Gelder, the celebrated audio engineer
who recorded many classic jazz dates in the 1950s and ’60s has undertaken, in the
past couple of years, the remastering of many Blue Note sessions.) Although the 
_Golden Circle_ was not a Van Gelder recording, it has a strange presence, and, 
especially on this reissue, its sound is haunting. And so, before any discussion
of the abundant merits of the music itself, I’d like to call to attention some of
the sounds waiting to be stirred from the disc.

First, there’s the storytelling voice. In his hands, Coleman’s saxophone is the 
most primal of expressive tools: a chisel — a shard for cutting things open. That
is not to say that it is not beautiful. His sound is nothing less than a window 
into empathy. Coleman’s famous plastic horn, blown hard, has a cry, and when it’s
played with less force it takes you into its confidence with a warm and wooden tone.

And there’s color: _Golden Circle_ features an extraordinary cymbal sound. It has
unusual depth: the stick’s bead on the metal is like rain on a plastic awning, or
hail on a pond, with deeply hued overtones spreading below. It’s the most remarkable
recorded cymbal sound I’ve ever heard. The dense thud of the bass drum and rap of
the snare drum pop like fireworks; they’re the left and right against which the 
sax trails careen.

No less notable is the dark spring of the bass. David Izenzon was a bass purist,
and performed without amplification. On _Golden Circle_ the bass occupies its natural
level: in the particulars of its notes it is sometimes obscured by the drums and
horn, but never in its presence or thrust. But when the percussion and horn wane,
as they often do, we’re left supported by the hyper-intelligent web of Izenzon’s
mahogany bass tone deep below.

These rich sounds are the dressings of a very fine music. The Golden Circle engagement
occurred roughly at the midpoint in time between Coleman’s famous Atlantic recordings,
and the electric music of his group, Prime Time. The music is “free”: in order to
find expression, Ornette created his own idiom, based on the somewhat arcane umbrella
of concepts that he calls Harmolodics. Roughly simplified, Harmolodics dictates 
that the soloist’s range of invention is limited only within the scope of his muse.
There are no preconceived frameworks or laws to adhere to; he or she has total freedom(
hence the term) to play whatever he or she wishes. And the accompanists can do the
same. Rhythm, harmony, and melody are all put on equal footing, individually, and
in the group dynamic. And so the sound of the music varies from group to group because
it relies on the collective chemistry of each member’s approach.

On _Golden Circle_, Ornette, as usual, spins out a seemingly infinite stream of 
melody, from the simple and childlike to the angular and cerebral. And his melody
is marinated through and through in the peppery tang of Texas blues and R&B. Moffett
and Izenzon engage and expand the traditional roles of bass and drums. While both
seem to relish forward motion, they’re each unpredictable in their own way: Moffett
may change tempo and meter, or stop playing completely at any moment, and Izenzon
picks up the bow in mid-swing and joins the front line with Ornette at will. Together,
they’re unflaggingly creative in support of the leader.

As to the material, there’s a wonderful abundance of different moods and settings
for the trio to explore. For example, there’s the off-to-the-races scamper of “Faces
and Places” and the furious start to “The Riddle”. There are a couple of quiet and
reflective odes to daybreak: the orchestral miniature of “Dawn”, and the slow blues
lament of “Morning Song”, a highlight of which is Moffett’s xylophone reading of
the melody during a bass solo. “Snowflakes and Sunshine” features Ornette’s much
maligned (but brilliant) trumpet and violin playing. It’s got a hectic stop-start
form in which alternate trumpet and violin solo passages are framed by bowed bass
solos accompanied by sparse, shifting percussion. It’s a cubist hoedown. And then
there’s the measured lope of “Antiques”, and the boppish “Doughnuts”.

It’s exhilarating to thumb one’s nose at space and time, and that’s what we do when
we listen to _Ornette Coleman: At the Golden Circle_. To have access to music like
this, with such vibrant sound, is a gift. Enjoy it.

Primal subversion of the most delicious kind was in the air when alto saxophonist**
Ornette Coleman** introduced his latest chapter of “the new jazz” in December 1965
at Stockholm’s Golden Circle (Gyllene Cirkeln) club. In tow was the trio he had 
been exploring new soundscapes with in the past year: virtuoso bassist David Izenzon,
equally adept playing arco and pizzicato, and simpatico drummer Charles Moffett,
shining with his textured cymbals and spanking rimshots.

At the Golden Circle on December 3 and 4, Blue Note recorded two live volumes of
the threesome breaking new ground, marking the label’s first association with the
iconoclastic saxophonist who had turned the jazz world upside down six years earlier
with his debut 1959 album for Atlantic, _The Shape of Jazz to Come_. While that 
album and live performances on both coasts initially met with polar critiques ranging
from genius to derision, Coleman, more than any other far-reaching, cutting-edge
artist, proved to be the bellwether of the next evolutionary stage of jazz. Even
though he was the epitome of the avant-garde then, today his renegade music of the
late ‘50s and early ‘60s sounds remarkably modern—especially since a plethora of
musicians over the years have taken his lead and play music today that is more in
sync with what was once considered to be so scornfully radical.

Significantly, previous to his six-album Blue Note stint, Coleman had pulled a Sonny
Rollins-type sabbatical from the jazz scene, a self-imposed exile from performing
and recording, from December 1962 (after a self-produced concert at Town Hall in
New York) to January 1965 (a triumphant return at the Village Vanguard where he 
added trumpet and violin to his instrumental arsenal). He reemerged refreshed and
teeming with imagination.

On _At the Golden Circle, Volume_ _One_, Ornette and Co. are in topdrawer form. 
Writing in the liner notes of the 2002 Blue Note RVG CD reissue of the album, John
Litweiler, author of the book _Ornette Coleman: A_ _Harmolodic Life_, calls the 
album “extraordinary,” adding that “the sheer creativity of Ornette Coleman’s improvising
here would be miraculous at any time in jazz history; moreover, even by his own 
high standards, he made some of the finest music of his recording career at the 
Golden Circle.” Comprising four Coleman originals, _Volume One _opens with the emcee
introducing the trio and Ornette shyly replying, “We’ve so enjoyed ourselves here
and hope everyone else has also.” He then whips into the brisk dance “Faces and 
Places,” which features his ebullient alto whimsy. It’s an expansive song of joy,
taken at bop speed, flowing with a bouncy lyricism and heightened by his high-pitched
wails. Coleman’s improvisational enthusiasm continues on “European Echoes,” a track
of simultaneous group improvisations that starts off as an off-kilter waltz. He 
toots the tune in a catchy—and unusual—calliope-like style.

Fast-paced, happy-go-lucky “Dee Dee” has a sometimes-it’s-there-and-sometimes-it’s-
not angular swing that serves as an unsteady undergirding and features Coleman as
melody maker par excellence (with stretches of bright dissonance and a few funny
alto-fed false endings). The “ballad” of the session is “Dawn,” which is in pockets
dreamy, emotional and anguished. Of special note is the interplay between Izenzon
bowing his bass with both an edginess and a classical music-like beauty and Coleman
in alto search mode joining him harmonically and conversationally after his solo.

_Volume Two _starts out sounding like a hoedown as Coleman rips open “Snowflakes&
Sunshine” with his blazing fiddle, which quickly dips into dissonance as he scratches
and squeals while Izenzon and Moffett jump into the frolic. Izenzon—who started 
to play the double bass at age 24, quickly became an avant favorite particularly
with Coleman from 1961- 68 and then died at the age of 47 in 1979—hypercharges the
affair with his bowed bass responding to Coleman’s violin. Then the leader introduces
the trumpet, which he plays high-speed and flailing. He goes back and forth between
the two instruments throughout the tune.

Coleman returns to the alto saxophone the rest of the set on the lyrical ballad “
Morning Song” (his yearning voice joined by Izenzon’s deep-bowing discord), the 
fast and frenzied “The Riddle” (with noteworthy alto-drum interaction) and easy-
going “Antiques” (with Coleman cruising with some of his best off-kilter lyricism).

Both volumes of _At the Golden Circle_ demonstrate so brilliantly how elated Coleman
instinctually expressed his music. There’s no froth here, no boasting, no artifice—
but vital, heartfelt lyricism by a man on a mission to heed his own voice and as
a result further distance himself from the status quo. To be one’s self, after all,
is the embodiment of art. That was Ornette’s story throughout his life, but especially
manifest in these astonishing concerts—a special snapshot capturing both his care
and his impulse.

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