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Title: Great Music, and A Lot of It, At A Great Price
Review: This disc contains Ornette Coleman's pioneering 37-minute 'Free Jazz' PLUS 40 minutes of shorter pieces recorded in the same year. So for a little less money than the American release of 'Free Jazz' you get about twice as much music, and the title track is the final piece, a fitting climax to a great set of music. That said, the jazz on this disc may be more challenging than some listeners would like, but among the extended collective improvisations of the sixties, besides being the first, this one is more immediately accessible, because it SWINGS and it COOKS! And you can tell the musicians are actively listening to each other and responding to each other's work, not just showing off or venting their emotions. So in a nutshell, 'Free Jazz' is less cosmic than Sun Ra's 'Magic City', less cerebral than Cecil Taylor, and less primal than Coltrane's 'Ascension', but probably more likely to hook you into an intensely brilliant musical world.
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