This set, combining Something Else!!!! The Music of Ornette Coleman and Tomorrow Is The Question! The New Music of Ornette Coleman, originally for Lester Koenig’s Contemporary label, neatly dovetails with Coleman’s The Atlantic Years – the 2018 Atlantic re-release of all Coleman’s output for the Atlantic label – in that the two collections are of a piece, covering the alto saxophonist’s most influential period in jazz. Bassist Red Mitchell, who appears on Tomorrow Is The Question!, introduced Coleman to Lester Koenig, who was sufficiently intrigued to offer him a chance to record, albeit on Something Else!!!! he wanted him to play his compositions with chord changes. Coleman agreed to Koenig’s terms, and the result was nine originals – ‘Alpha’, ‘The Disguise’, and ‘When Will the Blues leave?’ based on blues changes; ‘Angel Voice’, ‘The Sphinx’ and ‘Chippie’ loosely based on the chords of ‘Out of Nowhere’ while ‘Invisible’ and ‘The Blessing’ had Coleman’s own harmonies. What is striking is how his playing sounds so strong and fully formed, even at this stage of his career. Tomorrow Is The Question!, while not exactly giving full rein to Coleman’s ideas, did at least dispense with piano, which had firmly anchored the harmonies on the previous album. Heath and Manne tended to cling to harmony and form, while Coleman and Cherry wanted to break free. This meant Heath would have needed to follow the soloists’ line, departing from the written changes, something that was resolved on the Atlantic sides with Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins.

Even so, there are more Coleman classics here, ‘Tears Inside’, ‘Turnaround’ and ‘Rejoicing’ and along with ‘Giggin’’ and ‘Endless’ are album highlights. ‘Giggin’’ is notable for a well-conceived Cherry solo, the blues based ‘Rejoicing’, with its elongated melody line, also has well executed solos, and ‘Endless’, in 6/8, with its unselfconscious simplicity, point the way firmly to the Atlantic years. As Koenig would later say: “We did all we could for Ornette.”