Consumer Guide Album

Ornette Coleman: Friends and Neighbors: Ornette Live at Prince Street [BGP/Flying Dutchman, 2013]
An orphan in Coleman's many-labeled catalogue, this 1970 recording is often overlooked in favor of his somewhat earlier live-in-Stockholm Golden Circle albums on Blue Note, a more reputable imprint than Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman. It had sat unplayed amid my vinyl for 40 years. But when I gave this Eurozone-manufactured CD a trial spin, I fell hard. The Golden Circle records have great moments (the lyrical "Antiques," the site-specific "Faces and Places"). But they're chamber music. This has the overheard quality of a jam, with Coleman's time-tested Charlie Haden-Ed Blackwell rhythm section beefed up by Dewey Redman, whose tenor is always there to add some body when Ornette picks up a trumpet or violin. Cacophonous title track to theme-and-variations "Long Time No See" to trumpet feature "Let's Play" to two-sax "Forgotten Songs" to blowout "Tomorrow," it's all keyed by a very multigenerational chorus singing or if necessary chanting "Friends and neighbors, that's where it's at." A