Ornette Coleman - Tomorrow Is The Question!
Ornette Coleman, alto saxophone [click here to see more vinyl featuring Ornette Coleman]
Shelly Manne, drums [click here to see more vinyl featuring Shelly Manne]
Don Cherry, trumpet
Percy Heath, bass (A1-6)
Red Mitchell, bass (B1-3)
Written by Ornette Coleman
1 LP, standard sleeve old-style tip-on jackets by Stoughton Printing
Original analog Master tape : YES
Heavy Press : 180g
Record color : black
Speed : 33RPM
Size : 12”
Stereo
Studio
Record Press : Quality Record Pressings
Label : Craft Recordings Acoustic Sounds Series
Original Label : Contemporary
Recorded January 16 (B1), February 23 (B2-3) and March 9–10, 1959 (A1-6) at Contemporary's Studio, Los Angeles
Engineered by Roy DuNann
Produced by Lester Koenig
Liner notes by Nat Hentoff
Photography by Roger Marshutz
Mastered by Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering
Reissue supervised by Chad Kassem
Originally released in November 1969
Reissued in September 2023
Tracks:
Side A:
- Tomorrow Is the Question!
- Tears Inside
- Mind and Time
- Compassion
- Giggin'
- Rejoicing
Side B:
- Lorraine
- Turnaround
- Endless
Reviews :
"Shaking out of the contractual obligation forcing him to employ a pianist on his debut, Something Else!!!! (Contemporary, 1958), alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman dispensed with the instrument altogether on 1959's Tomorrow is the Question!, causing a bit of consternation on the part of the mainstream jazz media. This was Coleman's committed step forward toward a harmonically less restrictive sound, en route to the joyful chaos of Free Jazz (Atlantic, 1961). Following, in form, Gerry Mulligan's famous piano-less quartet of the early 1950s, Coleman greatly liberated his solo and rhythm instruments, taking a quantum greater advantage of this freedom compared with Mulligan, had the baritone saxophonist been so inclined." All About Jazz
“On his second outing for the Contemporary label, Ornette dusted the piano from the bandstand and focused instead on a quartet. For some unexplained reason, Billy Higgins was replaced by Shelly Manne; the only constants remain Coleman and Don Cherry. The focus, then, is on the interplay between the altoist and trumpeter in executing Ornette's tunes, which were, more than on the preceding album (Something Else!, recorded a year earlier), knottier and tighter in their arrangement style. The odd-syncopation style of the front line on numbers such as "Tears Inside," which comes out of the box wailing and then simmers down into a moody, swinging blues, was a rough transition for the rhythm section. And the more Ornette and Cherry try to open it up into something more free and less attached to the tune's form, the more Manne and especially bassist Percy Heath hang on. Still, there are great moments here: for example, the celebratory freedom of "Giggin'," with its wonderful trumpet solo, and "Rejoicing," which has become one of Coleman's classics for its elongated melody line and simple obbligato phrasing, which become part of a wonderfully complex solo that keeps the blues firmly intact. The final track, "Endless," is pure magic. After Manne carries it in 6/8, Coleman uses a nursery rhyme to move to the solo terrain and, when he does, the solo itself becomes a part of that rhyme as even Don Cherry feels his way through it in his break. And, if anything, this is one of the things that came to define Ornette -- his willingness to let simplicity and its bright colors and textures confound not only other players and listeners, but also him too. In those days, Coleman's musical system -- although worked out in detail -- always left room for the unexpected and, in fact, was played as if his life depended on it. As a result, Tomorrow Is the Question! was a very literal title; who could have guessed the expansive, world-widening direction that Coleman's system would head into next?” AllMusic Review by Thom Jurek
Ratings :
AllMusic : 4 / 5 ; Discogs : 4,87 / 5