Track Listing

1. Skies of America
2. Native Americans
3. Good Life
4. Birthdays and Funerals
5. Dreams
6. Sounds of Sculpture
7. Holiday for Heroes
8. All of My Life
9. Dancers
10. Soul Within Woman
11. Artists in America
12. New Anthem
13. Place in Space
14. Foreigner in a Free Land
15. Silver Screen
16. Poetry
17. Men Who Live in the White House
18. Love Life
19. Military
20. Jam Session
21. Sunday in America

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59314 in Music
• Released on: 2000-05-02
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Amazon.com
Where others have seen musical boundaries, Ornette Coleman has always found possibilities--from his original conception of free jazz and the classic Atlantic recordings of 1959-61 to the use of electric guitars and funk rhythms in the later Prime Time. While the pure cry of the blues is an integral part of his music, he has also immersed himself in formal composition, writing for wind and string ensembles as well as large orchestra. Skies of America is his most ambitious work, a full-length symphony in one movement. This CD reissues the 1972 version performed by the London Symphony Orchestra with conductor David Meaghan, the work's only commercial recording. It was a performance fraught with problems. While the work was planned to include Coleman's quartet, British musicians' union regulations prevented their appearance. The time limits of the LP format required that the piece be slightly abridged, and for the original issue, Columbia decided to break up the immense single movement into 21 parts. Listening to it 28 years after the original release, however, you'll find that none of that matters. Instead, it's the breadth of Coleman's vision that emerges, as he shifts and combines the playful, the somber, and the chaotic, blurring any convenient notions of the simple and the complex. Some moments will suggest Charles Ives, and others hint at inspirations in Anton Bruckner and Béla Bártok, but the cumulative impact and the evolving musical language are Coleman's own. His use of two drummers playing contrary rhythms is a brilliant stroke, one that demonstrates the rewards of the improvisation laboratory. And Coleman's own alto saxophone soars on some key movements, such as "The Artist in America" and "The Men Who Live in the White House." This CD issue has removed the brief spaces that once separated the 21 parts, restoring the single-movement work that Coleman intended. Stuart Broomer

Customer Reviews

Just let it wash over you...
At last! This is one of the most insidious recordings I know of, creeping into your ear until you've succumbed to its unique charms. I'm not the biggest Ornette fan in the world, but 15 years ago a friend laid this on me. I never had a pristine vinyl copy, so I lived with the pops and crackles for all this time, waiting for the day it came out on CD.

It was worth it. Ornette is a surprisingly fine orchestrator, using his much-discussed harmelodic concept to fine effect with the full orchestra. The texture is long, floating melodies harmonized in parallel organum with a maniac tympanist blazing away on the bottom to keep the energy up. Ornette makes his appearance towards the end, ratcheting up the energy another notch.

The record company divided this into separate tracks in a futile attempt to get airplay. Don't believe it. It's a long, single entity, the best choice I know of for late-night driving on full moon nights with the top down, misterioso atmospheres swirling in the air. Dark, brooding, and deep stuff, highly recommended for those with the ears to hear.

Now if we can only get a release of the concert at Lincoln Center a few years ago where this composition was re-performed with different musicians and a different approach!

More of a recommendation than a review
Back in the days immediately after the attacks of 9/11, National Public Radio began asking well known musical types what music they thought Americans should be listening to. They never got around to asking me, but this was my choice. It still is.

Skies of America is a very moving, very poignant, powerful work for symphony orchestra with solo interludes on this recording from Ornette. The hustle and bustle of daily life in America, as portrayed by the winds and percussion, contrasted by the ethereal, eternal nature of the skies above, as portrayed by the strings, brings tears to my eyes every time I listen to this album. The work as a whole is broken down into titled sections. Those with titles like "The Military" or "The Silver Screen" can sound chaotic, aggressive and confounding. Other sections like "Birthdays and Funerals", "Love Life" or "Sunday in America" feature music for strings that is simply breathtaking in its beauty. I find it difficult not to be affected by music of such a strong, emotional character.

It's a scandal that Ornette has never been recognized as a symphonic composer. Skies of America really belongs in modern classical repertoire. It eloquently speaks of a love for country far beyond the sort of militaristic nationalism we see all too often in public life.

Now is the time
It fits, too. Unease. Dissonance. Not very light. Dangerous. Occasionally grating. Hints of beauty that you have to work for. Pay attention to what's going on; see the grandeur and the gorgeousness under the surface. Ultimately, it's all worth it. It's a commentary ahead of its time. Reason enough to listen. Please do.