Jarman's Second Statement in Open Space
Lyricism and free space drift together, interrupted by sudden bursts of intensity.
As If It Were the Seasons is Jarman's second album, recorded in 1968 when the Art Ensemble of Chicago was still forming and his voice as a solo artist was still taking shape. This is not a debut statement—he had already released Song For in 1966—but it's the album where his musical identity comes into sharper focus. The title track alone shows what Jarman was after: a blend of lyrical melody with freely improvised passages, time that shifts and breathes rather than locks into steady pulse, and moments where intensity breaks through the quieter exploration.
This is music for listeners willing to sit with uncertainty. Jarman was working in the emerging free jazz vocabulary of the late 1960s, but he was never a pure abstractionist. The tracks here balance composed material with open space, and his saxophone playing—sometimes plaintive, sometimes forceful—drives the exploration. Scott Yanow's AllMusic review captured the essential truth: these pieces are genuinely open-minded music, not immediately welcoming but rewarding if you meet them halfway.
The album sits at a particular moment in Chicago's jazz ferment, when musicians were moving beyond bebop structures without abandoning melody or emotional directness. If you're curious about Jarman as a soloist rather than as part of the Ensemble, this is the record that shows his range—the way he could be introspective and confrontational in the same session, drifting and sudden, all at once.
