2006 · Album
Sound Grammar
Recorded 14 October 2005, live in Ludwigshafen, Germany · Sound Grammar · Produced by Ornette Coleman and Michaela Deiss
Coleman at Seventy-Six, Still Spiraling
At 76, Coleman's whooping runs and long high notes still sound fresh, a pin-sharp recording proving it.
Sound Grammar arrived in 2006 as Coleman's first album in nearly a decade, a gap that followed the end of his long relationship with Verve. That absence made the record feel like a genuine event — you weren't sure what he'd sound like after so much time away from the studio. The answer: much the same as always, which is to say restless and full of odd angles.
The recording comes from a live session in Germany, and what strikes you first is how clear everything is. Coleman's saxophone sits right in front of you, unadorned. On the blues "Turnaround," he quotes Richard Rodgers' "If I Loved You" and Stephen Foster's "Beautiful Dreamer" — not as homage exactly, more like he's remembering something mid-solo and couldn't help but play it. The theme of "Sleep Talking" begins with the same notes as Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, another collision that feels less planned than inevitable. This habit of musical quotation runs throughout, a way of thinking in and out of his own material without announcing the shift.
The band setup is unusual: two double-bassists alongside Denardo Coleman on drums. It's a thick low end, which gives the music ballast without weight. Critics were enthusiastic — The Guardian gave it four out of five stars, and John Fordham wrote approvingly of Coleman's energy and the pin-sharp recording quality. The album appeared at or near the top of virtually every jazz magazine poll at the end of 2006, including Downbeat and JazzTimes. If you want to hear Coleman at this stage of his life, still willing to surprise himself and still capable of making it matter, this is the place to listen.
