This Is Our Music

On alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s fourth album, L.A.-based drummer Billy Higgins was gone, replaced by New Orleans-born Ed Blackwell. This gave Coleman, trumpeter Don Cherry, and bassist Charlie Haden a new, bouncier floor to dance on, and This is Our Music is a jumpier, more uptempo album than its predecessor, The Shape of Jazz to Come (though two ballads, “Beauty is a Rare Thing” and a version of the standard “Embraceable You,” are lovely). At times, its hard-charging tunes, backed by Blackwell’s tumbling polyrhythms, have an almost punk-rock energy, and both Coleman’s and Cherry’s solos are full of smeared notes and sudden lunges.