condition (record/cover): EX / NM
Atlantic's 1970 gathering of vault material from the 1959-61 sessions - which, given the source, means an outtakes album stronger than most artists' best work, assembled from the richest two years any American label ever recorded. Ornette Coleman with the classic circle of Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Scott LaFaro, Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins, in performances left off the original albums for reasons of space and sequencing rather than quality - the era's quality control problem, happily inherited by posterity. "The Circle with a Hole in the Middle" alone earns the ticket, and the rest keeps paying: alternate angles on the revolution, each one singing. For anyone who has worn out The Shape of Jazz to Come and its siblings, this is the natural next room in the same glorious building, with the same architecture and fresh windows.
US Atlantic pressing, and a record whose modest reputation is purely an accident of release order.
