condition (record/cover): NM / EX- (light yellowing on back)

More gold from the Atlantic vaults: Twins, the 1971 companion to The Art of the Improvisers, drawing again on the miraculous 1959-61 sessions when Ornette Coleman and the quartet were rewriting the language faster than the label could release the evidence. The centerpiece is "First Take" - the earlier, wilder run-through of the Free Jazz double-quartet experiment, seventeen minutes that some listeners quietly prefer to the issued version for its rawer edges and hungrier ensemble attack; hearing both is a genuine education in how collective improvisation finds its form. Around it, more prime quartet material with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell, from the deepest vein the label ever mined. When the outtakes shelf includes an alternate Free Jazz, the word outtake stops meaning anything useful.

US Atlantic pressing, essential for the Ornette floor of the collection - and every serious collection has an Ornette floor, or needs one.