Song X
Occupation
- Pat Metheny - Guitar, Roland Guitar Synthesizer, Synclavier Guitar
- Ornette Coleman - alto saxophone, violin
- Charlie Haden - bass [1-6 ],
- Jack DeJohnette - Drums [1-6 ],
- Denardo Coleman - electronic drums, percussion [1-6 ],
Song X is a jazz album by Pat Metheny and Ornette Coleman with a specially assembled quintet. The album was recorded on 13 and 14 December 1985 Jan Erik Haug Kong and published in March 1986 by Geffen Records. A different remixed version was released in August 2005 under the title Song X: Twentieth Anniversary ( with six additional songs from the same recording session ).
Genesis of the album
Metheny was influenced since his early youth by the free jazz of Ornette Coleman. With the published 1980 album 80/81, on the next Randy Brecker and Dewey Redman Charlie Haden and Jack DeJohnette were involved, he left the first time the ways of a simple smooth jazz. But already on his early albums, he interpreted occasionally Coleman topics, such as on Bright Size Life (1975). On the album Rejoicing (1983 ) he worked with Coleman's old rhythm section, in a trio with Haden and Billy Higgins, and presented three pieces of Coleman. Again and again he expressed to Haden his desire to make contact with Coleman. This persuaded Coleman. At the end of 1985 it was so far: Metheny and Coleman practiced for three weeks eight hours a day together before with Haden, Ornette's son Denardo and Jack DeJohnette met in the studio to record the album together, Song X. Metheny said afterwards: " Something like with Ornette I 've never experienced. We played by each piece five or six takes, and you could use each "
The pictures were taken at the time, as Metheny switched from ECM to David Geffen label; He brought the finished production. " Song X still was before I had actually signed the contract. I said: here people, this is the first record. And they said, great, " However, the pieces were not perfectly mixed due to time pressure and minor errors could not be repaired! .
Title list
All tracks are compositions by Ornette Coleman, unless otherwise noted
Title List of Song X: Twentieth Anniversary
Tracks 1-6 were previously unreleased and were also recorded in December 1985.
The Music
Metheny used in all things synthetic guitar sounds - usually he had a Roland GR 303 connected to the Synclavier - and simulated thereby partially the sound of a saxophone so much that it in the original mix was not possible at times to distinguish between him and Coleman at all points.
The title track of the album, Song X played Coleman since 1977. Collective improvisation with all the time " hyperactive guitar ", some of which like the echo of saxophone part forms, almost sounds like " angry" and is a " boiling matter ".
Mob Job was presented with laid back swing feel and formed with his lyricism a pleasant contrast to the title track. The violin playing of Coleman with his " bony logic " does not put on here.
Endangered Species with his ecstatic and screaming topic again offered room for a wild and vast collective improvisation in which the Alto in the background behind the garish guitar was. Metheny turned his guitar using a coupled synthesizer and stereo enhancement in a polyphonic orchestra, " turmoil which sometimes threatens to swallow even Colemans Sharp lines. And among the density of melodic events simmers a double drum thunder, which in turn Charlie Haden's bass lines into the background. " The musicians involved were immediately agree that the recorded interpretation of the piece was not to beat. " We felt it when we were in the studio. Everyone screamed going on when it was over. 100 % " Years later, Metheny was " proud "of this recording.
Video Games serves as a showcase for Metheny: After the simple eight-bar theme was presented twice with saxophone, takes the guitarist and plays an increasingly complex solo. Kathelin Gray is a " simple ballad ," playing the guitar and saxophone over long distances in unison. Trigonometry is a lively bebop line, which is taken very elegant Coleman, although he did not somehow plays lyrically; also can be admired here Metheny's " truncated Melodizität ". Then follows a second version of the title track, Song X Duo, an unaccompanied duo of Metheny and Coleman. The rocking Long Time No See, that Coleman had in 1968 recorded with Yoko Ono, carries all sorts of surprises: Metheny leaves about the end of his lyrical solos the old way Santa Lucia resonate; Ornette Coleman makes a series of seemingly unconnected episodes melodic sound, which Denardo Coleman put an end to a ball in. It Do not Mean a Thing.
Effect
New Year's Eve 1985/86, the musicians performed (without DeJohnette ) in Fort Worth in the "Caravan of Dream on and presented the common music. In the spring of 1986 the quintet then went to the United States on tour and put the just released album. " The Song X tour in America was one of the most exciting tours that I have ever attended. The audience ... had no idea that the music would be so > far out. " People are just gone. And the tour had the full support of this huge record company. "
The record sold, measured in numbers, well, more than 200,000 copies in the first year alone, which is " quite amazing " for an avant-garde album. In Leserpoll of Down Beat Song X was voted album of the year. But the criticism was divided: The unlikely combination of musicians produced considerable " head scratching ". While it was for a " one of the events of the 1980s " ( as The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz ), holding other album for " virtually unplayable " ( according to The Times). For the Coleman biographer Peter Niklas Wilson, however, the album was " a vibrant, dynamic, inspired production (where also the studio live nature of the recording may have played a role ) ," the " Metheny despisers " to think exist.
Brian Olewnick rated song for Allmusic X with three and a half ( out of five) stars. ; Thom Jurek, however, gave the extended to the twenty year anniversary album four stars .. Also John Fordham The Guardian there for four out of five stars; He emphasizes that it no longer sounds on the new mix, as if this was a Coleman album with guest Metheny, but the guitarist was much more discernable in its subtleties. The Jazz Awards 2006, the Jazz Journalists Association, the New Edition of Song X as Jazz Reissue of the Year ( Single CD ) was excellent.