The Shape of Jazz to Come is the third studio album by American jazz musician Ornette Coleman. Released on Atlantic Records in November 1959, it was his debut on the label and his first album featuring the quartet of himself, trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Billy Higgins. The recording session for the album took place on May 22, 1959, at Radio Recorders in Hollywood. Although Coleman initially wished for the album to be titled Focus on Sanity after its fourth track, producer Nesuhi Ertegun suggested the final title, feeling that it would give consumers "an idea about the uniqueness of the LP." The album was included in all three editions of the Rolling Stone list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015.

Background

From 1948 to 1958, Coleman moved between New Orleans, his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, and Los Angeles, working various jobs and developing his own unique sound that was often met with hostility. His approach initially made it difficult for him to make ends meet by playing music. Though both Coleman and Cherry were already rather accomplished by this point in their careers, Lewis wanted to use their attendance at Lenox to generate buzz amongst jazz circles. Their presence at the school was not without friction amongst students and faculty alike, but in the end, their attending the school accomplished what Lewis hoped to achieve. Coleman was subsequently booked by Lewis to play at the 1959 Monterey Jazz Festival in California.

In June 1959, Coleman suggested to Atlantic jazz producer Nesuhi Ertegun that he was considering abandoning music in order to study religion. Ertegun, confident of Coleman's potential, urged him to reconsider. The album was a breakthrough and helped to establish the free jazz movement. Later avant-garde jazz was often very different from Coleman's work, but the work helped to lay the foundation upon which much subsequent avant-garde and free jazz would be built.

"Lonely Woman"

The album contains one of the few Coleman compositions to achieve jazz standard status, "Lonely Woman". Coleman was moved to compose the song when, while on a lunch break from his job in a department store stock room in Los Angeles in the early 1950s, he came across a photograph of a woman in a gallery. Coleman describes the photograph as follows: <blockquote>In the background there was everything you could imagine that was wealthy – all in her background – but she was so sad. And I said, 'Oh my goodness. I understand this feeling. I have not experienced this wealth, but I understand the feeling.' I went home and wrote 'Lonely Woman'... I related the condition to myself, wrote this song, and ever since it has grown and grown and grown.</blockquote>

Fred Kaplan wrote:<blockquote>'Lonely Woman' begins with Haden playing a slow bass dirge. Higgins follows with a fast drum riff (a pairing of slow bass and fast drums was unusual enough). Then Coleman and Cherry, in unison, blow a sorrowful melody, both of them bending notes, wailing, so naked with emotion that it still raises shivers a half century later. After reciting the theme a couple times, Coleman takes his solo, which wanders off in a different direction; if you were expecting to hear an improvisation on harmony, it might seem like a different song. But he's improvising on other aspects of the song, especially its emotion. The other players do the same. Somehow it all hangs together, and toward the end, they come back to the theme, come back down to Earth, with aplomb.

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On November 17, 1959, shortly after the release of the album, Coleman's quartet began a residency at the Five Spot Café in Manhattan. Arranged by John Lewis, it was initially scheduled to last two weeks, but was eventually extended to months. In 2024, Paste Magazine ranked The Shape of Jazz To Come number 231 on its list of the 300 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album was identified by Chris Kelsey in his AllMusic essay "Free Jazz: A Subjective History" as one of the 20 Essential Free Jazz Albums. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015.