Song X | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 1986 | |||
Recorded | December 12–14, 1985 | |||
Studio | Power Station, New York City | |||
Genre | Free jazz | |||
Length | 48:39 | |||
Label | Geffen | |||
Producer | Pat Metheny | |||
Pat Metheny chronology | ||||
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Ornette Coleman chronology | ||||
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Alternate cover | ||||
Song X is a collaborative studio album by American jazz guitarist Pat Metheny and saxophonist Ornette Coleman. It is a free jazz record that was produced in a three-day recording session in 1985. [1] The album was released in 1985 by Geffen Records. [2] [3]
Metheny was a longtime admirer of the saxophonist,recording Coleman compositions on Bright Size Life (1976), 80/81 (1980),and Rejoicing (1983) (which features Coleman alumni Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins). During the three weeks leading up to the recording,Coleman and Metheny spent "between 6 and 12 hours a day every day,playing,hanging out and talking,trying to come up with a vocabulary for this particular session ... that would be different." [4]
Coleman's saxophone tone,when combined with a saxophone preset on Metheny's Synclavier guitar synthesizer,created an "ensemble blend [that] was surprising to both of us." [4]
The album features bassist Charlie Haden (a frequent Coleman collaborator who'd also played on 80/81),Jack DeJohnette on drums,and Coleman's son Denardo on drums and various percussion instruments. It was recorded at The Power Station in New York City between December 12 and December 14,1985. A remixed and remastered version was issued on CD in August 2005,titled Song X:Twentieth Anniversary. Six unreleased tracks were added prior to the original eight songs. [3]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [2] |
Blender | [5] |
DownBeat | [6] |
Entertainment Weekly | A− [7] |
The Guardian | [8] |
Mojo | |
The Penguin Guide to Jazz | [9] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [10] |
The Village Voice | A [11] |
Reviewing Song X in 1986 for The Village Voice ,Robert Christgau deemed it Coleman's best album of unadulterated jazz since the early 1970s and believed Metheny's mild mannered style of jazz kept the music uncluttered compared to some of Coleman's recent work. "No rock moves,and no funk,harmolodic or otherwise",Christgau added. "It's all sweet lyricism,sonic comedy,and headlong invention." [11] DownBeat magazine hailed the album as "a remarkable union of the true and the new,a fusion of the bedrock human sound of Ornette's alto with the sometimes jarring,mostly bracing electronic capabilities of Pat's guitar-synth". [6] Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times that the experiment succeeded because both artists were masterful melodists,finding the record "less tangled and more directly songful than Mr. Coleman's recent albums with Prime Time". [12] Song X was voted the nineteenth best album of 1986 in The Village Voice's annual Pazz &Jop critics poll. [13]
In The Penguin Guide to Jazz (2004),Richard Cook and Brian Morton said the more adventurous recordings on Song X showcased the jubilant playing between Coleman and Metheny,who not only "powered his way through Coleman's itinerary with utter conviction,he set up opportunities for the saxophonist to resolve and created a fusion with which Coleman's often impenetrable Prime Time bands had failed to come to terms." [9] In a review of the album's 2005 reissue,Christgau wrote in Blender that all six bonus tracks were "strong enough to justify kicking off with them,and the perfect warm-up to an album Metheny was right to construct exactly as he did." [5] In his list for 2005 Pazz &Jop poll,he named its twentieth anniversary edition the sixteenth best album of the year. [14]
All tracks are written by Ornette Coleman except where noted
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Song X" | 5:38 | |
2. | "Mob Job" | 4:13 | |
3. | "Endangered Species" | Coleman, Metheny | 13:19 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Video Games" | 5:21 | |
2. | "Kathelin Gray" | Coleman, Metheny | 4:15 |
3. | "Trigonometry" | Coleman, Metheny | 5:09 |
4. | "Song X Duo" | Coleman, Metheny | 3:08 |
5. | "Long Time No See" | 7:36 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Police People" | 4:57 |
2. | "All of Us" | 0:15 |
3. | "The Good Life" | 3:25 |
4. | "Word from Bird" | 3:48 |
5. | "Compute" | 2:03 |
6. | "The Veil" | 3:42 |
7. | "Song X" | 5:38 |
8. | "Mob Job" | 4:13 |
9. | "Endangered Species" | 13:19 |
10. | "Video Games" | 5:21 |
11. | "Kathelin Gray" | 4:15 |
12. | "Trigonometry" | 5:09 |
13. | "Song X Duo" | 3:08 |
14. | "Long Time No See" | 7:36 |
Note
Technical staff
Year | Chart [15] | Position |
---|---|---|
1986 | Billboard Top Jazz Albums | 9 |
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He was best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. His pioneering works often abandoned the harmony-based composition, tonality, chord changes, and fixed rhythm found in earlier jazz idioms. Instead, Coleman emphasized an experimental approach to improvisation, rooted in ensemble playing and blues phrasing. AllMusic called him "one of the most beloved and polarizing figures in jazz history," noting that while "now celebrated as a fearless innovator and a genius, he was initially regarded by peers and critics as rebellious, disruptive, and even a fraud."
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