The Shape Of Jazz To Come

With The Shape of Jazz to Come, Ornette Coleman delivered one of the most influential jazz albums of 1959 and changed the course of the music in the process.

Across classics like Lonely Woman, Congeniality and Focus on Sanity, Coleman leaned into mood and melodic shape rather than chord changes as the foundation for improvisation. That shift opened jazz up in a huge way, expanding what soloing could be and bringing in new freedoms for both individual players and the group as a whole.

What makes this record hit so hard, though, is that none of these innovations feel distant or academic. Coleman and trumpeter Don Cherry play with real feeling, warmth and joy, and that emotional charge still comes through just as strongly today.

An essential jazz recording, this is a landmark album that closed one chapter of jazz history and sketched out the next.