Return To Tomorrow - In the Ascendancy - The Jazz Avant-Garde

A 3CD anthology of Free / Avant-Garde jazz. The landmark albums included here in their entirety are The Shape of Jazz to Come by Ornette Coleman, Thesis by The Jimmy Giuffre 3, Live at the Village Vanguard by John Coltrane (including the controversial "Chasin' the Trane"), Warm Canto by Eric Dolphy (his work on flute bass clarinet) and from the astonishing date of 1956, Jazz Advance by Cecil Taylor, the earliest recording of the new music.

Featuring key works by the pioneers of the new music; the saxophonists Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and Joe Harriott; the pianists Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra; and the multi-reed men Eric Dolphy and Jimmy Giuffre, whose minimalist abstractions for clarinet are in fascinating contrast to the labyrinthine, raga-like lines of Coleman or Coltrane, Ayler's cries from the ghetto, or the Impressionist dissonances of Taylor. If, in the work of Joe Harriott, the flavor of calypso is implicit then similarly that alluring juxtaposition of antique Africa and the cosmos in the music of Sun Ra.

If each of these protagonists sought their own way to challenge the rules of melody, harmony, and rhythm, they shared the goal of complete freedom of expression. They antagonized the panjandrums of the establishment and encountered a hostile press, but continued fearlessly on, sparking a revolution that changed perceptions of where the outer limits of jazz might be, while significantly broadening the landscape (and language) of contemporary music in general.