Happily, SF Jazz was back on track for the final show of the Fall Festival on Sunday. JP#s, blessingx, my wife, and I were among the adoring fans who saw Ornette Coleman and his Quartet at Davies Symphony Hall. From the moment the MC emphasized this month was the 50th anniversary of the release of The Shape of Jazz to Come and Ornette was announced, it was clear that the crowd's adulation had an impact on him. He said something like "Thank you all for being here. Now we're going to get to know each other very well."
They came out of the box strong with the first number, which was a free jazz screamer, and kept up the pace for 90 minutes straight, no intermission, including 3 encore tunes that they clearly weren't certain they would do. They seemed to consider even one more, but Ornette is a few months shy of 80 and we didn't begrudge them leaving the stage for the night.
Ornette's quartet is unusual in that it consists of Ornette on alto sax, trumpet and violin, Tony Falanga on acoustic bass, Al McDowell on electric bass, and Ornette's son Denardo Coleman on drums. Falanga plays amazing traditional bass, with an unusual emphasis on bowing, while McDowell plays electric and possibly even synthesized bass. It was described well in a Stereophile review of their recent Jazz at Lincoln Center performance: "Al McDowell, who plays electric bass guitar, has finally found a role for himself: sometimes strumming like a guitar, sometimes doubling on the melody line, sometimes echoing it, or tracing a countermelody. In short, he