Ornette Coleman: Ramblin'

"He plays all the notes Bird missed," some fool says about a character modeled on Ornette Coleman in Thomas Pynchon's novel V. (1963). Another character then goes "silently through the motions of jamming a broken beer bottle into the speaker's back and twisting." The twisting part is especially satisfying because Coleman was at heart a Texas bluesman, not the second coming of Bebop. "Ramblin'" proves it. Besides Ornette's soulful sax, this lowdown blues features Charlie Haden, whose roots were in country & western, strumming his bass from hog heaven. Forget bebop. This is American folk music at its most convincing.