Daniel Nicolae Dubei

1959 was a magnificent year for music, particularly jazz. I’ve noted a few of these compositions here to this point. Miles Davis with his album Kind of Blue and his amazing “So What.” Dave Brubeck Band with their album Time Out and the stellar “Take Five.” John Coltrane also had an amazing album that year called Giant Steps. I noted my favorite piece of his, “My Favorite Things” from the same named 1960 album. Charles Mingus released a fantastic jazz album in 1959 called Mingus Ah Um. And with an Honorable Mention here, Ornette Coleman released his album, The Shape of Jazz to Come, with his lively “Lonely Woman.” 

Ornette Coleman was a forerunner of free jazz that pushed the boundaries of the earlier bebop style. He, in fact pushed it so far that he created an album in 1961 called Free Jazz, a full, 40 minute long session wherein there were no rules, and anyone could play whenever they wanted within that timeframe.

But the piece that interests me is Lonely Woman which still has more traditional jazz form and shape. It has a propulsive intensity, and was inspired by a painting Coleman had seen, as he recounts: “Before becoming known as a musician, when I worked in a big department store, one day, during my lunch break, I came across a gallery where someone had painted a very rich white woman who had absolutely everything that you could desire in life, and she had the most solitary expression in the world. I had never been confronted with such solitude, and when I got back home, I wrote a piece that I called “Lonely Woman.”

For this song and this album, Coleman and his quartet do not use the bassist and the drummer in the conventional rhythmic sense, and they don’t have a pianist who provides the safety net of chordal harmonies, making the soloists and the bass player rely more on each other to create the harmonies and melodies. This was fairly controversial at the time, and most jazz players were apparently hostile toward Ornette Coleman while classical composers, such as Leonard Bernstein praised Coleman. 

Here is Ornette Coleman playing Lonely Woman live. 

#11 – Dvorak Serenade for Strings in E major, Op. 22

#12 – Stravinsky Le Sacre du Printemps

#13 – Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue

#14 – Mozart Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551

#15 – Coltrane My Favorite Things

#16 – Dvorak Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70

#17 – Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

#18 – Mozart Don Giovanni, K. 527

#19 – Liszt Les Preludes, S. 97

#20 – Mozart Le Nozze di Figaro, K. 492

#21 – Tchaikovsky Swan Lake, Op. 20 

#22 – Mahler Symphony No. 2 in C minor

#23 – Tchaikovsky String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 11

#24 – Williams Empire Strikes Back

#25 – Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 in Eb major, Op. 73

#26 – Bernstein West Side Story

#27 – Enescu – Octet for Strings in C major, Op. 7

#28 – Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110

#29 – Mussorgsky Night on Bald Mountain

#30 – Webber Phantom of the Opera

#31 – Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky

#32 – Chopin Nocturne in Bb minor, Op. 9, No. 1

#33 – Debussy Images, Book 1, L110

#34 – Debussy Pour Le Piano, L. 95

#35 – Chaminade Guitare, Op. 32

#36 – Chopin Berceuse in Db major, Op. 57

#37 – Boulanger Nocturne pour violon et piano

#38 – Schönberg Les Miserables

#39 – Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18

#40 – Miranda Hamilton

#41 – Strauss Salomé

#42 – Britten Peter Grimes

#43 – Loewe My Fair Lady

#44 – Liszt Mephisto Waltzes

#45 – Webber Evita

#46 – Poledouris Conan The Barbarian

#47 – Bernstein Trouble in Tahiti

#48 – Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

#49 – Chaminade La Lisonjera, Op. 50

#50 – Beethoven Coriolan Overture, Op. 62

Honorable Mention

Coleman Lonely Woman

Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125

Tchaikovsky Nutcracker

Jobim Girl From Ipanema

Shostakovich Suite for Variety Orchestra

Schubert Symphony No. 9 in C major, D 944

Saariaho L’Amour de Loin

Schubert String Quartet No. 14 “Death and the Maiden”

Desmond Take Five

Wagner Die Walküre 

Puccini Tosca

Davis So What

Stravinsky Petroushka 

Wagner Tristan Und Isolde

Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings

Williams Raiders of the Lost Ark

Verdi Aïda

Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht

Grisey Les espaces acoustiques

Gade – Octet for 4 violins, 2 violas, 2 violoncellos in F major, Op. 17

Schubert – Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D759