Ornette Coleman and Sweden's Golden Circle Club

Ornette Coleman's trio famously recorded over two nights, during a two week stint at Stockholm's Golden Circle (Gyllene Cirkeln) Club in December 1965. Francis Wolff of Blue Note flew to Sweden to supervise and produce the recording, using Rune Andreasson, a local recording engineer. The resulting two albums "At The Golden Circle" vols one and two became Blue Note classic albums.

The Golden Circle Club was based, from 1962 in the ABF-Huset building, a progressive community building built in 1961 in the centre of Stockholm. Over its seven year life the club hosted many US jazz musicians. Due to its welcoming attitude to foreign musicians, Sweden became home (at times) to jazz musicians such as Sahib Shahib, George Russell, Albert Ayler, Steve Kuhn, Red Mitchell and Don Cherry.
See also : The New Jazz Musings - Albert Ayler in Sweden

The Club was on the 1st Floor (unchanged inside)

Gyllene Cirkeln Wall Display

Original Golden Spiral Staircase Entrance in Ceiling

Below is a contemporary album review of the Golden Circle albums by Martin Williams (from 1966).

In 1958, when Ornette Coleman’s first recordings appeared, many listeners were puzzled; his music sounded they were apt to put it, too far out for them. Some musicians were puzzled too, but they were more apt to find his work simple, or even to voice a doubt as to whether Coleman knew what he was doing. Two LP releases of The Ornette Coleman Trio at the Golden Circle, Stockholm (Blue Note 4224 and 4225) may answer the earlier reservations of both audiences and fellow players. Coleman's original talent, his refreshing approach to jazz rhythm, jazz melody, and improvisation have been around long enough to be familiar. No, his ideas have not yet found their way into an Andy Williams record but there was some would-be Coleman during a recent TV background score. By now, most listeners can go directly to the music itself, rather than be stopped by its surface unfamiliarity. And a musician will surely note the clarity and precision with which Coleman now articulates every note, every inflection, every phrase. There seems no question about it, Ornette Coleman knows what he is doing, he means it all, and he now plays with almost the careful deliberateness of a sculptor whose small mistake may destroy a larger design. The question that remains for a listener is how much he likes what he hears. A musician of course may have the additional question of how fruitful he finds Coleman's approach for the future of the music.

By the time these live Stockholm performances were taped, the Coleman Trio had developed praiseworthy individual and collective virtues. Bassist David Izenzon had begun to Swing more, and he has a particularly well organized solo on Dee Dee in Volume 1. Drummer Charles Moffet had elaborated his basic, down-home style (a style appropriate to Coleman, who is basically a bluesman) so that it became capable of an appropriate variety of textures (again, hear Dee Dee). Faces And Places, also in the first volume is characteristic, finely developed Coleman——a swift and frequently ingenious monologue built on melodic permutations of one direct rhythmic idea. European Echoes is a lightly humorous waltz in which Coleman’s solo grows out of an enunciation of the basic waltz count, 1-2-3.

Perhaps the most successful piece is Dawn, a lovely group invention in which each member contributes equally and almost simultaneously. One of the most striking performances in Volume 2 is also descriptive, Snowflakes And Sunshine—-and this judgement, I should add, comes from one who usually distrusts the idea of programme music. It is a tissue of shimmering impressionistic sounds on which Coleman plays some functionally successful violin and trumpet. There is also a slow, prayerful but optimistic Morning Song, a variant on the dirge-like mood of which Ornette Coleman is a master. The Riddle is a wonder and a real contribution to the jazz language, a riddle of tempo that moves in and out of several speeds with such natural musical logic that one barely notices. Similarly, on the deliberately meandering Antiques, there are casual changes of tempo. These records show Ornette Coleman's music at such a level of development that, if one doesn’t know his work at all, Blue Note 4224 and 4225 are an excellent place to begin.

Coleman’s style allows for free melodic improvisation, not on the outline of a succession of chords, as in earlier jazz (the ‘harmonic variation' of classical parlance), but on an harmonic pedal-point or ‘drone’. Coincidentally, I am sure, Miles Davis used a similar approach on certain of his pieces, and after recording these pieces with Davis, John Coltrane developed the idea on certain of his (try Naima on London LTZ-K 15197 for example). Such an approach is at once relatively simple and highly challenging. The soloist has only one chord or one ‘drone’ to deal with instead of several, but he has to make that single point-of-departure yield a long stretch of eventful melody. I am sure that Ornette Coleman found his way to such modal improvisation on his own. Perhaps it seemed to certain New York musicians as if Coleman had already staked out a personal claim in territory where previously they had only panned some nuggets. In any case, it should come as no surprise that John Coltrane was attracted to Coleman's music.

Gyllene Cirkeln 1965. Photo : Christer Landergren

June 2015 : This week, saxophonist Ornette Coleman passed away. Journalist Göran Sommardal remembers one of jazz's foreground figures, including a performance at the Gyllene Cirkeln Restaurang.

For a long time, I owned an EP with two of the songs from the 1959 album The Shape of Jazz to Come , with Don Cherry on the cornet. Ornette Coleman played his notorious plastic saxophone, and the cover was a shrunken copy of the envelope for the LP vinyl: a picture of Coleman in black shirt with his dull yellow plastic scissors under his arm. The one song should have been "Lonely Woman", the only one of Coleman's many, many - who experienced classic jazz status.

I started listening to jazz myself early in my life, but not so early, I must have come across Ornette in the mid-60s. Either way, I carried The Shape with me for a long time as a riddle and far from simple pleasant reminder that there was jazz music after both Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. And that it was possible to play something else on the alto saxophone after Parker, who was not Paul Desmond's seductively elegant tone or Canonball Aderley's energetic pumping. My friend had an ex. by Ornette, where in addition to Don Cherry on the cornet, the divine Scott LaFaro played bass. It was at that time that the death-defying company Atlantic first signed a contract with Coleman, later he ended up on the Blue Note.

It was shortly thereafter that Ornette Coleman's trio played at Restaurang Gyllene Cirkeln in the ABF house on Sveavägen in Stockholm. In addition to Coleman, were David Izenzon on bass and Charles Moffett on drums, and Ornette occasionally on violin, as he played left-handed. Like all fair-minded people, I booked in for an evening, which, to tell you the truth, I don't remember in fine detail, but which must have made a certain impression, as I almost immediately acquired the double-album that was the result of the guest play: Ornette Coleman trio at the Golden Circle Stockholm.



Here, the pieces were built quite a lot like the traditional bebop jazz, most of all similar to Parker's way of working. First, a quick presentation of a theme, then a wild improvisation, and then a return to the original theme. The difference between the original bebop and Ornetta Coleman's jazz number was that the improvisation part was not bound by key notes or chord sequences but developed into an atonal search for a catchy tune and eventually a sound and rhythm where the various instruments could eventually be combined. It was as if Coleman had the boat run without rudder and often also released the oars, and as listeners it was to do the same.

And it wasn't the slightest flurry, just incessantly challenging.

One of Coleman's most memorable recordings was the 40 minute Free Jazz, with double quartets, two basses, two drums, with the solo space for the various instruments but at the same time space for other instruments to break into at any time.

It was no wonder that Ornette Coleman met with strong reactions. Many conservatives just shook their heads, even Miles Davis had a hard time with the music. Leonard Bernstein, conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and creator of West Side Story music, on the other hand, hailed Coleman as a genius. And John Lewis pianist and leader of the Modern Jazz Quartet said that Ornette was the only real renewal of jazz after Parker and Gillespie.

Over the years, Coleman came to play with countless musicians and to write music for both films and rock bands. Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia played on one of Coleman's records, and he himself played in 1993 in a live performance with the entire band.

Over the years Ornette Coleman was also presented with a lot of awards. From the Japanese emperor, Pulitzer prize for Music 2007, a Grammy the same year. He also won the prize with the finest motivation and one of the biggest financial awards, The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life. "

Ref : Jazz Journal Nov 1966, Sverigesradio Jun 2015