The Shape of Jazz to Come

The Shape of Jazz to Come is a seminal 1959 album by American jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman. It is considered a landmark recording in the development of free jazz, a style that emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Free jazz is characterized by a departure from traditional jazz structures, such as fixed harmonic patterns and predetermined chord progressions. Instead, improvisers in free jazz are encouraged to explore melodic and expressive elements more freely, often modulating keys at will and experimenting with atonality, microtones, and multiphonics.

Coleman's "harmolodic theory," developed in the 1950s, was central to this movement, allowing improvisers to abandon chord changes and focus on melodic improvisation. The Shape of Jazz to Come, recorded with trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Billy Higgins, was one of the first albums to fully embody this new approach, challenging established norms and influencing generations of jazz musicians.12