Consumer Guide Album

Ornette Coleman: Tone Dialing [Harmolodic/Verve, 1995]
After a spate of productivity in the late '80s, this genius hasn't released an album in seven years. But the layoff hasn't affected his m.o.--through 16 cuts that go on about as long as the double-LP In All Languages, he's neither stale nor overflowing. As is his practice, he leads with dynamite: an opening charge, a poetry-with-jazz rap that fits together so well the words don't matter, a restful West Indian ditty, some rearranged Bach, and a gloriously oversampled collage that orchestrates "unmusical" sound into improvisatory ground. After which he spends 40 minutes demonstrating his undiminished ability to create beauty out of what would have been called chaos before he changed the world's ears. I don't claim to love it all. But I take exception only to the tabla thing. A−