page_title: Of Human Feelings
section_title: Composition and performance
hierarchical_section_title: Of Human Feelings / Composition and performance
caption_attribution_description: Ornette Coleman with Prime Time at the Caravan of Dreams (here with Charles Ellerbie, left, and Bern Nix, right)
context_page_description: Of Human Feelings is an album by American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Ornette Coleman. It was recorded on April 25, 1979, at CBS Studios in New York City with his Prime Time band, which featured guitarists Charlie Ellerbee and Bern Nix, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and drummers Calvin Weston and Coleman's son Denardo. It followed the saxophonist's failed attempt to record a direct-to-disc session earlier in March of the same year and was the first jazz album to be recorded digitally in the United States.
  The album's jazz-funk music continued Coleman's harmolodic approach to improvisation with Prime Time, whom he introduced on his 1975 album Dancing in Your Head. He drew on rhythm and blues influences from early in his career for Of Human Feelings, which had shorter and more distinct compositions than Dancing in Your Head. Coleman also applied free jazz principles from his music during the 1960s to elements of funk.
  Following a change in management, Coleman signed with Island Records, and Of Human Feelings was released in 1982 by its subsidiary label Antilles Records.
context_section_description: According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (2004), Of Human Feelings features jazz-funk, a type of music that originated around 1970 and was characterized by intricate rhythmic patterns, a recurrent bass line, and Latin rhythmic elements. Lloyd Sachs of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that, although Coleman was not viewed as a jazz fusion artist, the album can be described as such because of its combination of free jazz and funk. Glenn Kenny disagreed and felt its boisterous style had more in common with the no wave genre and the artists of New York City's downtown music scene such as John Zorn. Jazz writer Stuart Nicholson viewed it as the culmination of Coleman's musical principles that dated back to his free jazz music in 1960, but reappropriated with a funk-oriented backbeat. According to jazz critic Barry McRae, "it was as if Coleman was translating the concept of the famous double quartet" from his 1961 album Free Jazz to what was required to perform jazz-funk.
  Coleman incorporated traditional structures and rhythms, and other elements from the rhythm and blues music he had played early his career. According to Mandel, the album's simple, brisk music was more comparable to a coherent R&B band than jazz fusion. Although Coleman still performed the melodies on a song, he employed two guitarists for contrast to make each pair of guitarist and drummer responsible for either the rhythm or melody. Ellerbee provided accented linear counterpoint and Nix played variations of the song's melody, while Denardo Coleman and Weston played both polyrhythms and backbeats. On songs such as "Jump Street" and "Love Words", Ellerbee incorporated distortion into his guitar playing, which gave the songs a thicker texture. Tacuma and Ornette Coleman's instrumental responses were played as the foreground to the less prominent guitars. McRae remarked that Coleman and Prime Time exchanged "directional hints" throughout the songs, as one player changed key and the others modulated accordingly. The band made no attempt to harmonize their radically different parts while playing.
  Of Human Feelings features shorter and more distinct compositions than Dancing in Your Head. "Sleep Talk", "Air Ship", and "Times Square" were originally performed by Coleman during his concerts in 1978 under the names "Dream Talking", "Meta", and "Writing in the Streets", respectively. "What Is the Name of That Song?" was titled as a sly reference to two of his older compositions, "Love Eyes" and "Forgotten Songs" (also known as "Holiday for Heroes"), whose themes were played concurrently and transfigured by Prime Time. The theme from "Forgotten Songs", originally from Coleman's 1972 album Skies of America, was used as a refrain. "Jump Street" is a blues piece, "Air Ship" comprises a six-bar riff, and the atonal "Times Square" has futuristic dance themes. "Love Words" heavily uses polymodality, a central feature of harmolodics, and juxtaposes Coleman's extended solo against a dense, rhythmically complex backdrop. Nicholson observed West African rhythms and collective improvisation rooted in New Orleans jazz on "Love Words", and suggested that "Sleep Talk" was derived from the opening bassoon solo in Igor Stravinsky's 1913 orchestral work The Rite of Spring.
caption: Coleman (middle), accompanied by guitarists Charlie Ellerbee (left) and Bern Nix (right)
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