With his milestone recordings of the late fifties Ornette opened the gate to a whole new world which is still being explored today as it will be tomorrow. While the original quartet with its Atlantic output is rightly regarded as his most important achievement, these two albums rank among his most successful and accessible work, as uncompromising as they are.The pieces contained in here are mostly simple, riff-based fragments, a basis for improvisation. But the "Broadway Blues" on the accompanying "New York Is Now"-CD is a fine example of Ornette the tunesmith. Writing an easy melodic line is often underrated or disregarded. But Ornette has always been a composer with the very rare ability to put it brief and,even more,to fill a lot of music into his pieces. These two CDs once more lay proof to the fact that his music is, besides all other qualities, lasting,i.e.it'll never get dated. One reason is, I suppose, evident here: Ornette knows his roots and is the born leader - giving his colleagues ample space to develop their own ideas and to contribute to the music in a vital way and yet making them to play HIS music. All musicians on these albums are in fine form and play with inspiration.Dewey displays his embodied tenor tone very pleasingly, Jimmy Garrison's bass supports and solos simultaneously and giant drummer Elvin Jones is a category of himself.I'd say that Ornette rarely played with so much power as when driven by Elvin.And despite this line-up no allusions to Trane creep up and go way into the music. Shortly after John Coltrane's death, a rather unexpected atmosphere. If simple were easy, why are there so few successors? The album covers are quite good too!