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| Recorded in April 1972, Ornette Coleman's social-political rant Skies of America was a highly flammable LP. A composition, like Lazarus, rising out of the new cotton fields, the album was saturated in the lighter fluid of racial upheaval, the late-'60s assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy, and the less-than-racially diverse frontlines of the Vietnam war. From the start it’s like a loaded gun, defying classification, even by avant-garde standards. In the America of the early '70s, King’s dream gave way to Ornette’s nightmare—a horrific vision by a prophet whose pen was a brass horn, and the apocalyptic monster of inspiration, the mighty bald eagle. In this, one of his most fertile periods, Ornette composed three symphonic works, Symphonic Poems (1967), Sun Suite Of San Francisco (1968) and Skies of America (1971). Skies, the only one of these works ever released, (the aforementioned compositions absent from Columbia’s catalog and collecting circles) is structured on Coleman’s Harmolodic Theories. Swirling string arrangements augment the Creator’s horn, which serves as a tour guide through the twisted levels of this 'modern' inferno. Beautiful and ominous (great for a cloudy day or an election year), Skies does have its lighter moments. During "Poetry," Ornette uses "London Bridges" as the deliberately ironic backdrop to make a personal statement, with the melody floating like a big, fluffy, comedic cloud lost in the violently swirling atmosphere of it all. During "The Men Who Live in the White House", a gorgeous '30s-style solo in Gershwinesque grandeur (again not without reason) delivers a tongue-in-cheek stroll through a bygone industrial New York of neat stone buildings and endless sidewalks. Pulsating drums underline the compositions, giving them a concrete jungle feel (though once, I did have a strange vision of Franco Harris in a Steelers uniform in a yellowed '70s NFL highlight reel...but that was just me). The grand finale (not in a Forth of July sense) is "Sunday in America". Quiet, tender and solemn, it's mood resembles 'Taps', with a mercurial weight and the authority of a gavel—a perfect finish bringing us full-circle. While nothing can ever be the same, the Skies of America are still as dangerous and polluted today as they were in that Watergate year of 1972. Ornette Coleman delivers "Sunday in America" to us like Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, but this time we stand alone at the Lincoln Memorial, left to watch our contorted reflection undulate in a pool of tears. --Gabriel DeFrancesco (email) August 2, 2004
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