Change of the Century

Change of the Century (1960) is Ornette Coleman's second Atlantic-era album featuring Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums. The music advances Coleman's early free jazz approach by omitting chordal instruments and foregrounding melodic invention, collective improvisation, and flexible rhythmic pulse. Tracks unfold from concise themes into open improvisations that emphasize lyricism and interplay over conventional harmonic progressions, making the album an important early document of the free jazz movement.