Playing is the live album of Old and New Dreams, the quartet of four Ornette Coleman alumni: Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. It was recorded in concert in Bregenz, Austria, in June 1980 and released by ECM in 1981. The band stretches out on three Coleman tunes and one piece each by Cherry, Redman and Haden. In JazzTimes Ethan Iverson named it one of the two essential Old and New Dreams records, alongside the group's Black Saint debut.
Cherry and Haden had been in Coleman's original quartet, Blackwell soon took the drum chair, and Redman joined later. Once Coleman turned to the electric Prime Time, the four formed their own band, keeping his feel while opening the music to sounds from Africa and Asia. They recorded first for Black Saint in 1976, then for ECM in Oslo in August 1979. Playing was taped at the Theater am Kornmarkt by Martin Wieland, with Manfred Eicher producing. Cherry plays trumpet and piano, Redman tenor saxophone and musette, Haden double bass and Blackwell drums. The cover photograph is by Luigi Ghirri.
The set opens with Happy House, a Coleman tune the band had learned for his 1972 Science Fiction sessions, still unknown to most listeners at the time. During each horn solo Haden and Blackwell drop into half time, and the bass solo leads into a joyous collective improvisation. Cherry's Mopti draws on African sources, with a piano vamp that turns into a polyrhythmic workout for Blackwell and a soulful Redman solo. Haden's closing title piece carries a dedication "to the children of the world".
Iverson's column, first published in 2020, praised the interplay between Redman and Haden on the opening track. He wrote that "You could almost call this outstanding performance a jam session" and named Happy House his single favourite Old and New Dreams track. In AllMusic Scott Yanow noted that Cherry was no longer at his technical peak but found Redman "consistently stirring" and recommended the album. Tyran Grillo, on the ECM blog Between Sound and Space, called it the place to start with the band.
This CD edition contains the six pieces of ECM 1205, first released on LP in 1981.
