Of Human Feelings by Ornette Coleman

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. Critics generally praised the album's expressive music and harmolodic approach, but it made little commercial impact and went out of print. Coleman enlisted his son Denardo as manager after a dispute with his former managers over the album's royalties, a change that inspired him to perform publicly again during the 1980s.