When these four graduates of the University of Harmolodics entered a New York recording studio in 1976, Old and New Dreams was an album title rather than the moniker of the working group they would become, before disbanding after the death of the irreplaceable Ed Blackwell in 1992. But Old and New Dreams (the group) was always more than the unimpeachably high-end Ornette tribute band you might reasonably have expected. The group aimed to play the philosophy behind Ornette's music as sincerely as his notes, reaffirming in the process that these two aspects of Ornette were synonymous – and that the great man didn't need to be in the room for his creative presence to be felt. The opening track, an Ornette composition called ‘Handwoven’, makes the point clearly enough as Don Cherry and Dewey Redman bounce multifarious aspects of the same summersaulting line between their instruments, and Charlie Haden's bass and Blackwell's drums play melody as deeply as they are nailing any groove or harmonic direction. Raw harmolodics is thrillingly at play. The rather compacted sound of the recording, unwittingly perhaps, contributes to the sense of a mulched together, unified ensemble. True enough, the ceremonial gongs underpinning ‘Chairman Mao’ scene-set in a way that feels oddly alien to Ornette's aesthetic; but Blackwell's snowballing solos are otherwise a highlight of this endlessly rewarding record. Sleeve notes by Stanley Crouch – before he became a grouch.