The double album was originally released by Caravan of Dreams, which also issued the title as a single cassette or compact disc. Coleman's record label, Harmolodic, re-issued In All Languages in 1997 through a marketing and distribution deal with Verve Records.[1][2]
For the album, Coleman recorded both his original quartet and his newer Prime Time band in the same studio within the same period. Option magazine remarked that In All Languages showcases the differences between his original quartet's free jazz and the harmolodic funk of his Prime Time band.[3]Geoffrey Himes of JazzTimes said the album's approach "may sound very avant-garde, but it's not so different from a Dixieland combo that stands to solo all at once on the final chorus or from a pre-war blues band that shifts from D to D-flat and from 12 bars to 13 in pursuit of a song."[4]
Reviewing the album for The Village Voice in 1987, Robert Christgau applauded Coleman as a persistently lyrical iconoclast and said the Quartet sounded more intense than ever before because of how they follow Coleman's harmolodic funk approach and "the dense flow of Of Human Feelings".[9] In another piece for Playboy, Christgau cited the album as "an ideal introduction" to Coleman's music and remarked that, despite Coleman's restless playing, Prime Time's chemistry and the brevity of the songs "assure a coherence that coexists with constant surprise as in no other music."[10]In All Languages was voted the eleventh best album of the year in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for 1987.[11] Christgau, the poll's creator, named it the fourth best album of 1987 in his own list.[12]
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, jazz critic Scott Yanow said that Prime Time "almost makes the acoustic unit sound conservative in comparison. While the quartet displays subtle use of space and interplay between the musicians, Prime Time comes across as overcrowded and loud, but no less stimulating. Highly recommended to fans of Ornette Coleman."[5] Michael G. Nastos, writing for All Music Guide to Jazz, wrote that "the utterly no-nonsense approach and high intensity make this a recording challenged listeners must have," also noting that the quartet's "work is still vital."[13] Lloyd Sachs of the Chicago Sun-Times said that the music is "so compulsively melodic and rhythmically alive, I dare anyone to utter the usual stuff about how 'difficult' Ornette is after a single listening."[14]
^"Review: In All Languages". Option: 78. 1987. Coleman has released an album which definitively spells the musical disparities between the free-bop of his original quartet and the rampaging harmolodic funk of his Prime Time conglomeration. This 2-record set is probably most inspiring because Ornette chose to record each group in the same studio during the same time period.
^Himes, Geoffrey Himes (2005). "Review: In All Languages". JazzTimes. 35 (6–10): 54.
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