Old and New Dreams was a jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 group that existed from 1976 to 1987 composed of tenor saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

 player Dewey Redman

Dewey Redman

Dewey Redman was an American jazz saxophonist, known for performing free jazz as a bandleader, and with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett....

 (doubling on musette

Suona

The suona ; also called laba or haidi is a Han Chinese shawm . It has a distinctively loud and high-pitched sound, and is used frequently in Chinese traditional music ensembles, particularly those that perform outdoors...

), bassist

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

 Charlie Haden

Charlie Haden

Charles Edward Haden is an American jazz musician. He is a double bassist, probably best known for his long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman...

, cornet

Cornet

The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...

 player Don Cherry

Don Cherry (jazz)

Donald Eugene Cherry was an innovative African-American jazz cornetist whose career began with a long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He went on to live in many parts of the world and work with a wide variety of musicians.-Biography:Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and...

 and drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

mer Ed Blackwell

Ed Blackwell

Ed Blackwell was an American jazz drummer born in New Orleans, Louisiana, known for his extensive work with Ornette Coleman....

. All of the members were former sidemen of free jazz

Free jazz

Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...

 progenitor, alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....

, and the group played a mix of Coleman's compositions and originals by the band members.

They released two records on the German jazz label ECM

ECM (record label)

ECM is a record label founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969 by Manfred Eicher. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a wide variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres...

: a self-titled release in 1979 and Playing, recorded live, a year later. These discs were bookended by a pair of discs on the Italian Black Saint label: a studio record from 1976 (also self-titled) and 1987's A Tribute to Blackwell, capturing the quartet's final concert at a birthday celebration for Blackwell.

Haden is the only surviving member of the quartet, Blackwell having died in 1992, Cherry in 1995 and Redman in 2006.

Discography

• Old and New Dreams (Black Saint, 1976)
• Old and New Dreams (ECM, 1979)
• Playing
  Playing (album)
  Old and New Dreams is a live album by jazz quartet Old and New Dreams featuring trumpeter Don Cherry, saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell recorded in 1980 for the ECM label.-Reception:...
  
  (ECM, 1980)
• A Tribute to Blackwell
  A Tribute to Blackwell
  A Tribute to Blackwell is a live album by jazz quartet Old and New Dreams featuring trumpeter Don Cherry, saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell recorded in 1987 and released on the Italian Black Saint label.-Reception:...
  
  (Black Saint, 1987)