About a year prior to his historic New York breakthrough in 1959, alto saxophonist and free-jazz innovator Ornette Coleman made two albums for Contemporary with producer Lester Koenig. Everything from “Invisible” to “The Sphinx” on this collection first appeared on Something Else!!!! The Music of Ornette Coleman, his 1958 debut. It’s a document of an artist in transition: trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins, who would soon upend the jazz world on Coleman’s Atlantic breakthrough, The Shape of Jazz to Come, are already in place here. Don Payne is the bassist, and Walter Norris plays piano, an instrument that Coleman basically never used again (the rare exception being his mid-’90s Sound Museum recordings, featuring the great Geri Allen). New mastering by Bernie Grundman makes Genesis of Genius pop sonically in a way that benefits the material. Recorded during Coleman’s early-career stint in Los Angeles, these albums straddle a fascinating line between convention and anticonvention: Something Else!!!! is straight bebop in some respects—“Chippie” and “Alpha” sound like good vehicles for any respectable post-Charlie Parker jam session. Yet these are all Coleman originals, and the distinctly angular, bluesy melodic conception and skewed harmony of his mature style is strongly evident (not to mention the airtight rapport with Cherry on winding unison melodies and fearless solo flights). The second all-original Contemporary date, Tomorrow Is the Question! The New Music of Ornette Coleman!, recorded in early 1959, is closer to the sound of Ornette’s Atlantic heyday. There is no pianist, which alone makes for a sparser texture and a more abstract harmonic conception. Cherry is still front and center; drummer Shelly Manne keeps the chair warm in place of Higgins; and bassist Percy Heath of The Modern Jazz Quartet swings hard on six of the nine tracks (Red Mitchell plays on the final three: “Lorraine,” “Turnaround,” and “Endless”). “Compassion,” to cite just one example, already sounds like no other jazz composer of the period. Though not as widely revered as The Shape of Jazz to Come and Coleman’s other major Atlantic titles Change of the Century and This Is Our Music, the Contemporary dates richly deserve the spotlight this collection throws on them.