Jazz Conversations: Ornette Coleman
This December 1981 interview with Ornette Coleman by Eric Jackson is a gem. Ornette, whose conversations can sometimes sound like James Joyce being read aloud, is focused and on point throughout.
-Michael Cuscuna
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A Peek at Ornette Coleman’s Birthday Bash
We celebrated Ornette Coleman’s 83rd birthday on March 9, with a series of posts on Ornette here in the Daily Jazz Gazette. Howard Mandel followed up on Ornette’s 83rd with a retrospective peek inside Ornette’s 82nd birthday party in 2012.
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Ornette Coleman Birthday: Born March 9, 1930
Ornette Coleman becomes 83 on March 9 and remains a forward-thinking iconoclast to this day. This New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz biography also documents his unceasing creativity and compositional projects.
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Read Morepa href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNbD1JIH344"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNbD1JIH344/a/p Ornette Coleman: Lonely Woman
“Lonely Woman” is considered Ornette Coleman’s first major composition. It has an altogether original melody, derived from nothing that preceded it. Coleman’s alto and Don Cherry’s cornet have deeply personal sounds that have the quality of human voices. Billy Higgins’s double-time drumming under the song introduces a sense of forbidding and urgency while Charlie Haden’s deep double stops give the piece weight and gravity. The song would soon be recorded by the Modern Jazz Quartet and by vocalist Chris Connor (with Margo Guryan’s lyrics). But nothing rivals the haunting, raw power of the original version.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Ornette Coleman: Jazz Conversations
Erik Jackson’s 26-minute conversation with Ornette Coleman on Boston’s WGBH-FM is a remarkable document. Ornette is released, focused and willing to talk about the past, present and, of course, the future. It’s rare to catch Ornette in such an affable, flowing mode of conversation.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Read MoreOrnette Coleman: Beauty Is A Rare Thing
“I guess in jazz music, there are two horns and a rhythm section, that’s what Charlie Parker and all the guys followed. But what happened with me is that I never was thinking about the format as much as I was thinking about the melodic line not having to be just played with that small structure. So what I was doing was to try and write a melodic line that sounded like it was structured orchestraredly. I was trying to play orchestrated music in a small combo context. I realized that if I changed the harmonic structure or the tempo structure while someone else was doing something, they couldn’t stay there. They’d have to change with me. So I’d more or less bring that about myself a lot, knowing where I could take the melody. In other words I could create a showcase of the melody and then show the distance between where 1 could go and still come directly back to that melody . Instead of trying to show the different inversions of the same thing.” - Ornette Coleman about “Beauty Is A Rare Thing” from The Harmolodic Life by John Litweiler
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Charlie Haden Chats with Ethan Iverson
Ethan Iverson’s 2008 interview with Charlie Haden, in its longer form in Iverson’s blog Do the Math, is a constantly fascinating encounter between two of the most probing and committed figures in jazz. Haden seems to leap at Iverson’s questions to talk about his history in the music, from Ornette Coleman The Shape of Jazz to Come to the Liberation Music Orchestra, Old and New Dreams and Quartet West. Especially illuminating: Haden’s take on the bass greats.
-Nick Moy
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Read MoreOld and New Dreams: Carrying the Flag for Ornette Coleman’s Tradition
Four major exponents of the music of Ornette Coleman — trumpeter Don Cherry, reed player Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell — carried the flag for Ornette Coleman’s music in their group, Old and New Dreams. Here, they are captured playing Ornette’s composition “Happy House.” The mastery of all is clear on this recording; yet only Charlie Haden, now in ill health, lives today.
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Carla Bley: Present at the New Music’s Creation
Carla Bley is an incredibly accomplished composer, pianist, band leader and entrepreneur, who was there at the beginning of the new music with then husband Paul Bley and Ornette Coleman. She was co-founder of the Jazz Composers Orchestra, the Watt label and a string of wonderful ensembles over the years. This Piano Jazz show with partner bassist Steve Swallow was recorded in 1995.
-Michael Cuscuna
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Ornette Coleman’s Big Adventure
Few artists are as controversial and beguiling as Ornette Coleman. Shirley Clarke, noted filmmaker (“The Connection” and “The Cool World”) made a wonderful 1984 documentary on Ornette that took him back to Dallas/Fort Worth. She sheds light on a very enigmatic personality.
-Michael Cuscuna
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