The knockout punch for jazz fans at this year’s Jazz Fest is the arrival of saxophone giant Ornette Coleman. A huge presence on the scene since the late 1950s when his alto tore up New York’s notorious Five Spot, Coleman changed music and minds with his revolutionary approach.
Born in Forth Worth, Texas in 1930, at age 19 Coleman set out on a path of musical discovery and innovation. In Los Angeles he met up with some like-minded musicians including New Orleans, drummer Ed Blackwell, trumpeter Don Cherry, drummer Billy Higgins and bassist Charlie Haden. This early teaming proved to be enduring as these now-legendary musicians shared stages and recording sessions.
Coleman made his recording debut in 1958 releasing Something Else on the Contemporary label. With its sense of melodic and rhythmic freedom, the album, along with Coleman’s live engagements, set off explosions in the jazz world both negative and positive. Was this a profound new direction or a profoundly wrong turn for jazz?
Naysayers aside, Coleman prevailed. He went on to amass critically acclaimed works and create an innovative musical approach he dubbed the harmolodic theory. His compositions have become a part of the jazz language and are heard on bandstands and jazz classrooms around the world. He’s written and recorded for combos as well as symphony orchestras as heard on his expansive album, 1972’s Skies on America. Coleman explored the music of Morocco and brought new textures to his music when, in 1975 he established the group Prime Time, which included his son, drummer Denardo Coleman. The saxophonist also added the trumpet and violin to his music case.
Through the decades, Ornette Coleman has been bestowed with a wealth of honorary degrees and awards. More importantly, perhaps, Coleman is recognized daily in the lives and music of his fellow artists. Here is what a few of New Orleans finest jazz musicians had to say on his influence and music.
Harold Battiste, tenor saxophonist, educator: “The first time I actually heard Ornette was the first day we [Battiste, drummer Ed Blackwell and pianist Ellis Marsalis] got to Los Angeles in 1956. That was the only person any one of us knew—Blackwell knew him from when he was in New Orleans. So we went up in his house the first day and started playing. What I first heard was a cat playing a lot of Charlie Parker stuff—he could play all of those things. As we spent days there, I began to realize he was really trying to do something different. He would try to free himself from the chord progressions. I really thought then that he just really didn’t have a good feel for playing chords conventionally and I thought he had a time problem. But it was because he heard a different thing.
“Before him, cats, even Bird [Charlie Parker] would quote little pieces of other things in a song. They would just take a little quote out of something everybody knows. Well, Ornette made up a lot of little things like that—not necessary something that had already been done. They sounded like little pieces of melodies and he would extrapolate on that. It didn’t matter what the chord progression was because he just wanted to go wherever that little thing took him. I think that’s what developed his theory of harmolodics. In other words, harmony developed on the basis of a melody. It’s what he does. He has great facility on the instrument; he can do almost anything on that instrument. When cats play with him—those who can keep up with him—it inspires them to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do.
“He expanded my perception of what’s possible. You know, I didn’t see myself as much of a player. I got trapped into writing. I became the designated writer so whenever playing time came, I was sort of handicapped because while they were practicing, I was writing. So he didn’t really influence my playing at all.
“I liked the melodies that he composed. What he composes, just like most great players in jazz, the tunes that they write become statements because they were played so well. Most Charlie Parker tunes were not great tunes but he played them so wonderful that everybody wants to play ’em.”
Battiste’s Faves: Something Else, The Shape of Jazz To Come
Kidd Jordan, tenor saxophonist/educator: “He was the first musician I heard doing something completely different from what they were doing in jazz—everybody was off into Bird. The difference was like day and night. It had a tremendous influence on me. That was the best thing that ever happened to me to hear something like that. [It showed] it was possible to play some music different than what had been going down by somebody who was a master at it. The shadow he cast was so great that any horn that I picked up, the influence was there.
“He is such a great person—just knowing him and being in his house with him and talking to him about all kinds of other stuff other than music. He’s a great philosopher. One summer I was up there in New York with him—every day going to his house for a month or so. Julius Hemphill used to go over there too. That’s when he was practicing and getting his band together for Prime Time. I heard all his other early albums, but when he did Skies of America then I knew he was really into some serious kinds of music. The other music was serious, but I mean on a larger scale—on the same scale as the people in European music dealing with orchestras. The little band music that he did with Blackwell, Billy Higgins and Don Cherry and them, that was some music. But when I heard Skies of America, I knew he had went into larger forms and they couldn’t deny that he was really doing some serious music.
“I enjoy his violin and his trumpet playing. One thing about Ornette is he can hear. It wasn’t the technical facilities that he had but what he played his ear didn’t lead him wrong. I always look beyond technical stuff even with bebop players and rhythm and blues players to get to what they they’re trying to get at. The technical thing hangs a lot of people up.
“I’ll never forget something that really baffled me. He told me I was playing the alto like a bass. And I was playing all them high notes and I was thinking if anything I was playing the alto like a violin. What he heard was a conception, I don’t know, the way you tune a bass or something. I said, ‘Okay, if that’s what you think.’”
Jordan’s Faves: Skies of America
Ed Petersen, tenor sax: “I only heard Ornette play one time and that was probably about 25 years ago with [saxophonist] Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. It was in Chicago and Ornette was playing mostly violin and it was really loud. I have to say that if that were the only time I heard Ornette, I would have been a big fan of Dewey Redman—and I am a big fan of Dewey Redman.
[At first] I didn’t really care for Ornette’s music too much. It grew on me though. Kind of a lot like Wayne Shorter—the first time I heard Wayne, I didn’t care for him too much. [Now] he’s my absolute favorite saxophonist. It was an acquired taste.
“Ornette’s music is not really a big component of a lot of the way I think about music. I’m probably more interested in things that have a little bit more formal harmonic structure. But, there’s a number of his recordings that I’ve enjoyed. On those Contemporary records—one actually had Horace Parlan on piano—they’re like playing tunes. So it’s interesting to hear Ornette playing in that context where there’s some more identifiable structure.
“A lot of people before Ornette played in similar ways—had been playing free for a long time. But he was the first one who showed you could do that and actually get some records out and have people listen to it. He had a special thing because even when his music wanders sometime, he has such a personal sound. His playing is very melody- and blues-driven so it sort of speaks in an organic way to anybody who’s willing to listen. Maybe that’s one thing that enabled him to actually get his free music out. All the tunes on the Contemporary label and almost all the tunes on the Atlantic records were, you know, pretty hummable.
Petersen’s Faves: Tomorrow Is the Question, Something Else, Live at the Hillcrest
Tim Green, tenor saxophonist: “For me, Ornette Coleman has incredible compositions that are very unique to himself. His solos are tremendously melodic. If you listen to his solos you hear beautiful melodies all strung together—real sensible melodies and a lot of soul. I first got to him from his record Dancing in Your Head in the mid-1970s. Then I went back and started collecting some of the old records—The Shape of Jazz To Come, Beauty’s a Rare Thing, Free Jazz.
“It’s kind of funny when you think back to the history of when he first hit the scene and there was all this unbelievable controversy—one way or the other. It was either oh man, this guy is unbelievable, he’s recreating music or people that thought he didn’t know what he was doing. When I listen to Ornette Coleman and think about what he does, it seems so natural to me for him to play the way he plays.
“Over time and to this day, I seek out learning as much as I can from the acknowledged masters as well as people who aren’t as recognized. Ornette Coleman is obviously a recognized master. And deservedly so for his sense of composition and his—well, I don’t want to use clichés like his free association or his free playing because it doesn’t sound like that to me. I come from a different generation; those guys that first heard him thought it was really wild. It sounds really normal to me but in a great way.
“The attitude I had when I saw his name on the [Jazz Fest] schedule was like, ‘Well, okay, now we’re talking.’ I’m playing out there [at the Fair Grounds] a lot, and I’m not playing that day so I’m actually going to pay to go hear him. He’s like the most important musician on the planet.”
Green’s Faves: Dancing in Your Head, The Shape of Jazz To Come
JAZZIN’ AT THE PONDEROSA
Word is that the Sun Ra Arkestra, performing all three nights of the Ponderosa Stomp, comes to town with a full complement of musicians. The 14-piece ensemble, led by saxophonist and arranger Marshall Allen, who performed with the late great pianist and bandleader Sun Ra for his entire musical life, includes saxophonists Yahya Abdul, Noel Scott and Ray Scott, New Orleans trumpeter Michael Ray and trumpeter Fred Adams, trombonists Dave Davis and Tyrone Hill, vocalist/percussionist Art Jenkins, bassist Bill Davis, drummer Luguman Ali, percussionist Elson Nascimento, guitarist Dave Middleton and New Orleanian guitarist Carl LeBlanc. All but Davis performed with Sun Ra himself. With Allen writing new material and the group playing some 30 times a year, the heads-up is that the Arkestra is sounding solid and truly in the spirit of Ra.
