Jazz great dies
An appreciation of the late Ornette Coleman by pop music critic Randall Roberts.
Those less familiar with out-there jazz of the 1950s and ’60s might not have a clue as to why Ornette Coleman, who died Thursday morning, was such a transformative American musician at that time, and well beyond.
The saxophonist’s music was so far removed from the smooth, easy Dave Brubeck tones then popular as to sound like another art form. Somebody once described Coleman’s free jazz as sounding like a ragtime band — whose members were each playing a different song.
The artist, born in Texas, first established himself in L.A. in the mid-’50s. He and his quartet (Charlie Haden, bass; Billy Higgins, drums; and Don Cherry, trumpet) recorded his seminal early album, “The Shape of Jazz to Come,” in 1959 in Hollywood. Later that year, a polarizing residency at the Five Spot in New York City drew the wonder and ire of the scene’s musicians and tastemakers.
That Coleman continued to experiment is a testament to his willful creative spirit, but his early work for Atlantic Records is the stuff that upended the jazz world. In 1993, it was collected in an essential Rhino Records CD box set called “Beauty Is a Rare Thing: The Complete Atlantic Recordings.” A profound exploration, “Beauty ...” is a loving ode to Coleman; its liner notes, part of a package produced by Yves Beauvais, offer further evidence of the horn player’s influence.
Specifically, peppered throughout the box’s booklet are quotes from jazz luminaries, each reacting to early encounters with Coleman’s music. Below are some of the best, taken from those notes: “I don’t know what he’s playing, but it’s not jazz.” — Dizzy Gillespie, Time magazine, June 1960 “[The day I met Ornette], it was 90 degrees and he had on an overcoat. I was scared of him.” — Don Cherry, Jazz magazine, 1963 “I listened to him all kinds of ways. I listened to him high, I listened to him stone cold sober. I even played with him. I think he’s jiving, baby.” — Roy Eldridge, Esquire magazine, 1961 “Are you cats serious?” — attributed to Dizzy Gillespie, at one of the Ornette Coleman Quartet’s Five Spot shows in New York City “His playing has a deep inner logic, based on subtleties of reaction, subtleties of timing and color that are, I think, quite new to jazz. At least they have never appeared in so pure and direct a form.” — Gunther Schuller, Jazz magazine, 1963 “Man, that cat is nuts!” — Thelonius Monk (undated) “He’s got bad intonation, bad technique. He’s trying new things, but he hasn’t mastered his instrument yet.” — Maynard Ferguson
(undated) “This guy came up onstage and asked the musicians if he could play, and started to sit in. He played three or four phrases, and it was so brilliant, I couldn’t believe it — I had never heard any sound like that before. Immediately, the musicians told him to stop playing, and he packed up his horn, but before I could reach him he’d already left through the back entrance.” — Charlie Haden, told to John Litweiler in “Ornette Coleman: A Har-
molodic Life” “The only really new thing since the mid-’40s innovations of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk.” — the Modern Jazz Quartet’s John Lewis, 1960 “Hell, I just listen to what he writes and how he plays. If you’re talking psychologically, the man is all screwed up inside.” — Miles Davis, Joe Goldberg, “Jazz Masters of the ’50s.” “It doesn’t matter the key he’s playing in — he’s got a percussional sound, like a cat with a whole lot of bongos. He’s brought a thing in — it’s not new. I won’t say who started it, but whoever started it, people overlooked it. It’s not like having anything to do with what’s around you, and being right in your own world. You can’t put your finger on what he’s doing.” — Charles Mingus, Downbeat magazine, 1960
“When I worked with Or- nette, somehow I became more of a person in my own playing.” — Shelley Manne, Jazz magazine, 1963 “Coltrane used to come hear us every night. He would grab Ornette by the arm as soon as we got off and they would go off into the night talking about music.” — Charlie Haden to Robert Palmer, Downbeat magazine, 1972 “He is a man of great conviction, a pioneer always moving forward down the path he has chosen, a can opener who opens all of us up as musicians. I could not play what I play had it not been for Ornette Coleman.” — Herbie Hancock, New York Times, 1990 “The new breed has inspired me all over again. The search is on. Let freedom ring.” — Jackie McLean, in his own liner notes to “Let Freedom Ring” “It’s like organized disorganization, or playing wrong right. And it gets to you emotionally, like a drummer. That’s what Coleman means to me.” — Charles Mingus, “Downbeat,” 1960