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When we think about what makes an artist great, there are certain assumed givens: sharp, irrefutable skill, unique yet universal perspective, the masterful ease that comes with practice. Ornette Coleman embodied these traits and so much more which is why the JLCO will pay tribute to him later this month. While there are many elements that contributed to Coleman’s compelling character, we delighted in these particular facts about his life.
1) Coleman had a rich history with New York City. His first ever gig in the city, at the Five Spot Café, grew from a two-week booking into a two-and-a-half-month residency. His mark on NYC’s local music scene didn’t stop there. Coleman would later purchase part of a building on Prince Street and named it “Artists House.” It became a creative hub out of which grew a record label of the same name as well as regularly organized concerts.
2) Fellow jazz musicians adored Coleman’s eccentric music and personal style. After spending just 12 minutes on stage with Coleman in 1961, John Coltrane said it was “the most intense moment of my life.” Another favorite reflection on Ornette is David Was’ reference to him as “the Samuel Beckett of jazz.”
3) In a 1997 interview with French philosopher Jacques Derrida, Coleman tells the story of how “Lonely Woman” was inspired by a department store painting of a wealthy woman who seemed to have everything but a smile.
4) At one point in his career, Coleman moved to Los Angeles and became a Jehovah’s Witness. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he commented, “…they had a saying: ‘You should only work on the one thing that you want to do forever.’ That really appealed to me.” According to trumpeter Don Cherry, this period of Coleman’s life coincided with a preference of sporting handmade clothing crafted by his wife which created a “Christ [look] but [like] no Christ anybody had ever seen before.”
5) As Coleman’s sound became increasingly avant-garde, his sphere of influence began to widen as well. Thomas Pynchon’s debut novel, V., was largely inspired by Coleman’s impact on the jazz world and even included a main character who played a white saxophone, much like Coleman’s favorite alto.
6) Ted Nash, of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and music director for this month’s Coleman tribute show, shared his favorite anecdote that encapsulates Coleman’s term “harmolodics.” Years ago, during a rehearsal session, Coleman played a very complex solo, full of rich harmonies with chords seemingly falling on each beat in a measure. When Dewey Redman asked Coleman to share the harmonic structure, he quickly realized that weren’t any chords. Nash commented, “I think this expresses perfectly what Coleman’s improvising was about - totally intuitive and so clear in intention that it sounded organized.” Nash goes on to say that this unique take on harmony and rhythm, defined by Coleman as “harmolodics,” embraces the freedom to “play what you feel and put a blue note in there every once in a while.”
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