Ornette Coleman, Dead - Here's What His Peers Had to Say About Him

I really liked some of Ornette's music. And I did not like much of his music. I did not hate it. I just wasn't in to a lot of it.

I felt the same way about Ornette as I did about much of the oeuvre of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. I think both Ornette and the AEoC were about putting people on, as much as they were about creating beauty, or good music.

Often, it seems to me, they gave voice to their deep anger at living in a world to which they were denied a real sense of belonging, and I could relate to that. Personally, I have felt like that much of my life. It is a common human feeling.

I think Ornette was a guy who often attempted to play random but scatterings of notes and rhythms. But human beings are not really capable of being random. We are creatures who crave meaning. We crave connection, and we crave a sense of wonder and praise directed to an outward which we feel inwardly.

There was a constant tension in the music of Ornette Coleman, a tension between the struggle to play random vs. the inevitable vertigo at the precipice of meaning and connection. This struggle said something of his humanity, yes. But because it was a demonstration of the natural impulse (dare I say, reflex) of humanity towards meaning, it spoke clearly of the human condition in the 20th century.

It spoke by default. Not through intention.

Ornette's music was "Modern Art", in the sense that the 20th Century was called "Modernist". It was akin to Stravinsky, or later stabs in the field of Serialist music. His music was not Postmodern. And, Ornette's music certainly was not of the Neo-Classical form that Midnight Rider and I love so much. Neo-Classical is the style of Composers such as Arvo Part, John Tavener, and Olivier Messaien. The music of Jazz Musicians such as Jan Garbarek, Keith Jarrett, Eberhard Weber, or Joe Zawinul is the Jazz equivalent of Neo-Classical.

Ornette's music mired in the 20th Century. It was not prophetic, as is the music of Jarrett, or Part. Ornette's music was music of his time and place.

Ornette Coleman spoke of creating a new musical system, called "Harmolodics". Sometimes he referred to it as a Philosophy. Here's what Coleman said of Harmolodics. It is:

"the use of the physical and the mental of one's own logic made into an expression of sound to bring about the musical sensation of unison executed by a single person or with a group." Applied to the particulars of music, this means that "harmony, melody, speed, rhythm, time and phrases all have equal position in the results that come from the placing and spacing of ideas."

Ornette had a brain that veered off the road toward big ideas he believed he saw hidden behind the billboards of the culture he hated.

Alas, there were no big ideas. They were hallucinations.

His concept of Harmolodics was empty. It was words in the air, signifying nothing. In short, it was bullshit.

(You think I'm being harsh? Here's a whole article, quoting guys who loved Coleman, attempting to define "Harmolodics".)

This is not to say Ornette's music was not worth listening to. It was, and I did, and will continue to do so, for the reasons outlined above.

However, while Ornette's music has it's place. He is not nearly on the same plane as John Coltrance, Miles Davis, or Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Joe Zawinul, or other giants.

Ornette Coleman was a second-tier Jazz man who attempted to be first-tier, and failed. But in the trying, he did create some very worthwhile music.

The Los Angeles published an article this morning entitled, "Why Was Ornette Coleman So Important? Jazz Masters both living and dead chime in". This article is an attempt to get at the "greatness" of Ornette. The greatness which, in my opinion, was not there.

When someone dies ,we are supposed to say nice things about him. But I'm being honest in my assessment of Ornette, because I respect his music enough to spend time on it, attempt to feel with it, and to discuss it. Ornette's music was worthwhile.

But, yes, my opinion of Ornette's music is generally not real positive. Let's see if I am alone in this.

Let's look at what these "Jazz Masters living and dead" had to say about Ornette:

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 with the mainstream as to sound like an utterly alien art form. 

Somebody once described his music as sounding like a ragtime band — whose members are each playing a different song. 

He continued to experiment throughout his life, a testament to his willful creative spirit, but his early work for Atlantic Records is the stuff that upended the jazz world. In 1993, that music was collected in an essential CD box set called “Beauty is a Rare Thing: The Complete Atlantic Recordings.” A profound exploration, “Beauty ...” is a loving ode to Coleman; and its liner notes, part of a package produced by Yves Beauvais, offer further evidence of Coleman’s influence. 

Specifically, peppered throughout the box's booklet are the gathered quotes from jazz luminaries both living and dead, 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 to 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 to 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, reported by Martin Williams, Jazz, 1963 

“Man, that cat is nuts!” -- Thelonius Monk 

(Ed note: Thelonius Monk calling someone else "nuts" really says it all.

"He’s got bad intonation, bad technique. He’s trying new things, but he hasn’t mastered his instrument yet.” -- Maynard Ferguson 

 “This guy came up on stage 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 Harmolodic 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, reported to Joe Goldberg, 

Ed note: Again, Miles is a guy who had a run-in or two with "screwed-up psychologically". The man whereof what he spoke.

“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 Ornette, somehow I became more of a person in my own playing.” -- Shelley Manne, reported by 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

Oh yeah?

Well, THIS: