Ornette Coleman - 50 years Something Else !!

[Durium]

ORNETTE COLEMAN

On the 10th of February 1958, fifty years ago, Ornette Coleman made his first three recordings for his first album The Music Of Ornette Coleman - Something Else !!! for Contemporary.
Every jazz fan has a meaning about Ornette Coleman's music. A lot hate it, his 1960 Free Jazz recordings shocked most traditional, swing and even bop orientated listeners; but few heard new promissing harmonies and developments.

For me a reason to get this Contemporary record and to play it. Is it a complete new style, virtually atonal. divorced from the convential concept of improvisation based on chord patterns? to quote Leonard Feather (1960). Is it music that will shock me, or bore me, or entertain me? .... well time for a test.

Something Else !!
Keep swinging
Durium

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Durium

For me a reason to get this Contemporary record and to play it. Is it a complete new style, virtually atonal. divorced from the convential concept of improvisation based on chord patterns?

It has plenty of connection to bebop. It may have been somewhat radical at the time, but no, it's not virtually atonal, and many of the tunes are based on GAS changes, even if there's more freedom in the soloing. This isn't at all a slam, just historical perspective.

[Mike Schwartz]

What are the choices again?

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by Pete C

It has plenty of connection to bebop. It may have been somewhat radical at the time, but no, it's not virtually atonal, and many of the tunes are based on GAS changes, even if there's more freedom in the soloing. This isn't at all a slam, just historical perspective.

You're pretty much on the mark. Still, I don't think many Ornette tunes are based on GAS changes—I can't think of many that are—but they do have harmonic structure, and atonal is about the last word I'd use to describe his music (I think even most free music isn't necessarily atonal, just polytonal). The connection to bop is there, of course, but it's to the rhythmic and linear side, not the harmonic one. Ornette's great leap was to think horizontally, not vertically, and to allow the line to imply or steer the harmony, not vice versa as in bop.

[Bill Barton]

Originally Posted by Pete C

It has plenty of connection to bebop. It may have been somewhat radical at the time, but no, it's not virtually atonal, and many of the tunes are based on GAS changes, even if there's more freedom in the soloing. This isn't at all a slam, just historical perspective.

Originally Posted by Paul B

You're pretty much on the mark. Still, I don't think many Ornette tunes are based on GAS changes—I can't think of many that are—but they do have harmonic structure, and atonal is about the last word I'd use to describe his music (I think even most free music isn't necessarily atonal, just polytonal). The connection to bop is there, of course, but it's to the rhythmic and linear side, not the harmonic one. Ornette's great leap was to think horizontally, not vertically, and to allow the line to imply or steer the harmony, not vice versa as in bop.

Ornette's direct connection to the blues is evident throughout his career. And - viewed through the filter of time - he can be seen as a descendent of Bird. For me, it's more a matter of sound than it is of structure.

Back in 1981 I interviewed Coleman after the soundcheck at Dartmouth College's Spaulding Auditorium. This was the first performance of Prime Time's 1981 world tour. It was quite an ear-opener to sit in a nearly deserted concert hall and hear Ornette running through blazingly fast unaccompanied solo versions of well-known Bird tunes so the engineer could tweak the alto sound. It wasn't the Bird of "Lover Man" that came to mind, but the Bird of the famous "A Night in Tunisia" break. Ornette could take the neo-boppers to the cleaners on that turf if he so desired. That concert was a revelation. Prime Time ruffled some feathers and it took awhile before I could wrap my brain around what they were doing. There's no question that it immediately reached me on a gut level though. One of my most treasured possessions is an autographed poster from that concert (props to Sarah Sully too for the great artwork!)

He was, is, and will continue to be Something Else!!!!!

[clarke68]

Originally Posted by Pete C

many of the tunes are based on GAS changes

Acronym translation request: what are "GAS" changes?

[Paul B]

Great American Songbook

[shrugs]

Enfant

[John L]

I voted for the second, but maybe because of a misunderstanding. What does "more of the same" refer to? I interpreted it to mean "more of the same shockingly new music," as opposed to it not being shockingly new anymore.

People who have never heard Ornette are still usually shocked the first time that they hear him. Sometimes Ornette strikes me as a what would happen if a profound musical genius grew up without music, had to create everything himself from scratch, and only afterwards immersed himself in jazz, blues and R&B. What comes out is strongly in the jazz tradition, but the very foundation of the music is different. That separates Ornette from most other avant artists, who start with a foundation in the tradition and then push the envelop.

Of course, in reality, Ornette did grow up with the tradition, and has blues roots as deep as any jazz artist. But somehow he always walked to a different drummer. To me, Ornette is the most unique of all great jazz artists. He is not unique because he tries to be. He was born that way.

[LutherBlissett]

Originally Posted by Durium

ORNETTE COLEMAN

On the 10th of February 1958, fifty years ago, Ornette Coleman made his first three recordings for his first album The Music Of Ornette Coleman - Something Else !!! for Contemporary.
Every jazz fan has a meaning about Ornette Coleman's music. A lot hate it, his 1960 Free Jazz recordings shocked most traditional, swing and even bop orientated listeners; but few heard new promissing harmonies and developments.

For me a reason to get this Contemporary record and to play it. Is it a complete new style, virtually atonal. divorced from the convential concept of improvisation based on chord patterns? to quote Leonard Feather (1960). Is it music that will shock me, or bore me, or entertain me? .... well time for a test.

Something Else !!
Keep swinging
Durium

what is the point of regurgitating this half a century old hat ?

OC won and Feather is in the dust , the end

[Paul B]

I'm not sure it's a "battle" that anybody won (or lost). If Feather did indeed call the music atonal, he's wrong; but he's right that it was a brilliant new style and that Ornette's tunes aren't based on traditional chord changes. Other musicians at the time had pretty harsh things to say about Coleman, but I don't detect anything here that make me think Feather didn't appreciate his music.

[Justin V]

I'm a relative newbie to Ornette. I've had 'Free Jazz' for years, the 'Town Hall Concert' for a couple years and recently got 'Tomorrow Is the Question!' I'm still trying to figure out why he was so insulted/assaulted/dismissed at the beginning. He kind of sounds like a drunken Cannonball Adderley to me, meaning a less inhibited version, and with an obvious knowledge of what came before him. People must've been really closeminded, or maybe my perception is just distorted by being so far removed from the time period when he burst onto the scene.

Maybe I need an update, i.e. 'Sound Grammar,' but I'm also intrigued by the idea of him on tenor ('New York is Now'?).

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Justin V

maybe my perception is just distorted by being so far removed from the time period when he burst onto the scene.

Yes, I think it sounded much more radical then. You're hearing it with the perspective of somebody who has heard lots of music that came after. Don't forget that Le Sacre du Printemps caused riots when it was first performed.

[shrugs]

Didn't Wassily Kandinsky clear this up years ago?

[gonzo]

jeff parker,craig taborn(elec p.),greg cohen,denardo....... coleman 2009??!!

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by gonzo

jeff parker,craig taborn(elec p.),greg cohen,denardo....... coleman 2009??!!

What are you trying to say?

[Gary Delligatti]

Always loved him

[burning dog]

I think the modern jazz cognescenti of the time thought jazz would get more horizontal, more chromatic, as time went on . Ornette went in a different direction. Also, he may have sounded a bit rootsy and primitive to some of the third stream jazz progressives of the day.

I hear him definitely as a Bird descendant.

Paul Bley says he should have come after Coltrane's experimental music, but I think his approach COULD have come much sooner, his is a totally different branch away from bebop from the Coltrane stuff, neither after or before it.

[gonzo]

just that i think it would be a cool ornette coleman band, wishful thinking...

[GoodSpeak]

I voted "Who is Ornette Coleman?"

Now before all you EAI Boyz get your undies up in a bunch....I was joking.



I own that CD.


OK?

[gonzo]

i have come to greatly enjoy primetime.

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

I voted "Who is Ornette Coleman?"

Now before all you EAI Boyz get your undies up in a bunch....I was joking.

I own that CD.

OK?

Why would the EAI folks care? That "music" has absolutely nothing in common with Ornette's work.

[Mike Schwartz]

Originally Posted by Paul B

Why would the EAI folks care? That "music" has absolutely nothing in common with Ornette's work.

This way he can post about 2 things he knows little or nothing about at the same time

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by Paul B

Why would the EAI folks care? That "music" has absolutely nothing in common with Ornette's work.

No but the people who listen to both styles of music, on this BBS at least, tend to be the same people.


I was referring to them [EAI folks] not the specific genre of the music itself.

[John L]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

No but the people who listen to both styles of music, on this BBS at least, tend to be the same people.

I'll bet that you are wrong. If anything, there is probably an inverse correlation here between lovers of Ornette's music and eai.

[walto]

I'll take that bet, John. I think Goody's right and you're wrong about that. It's just that the EAI fans may not be especially interested in what Ornette's doing now.

[Brian Olewnick]

Yeah count me in as an EAI/Ornette/Goody lover. Although as walto surmises, in my case I haven't heard much beyond his work on the Naked Lunch soundtrack that's moved me.

[John L]

Originally Posted by walto

I'll take that bet, John. I think Goody's right and you're wrong about that. It's just that the EAI fans may not be especially interested in what Ornette's doing now.

OK, fair enough. But a number of the biggest Ornette fans, including those of us who still really like what he is doing today (myself, Pete C, Uli) don't listen to much eai. I recall that Jon Abbey himself has stated several times his opinion that Ornette is "vastly overrated," and (I believe) claimed that Ornette is not liked at all on some eai board that he goes to. So that is what I had in mind.

[Paul B]

Count me as another who still likes what Ornette is doing. He is still going strong, his music changes subtly as the years pass. "Vastly overrated" sounds like a description of Keith Rowe, not Ornette. As for the eai crowd, they talk about their "music" on a board called "I Hate Music." You hate what you don't know, I guess.