New biography of Ornette Coleman

**Serial_Apologist** · 10-06-20, 14:59

Originally posted by Jazzrook View Post

Review of 'Ornette Coleman: The Territory And The Adventure' by Maria Golia in the NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/books/review/ornette-coleman-maria-golia.html

JR

I wonder if someone will come up with a unified explanation of "harmolodics". Some writers have dscribed it as a non-hierarchical system of tonal relationships; others a methodology for musicians to keep out of each other's way in collective improvisations.

**Jazzrook** · 10-06-20, 15:42

Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post

I wonder if someone will come up with a unified explanation of "harmolodics". Some writers have dscribed it as a non-hierarchical system of tonal relationships; others a methodology for musicians to keep out of each other's way in collective improvisations.

A fascinating interview with Ornette Coleman published in The Wire during 2015:

An Interview with Ornette Coleman

https://www.andyhamilton.org/single-post/2015/06/18/An-Interview-with-Ornette-Coleman

One musician I’ve been thinking about, and listening to, a lot is Ornette Coleman, who died last week. That generation that formed bebop and then what I called the heroic decade of modern jazz, the decade of avantgardism roughly 1955-65, are passing – the only major figures left are Sonny Rollins and Lee Konitz (Cecil Taylor isn’t playing any more). Most revolutions also show a continuity with what went before (even, maybe October 1917, in continuing an authoritarian tradition). Ornette Coleman

JR

**Serial_Apologist** · 10-06-20, 17:54

Originally posted by Jazzrook View Post

A fascinating interview with Ornette Coleman published in The Wire during 2015:

An Interview with Ornette Coleman

https://www.andyhamilton.org/single-post/2015/06/18/An-Interview-with-Ornette-Coleman

One musician I’ve been thinking about, and listening to, a lot is Ornette Coleman, who died last week. That generation that formed bebop and then what I called the heroic decade of modern jazz, the decade of avantgardism roughly 1955-65, are passing – the only major figures left are Sonny Rollins and Lee Konitz (Cecil Taylor isn’t playing any more). Most revolutions also show a continuity with what went before (even, maybe October 1917, in continuing an authoritarian tradition). Ornette Coleman

JR

I like the sole comment below by Craig Leed after all that - Pharaoh Sanders is still playing!!!

I think the main problem with how Ornette goes about presenting his ideas is that his way of presenting concepts is not the usual one, and so what appear to be commonly agreed concepts inasmuch as what they relate being generally understood by those using musical theory as a given lingua franca, he applies them differently, so one has to define as best as one can what he actually means. Andy Hamilton probably hit the nail correctly by reference to tempered and untempered playing; if non-tempered tuning is used in conjunction with equal temperament, as in piano, then the disjunction may be read as having an equivalence with tuning systems all at variance with each other yet being presented as on equal terms by appearing together on score paper, with the score attributed some final defining criterion of unity which Ornette does not feel it deserves. A roundabout way of saying that the representation (the note) is not the thing (the sound) itself.

To me this is a roundabout way of deconstructing commonly agreed criteria, and probably amounts to no more than an anti-theory. Ornette is playing a blinder, spinning a yarn, as they say. I still love and respect his music, however!

New biography of Ornette Coleman

New biography of Ornette Coleman

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