Ornette Coleman: Classic Or Dud?

Posted by Vernon Reid -- Cecil Taylor's tribute at Ornette's memorial service.

https://www.facebook.com/vernon.reid.75/posts/10206661142824181:2?fref=nf

Yeah and his Instragram of the line-up performing "Lonely Woman"---incl. Al McDowell, Lovano, Denardo, Charnette, David Murray--is a reminder that OC's music and influence extends to generations of artists not yet in their 70s (liked Dyer's piece, but he presented it as still-fresh sounds of the ancient ones). Also a sound and sensibility sometimes extending beyond the jazz world, though would love to see Guerilla Toss, for instance, getting Newport Jazz to dance in heads and all other parts.

nice piece in the lrb

Was just catching up w/that. Need to listen to Cecil performing at his funeral later.

And a very rouching report of the funeral by Howard Mandel in the new Wire.

touching, even

Dude, I read that as Howard Mandel's funeral and was very confused

yeah that post was not my finest piece of work, sry

From '75, an Arista 2-LP I don't remember at all, though I called myself keeping up with him in the 70s---anybody heard it? Several other OC LPs here, ones I've got, and ones from other artists:
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/product/ornette-coleman-the-great-london-concert

Some Saturday nights there were barn dances, way out in Elgin or Sonoita. In barns. Everybody from miles and miles would go, old people, young people, babies, dogs. Guests from dude ranches. All of the women brought things to eat. Fried chicken and potato salad, cakes and pies and punch. The men would go out in bunches and hang around their pickups, drinking. Some women too, my mother always did. High school kids got drunk and threw up, got caught necking. Old ladies danced with each other and children. Everybody danced.
Two-step mostly, but some slow dances and jitterbug. Some square dances and Mexican dances like La Varsoviana. In English it's "Put your little foot, put your little foot right there," and you skip and whirl around. They played everything from "Night and Day" to "Detour, There's a Muddy Road Ahead," "Jalisco no te Rajas" to "Do the Hucklebuck." Different bands every night but the same kind of mix.
Where did these raging wonderful musicians come from? Pachuco horns and guitar players, big-hatted country guitarists, bebop drummers, piano-players that looked like Fred Astaire. The closest I ever heard anything come close to those little bands was at the Five Spot in the late fifties. Ornette Coleman's "Ramblin'." Everybody raving how new and far-out he was. Sounded Tex-Mex to me, like a good Sonoita hoedown.

------Lucia Berlin, "Homing"

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ORNETTE-COLEMAN-HUMAN-FEELINGS-ANTILLES-AN2001-STEREO-LPs-/331961376705?hash=item4d4a709fc1:g:crYAAOSw7s5Xgs5s

This excellent record is only $5, someone should buy it

Or if you have a bit ore money: https://thebluemoment.com/2016/09/13/harmolodics-the-truth-at-last/ (this is interesting I think, though I'm nowhere near musically knowledgeable enough to make proper sense of it).

was just jamming To Whom Keeps A Record this morning
Side A
1. Music Always
2. Brings Goodness
3. To Us
4. All

Side B
1. P.S. Unless One Has
2. Some Other
3. Motive for Its Use

saw the Made in America doc recently, captures his essence nicely it seems

yeah! i just rewatched that -- some really great stuff in there, and an appropriate overall approach. aways surprised when i hear ornette's speaking voice for some reason.

love that movie- it really cemented my love for him

just watched that last night, a bunch of stuff I had no idea about like the connections to Fuller and Gysin and um circumcision vs. castration

Got two live albums - Live in Paris 1971 and 1987 Hamburg Concert - on the way. That 1987 one is from when he reunited with the 1959-60 quartet (Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins) and recorded In All Languages. The 1971 disc has Dewey Redman, Haden, and Ed Blackwell.

Premium box set, vinyl & CD/DVD: all performances (incl. his, unscheduled), from Celebrate Ornette, along with all from the memorial: http://www.ornettecoleman.com/#section-premium-box-set

Nice! That's mighty tempting.

I really hope the price drops on this:
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Jazz-Harmolodics-Ornette-Coleman/dp/1138122947/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483915727&sr=1-1&keywords=ornette

I'm intrigued by the site's teaser of future releases of as-yet unrleased material. Hopefully it will help fill some of the huge holes in Ornette's career in the latter years.

Yeah, I don't know what they've ("they" being Denardo) got in mind, but I know, for example, that a 2003 concert I saw at Carnegie Hall - which was the debut of the Ornette/Tony Falanga/Greg Cohen/Denardo band - was recorded and had been planned for release, but was scrapped. Maybe that will emerge now.

Yeah I hope it's not just a one-man operation that peters out due to percieved lack of interest. By the look of the typography, the recent RSD re-release of The European Concert was a Song X release as well, so mayb e it's a bit more put together than I'd think.

A fine discovery and comment from the original interviewer:

I had no idea this, from 1972, had survived in the BBC archive. Ornette Coleman was a pure and gracious spirit, and a marvellous talker. Sorry about the dumb questions, but at least I kept them short. https://t.co/fA92s4q5xJ

— Richard Williams (@rwilliams1947) April 8, 2018

yeah! never seen this clip before ... Richard Williams' blog is always full of good stuff: https://thebluemoment.com/

Oh, don't do that to me...

"now, back to manfred mann's earth band ... "

I think Richard Williams must be the only decent Sports writer I've ever seen who is also brilliant on music as well.

That was a great interview, and I'm especially fascinated because it's about Skies of America, and I just wrote a piece about Ornette's chamber and orchestral music a couple of weeks ago.

I found myself spinning Skies of America this morning for the first time in a long while and came on to see how others rated it, and just read Phil’s write up of it along with the chamber pieces, which I’m listening to now. Very illuminating!

It's probably the album I've listened to the most over the past four years. Make of that what you will.

the Ornette Coleman I've listened to most in recent years is Crisis .. and it grows and grows every time I listen to it, what a fucking band.

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard it! I need to remedy that.

Recently reissued on CD as a twofer with Ornette At 12, which is also very much worth hearing.

'ornette at 12' is one of my faves. also 'at the golden circle' and the 'naked lunch' soundtrack

that rhythm section on at the golden circle is so great, one of best jazz trios ever imo.

cosign

i agree w/mself of 19 years ago lol

'free jazz' is actually one of my favorites too tbh

I recently came across 'Opening the Caravan of Dreams', a 1985 live album from Prime Time that I don't see much talk about. Really, really funky and cool. Almost no-wavey in parts. Fans of 'Dancing in Your Head' would dig, I reckon.

like a jerk, I never saw him play…but one time I spotted him getting off the A or E at the West 4th st station…he was carrying a pearl paint bag… absolutely no one around the station had any notion, so I greeted him, shook his band and made small talk for a bit… he was lovely and completely OK with talking to some stranger…

I’ve been after a copy of that one for a while. I have an mp3 rip, definitely a cool one. Memory days it’s in the vein of ‘Of Human Feelings’

Prime Time finally started to click for me in the last year or two. Listening to Body Meta now, though Of Human Feelings is my favorite.

a thing i liked abt prime time is that whenever you bought a physical copy of the village voice from the mid-80s thru the 90s bern nix always had an ad in the classifieds offering guitar lessons

that’s delightful.

Of Human Feelings ranks among my top Ornette LPs.

my favourite Prime Time is probably Opening the Caravan of Dreams

saw ornette with group from the 'sound grammar' album when they headlined newport in 2004, it started raining and everyone left except the real headz lol

i watched "ornette: made in america" the other night and i loved it, particularly the musical performances with ornette/prime time playing with orchestras. so i'm listening to "skies of america" and it's great but doesn't have any of ornette's band on it. i'm wondering if there are any albums or live recordings that are closer to the performances in the movie with orchestral parts and the full-band jazz parts

Check out Chappaqua Suite, which has the Ornette/David Izenzon/Charles Moffett trio, plus Pharoah Sanders, plus strings. It's pretty wild.

“town hall 1962” also has the moffett / izenzon trio playing with a string quartet, it’s cool