Home » Jazz Articles » Ornette Coleman
Jazz Articles about Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman: New York Is Now & Love Call Revisited
by Mark Corroto
These sessions, the last two Ornette Coleman would record for Blue Note Records, in April and May of 1968, are generally remembered for the rhythm section. Was it Coleman or producer Francis Wolff that invited John Coltrane's former sidemen, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones to record? Was this a scheme to draw the Coltrane listener into Coleman's domain? Likely no. Jones had left Trane's band when Rashied Ali was introduced into the band and the saxophonist shifted to ...
Continue ReadingOrnette Coleman: An Outsider Cracks the Egg
by S.G Provizer
Part 1 | Part 2 There are two ways a musician can make a significant impact on jazz. One is to mobilize virtuosity and knowledge to push the current boundaries of the music. There are a number who fall in this category, but unassailable examples are Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum and Charlie Parker. The other way to make an impact is to bring an alternative approach powerful enough to challenge the entire pre-existing musical paradigm. Ornette Coleman was ...
Continue ReadingOrnette Coleman: The Territory And The Adventure
by S.G Provizer
Ornette Coleman: The Territory And The Adventure Maria Golia 368 Pages ISBN: #9781789142235 University of Chicago Press 2020 Ornette Coleman holds a singular place in jazz history. The seeds of change in jazz had been sewn by Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, John Coltrane and their cohorts, but Coleman's appearance at the Five Spot Café in 1959 kicked the process into high gear. Author Maria Golia's mise en scene of Coleman's life and ...
Continue ReadingOrnette@50, Bird vs. Hays & more
by Marc Cohn
We have a lot of ground to cover this week. After our starting half-hour of 21st century music, we have a compare/contrast of Charlie Parker versus a Kevin Hays deconstruction of “Scrapple from the Apple." The day of broadcast on WHYR was Art Tatum's birthday; so we have a rare recording of an airshot from WTAM radio in Cleveland, when Art was 24 years old. We continue our Sonny Rollins celebration with a sideman gig for J.J. Johnson ...
Continue ReadingA Jazz Lover's guide to Popular Music
by Ludovico Granvassu
This week we explore the cross pollination between jazz and popular music genres, like pop, rock, soul, funk and ska. Archie Shepp playing with Whitney Houston? The jazz beginnings of Björk, Serge Gainsbourg, Sacha Distel? Ornette Coleman's and Sonny Rollins' adventures in rock-land? Lester Bowie playing ska? How Miles Davis' “So What" inspired Pee Wee Ellis' horn lines for James Brown's “Cold Sweat"? Paul Simon's latest album with Bill Frisell and Wynton Marsalis? Stevie Wonder jamming with Dizzy ...
Continue ReadingThe Atlantic Years
by C. Andrew Hovan
Now that the vinyl boom has officially become big business, it is not surprising that major labels are scrambling to put together reissue projects from their back catalogs that will benefit from this cash cow. Rhino has already successfully tapped their holdings for superb mono boxed sets from both John Coltrane and Ray Charles. For their latest endeavor, they have turned to an artist on the fringes of jazz popularity. Ornette Coleman is far from being a household name and ...
Continue ReadingAs Serious As Your Life: Black Music And The Free Jazz Revolution 1957-1977
by Ian Patterson
As Serious As Your Life: Black Music And The Free-Jazz Revolution, 1957-1977 Val Wilmer 408 Pages ISBN: 978 1 78816 071 1 Serpent's Tail 2018 First published in 1977, journalist, author and black music historian Val Wilmer's As Serious As Your Life... makes a welcome print return at a time when jazz excites perhaps greater and more meaningful historical debate than ever before. The title--the subtitle is a new addition--is from ...
Continue Reading
