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Ornette Coleman: Music is a Verb
by Warren Allen
"Some people think of music as being on some higher level," Ornette Coleman says by phone from his apartment in New York City. “But basically it's the human being that receives the pleasure from sound. Not from the argument over what it is." There are a lot of questions about Ornette Coleman and the music he makes. Talking with him, trying to parse these questions, can be a learning experience in many ways. Simply put, Coleman isn't ...
Continue ReadingOrnette Coleman: Town Hall 1962
by Stuart Broomer
When Ornette Coleman promoted this concert in December 1962, he was already in the midst of a long withdrawal from the public stage. Until the Town Hall event, his 1962 performances had consisted of a single concert and a week at the Jazz Gallery six months previously. Further, he hadn't recorded in a studio since March 1961. Following the concert, he wouldn't perform or record commercially until 1965. This concert is one of the essential Coleman documents, ...
Continue ReadingOrnette Coleman's Meltdown is the Best Ever
by John Eyles
Ornette Coleman's Meltdown London June 12-21, 2009 Ever since it was announced in late March that Ornette Coleman was to curate the 2009 Meltdown festival at the South Bank, Coleman seemed to dominate the capital. The festival's trademark image of a young Coleman soulfully eyeballing the camera was everywhere, on larger-than-life posters in the London underground, in adverts in papers and magazines, on flyers and handbills, and online. It was mesmerising and inescapable. But ...
Continue ReadingOrnette Coleman's Reflections on "This Is Our Music"
by Marcus O'Dair
Ornette Coleman Royal Festival Hall London June 21, 2009
Like the equally successful All Tomorrow's Parties festivals, London's Meltdown--now in its 16th year--leaves the artist selection process in the hands of a guest curator. Though past candidates have included such phenomenally original artists as Massive Attack and David Bowie, asking Ornette Coleman to oversee the 2009 event must still qualify as one of the festival's braver choices. And the line-up was appropriately impressive, from ...
Continue ReadingOrnette Coleman Tributes: Tiziano Tononi & Makaya Ntshoko
by Robert Iannapollo
Tiziano Tononi & The Ornettians Peace Warriors - Vol. 2 (Forgotten Children) Soul Note 2008 Makaya Ntshoko & The New Tsotsis Happy House Steeplechase 2008
It's been 50 years since Ornette Coleman's Five Spot residency pushed jazz inexorably toward its next evolutionary step. Since that time he's left a hefty body ...
Continue ReadingOrnette Coleman: Town Hall 1962
by AAJ Italy Staff
Sono almeno due i buoni motivi per cui questo disco di Ornette Coleman è da considerare con particolare attenzione e riguardo: innanzitutto contiene il primo esperimento di applicazione delle concezioni armolodiche ad una sezione d’archi (nel brano “Dedication to Poets and Writers”), ma soprattutto rappresenta la pietra miliare di un cambiamento epocale, quello del 1962. Il 1962 è un anno che nella biografia colemaniana precede un periodo relativamente lungo di silenzio da parte del sassofonista e che inaugura la straordinaria ...
Continue ReadingOrnette Coleman Quartet at the Discover Jazz Festival in Burlington, Vermont
by Hrayr Attarian
Ornette Coleman Quartet Discover Jazz Festival, Flynn TheaterBurlington, Vermont June 6th, 2008
Ornette Coleman and his quartet were the headline act that closed the exceptionally successful 25th Annual Discover Jazz Festival, playing to an almost full house at the Flynn Theatre in downtown Burlington on June 7th 2008. The musicians walked on stage, bowed to the audience and proceeded to play non-stop for 70 enchanting minutes.
No introductions were made, no tune names were ...
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