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Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman is an NEA Jazz Master

Early on in his career, alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, recorded an album entitled, The Shape of Jazz To Come. It might have seemed like an expression of youthful arrogance - Coleman was 29 at the time - but actually, the title was prophetic. Coleman is the creator of a concept of music called "harmolodic," a musical form which is equally applicable as a life philosophy. The richness of harmolodics derives from the unique interaction between the players. Breaking out of the prison bars of rigid meters and conventional harmonic or structural expectations, harmolodic musicians improvise equally together in what Coleman calls compositional improvisation, while always keeping deeply in tune with the flow, direction and needs of their fellow players. In this process, harmony becomes melody becomes harmony. Ornette describes it as "Removing the caste system from sound." On a broader level, harmolodics equates with the freedom to be as you please, as long as you listen to others and work with them to develop your own individual harmony.

For his essential vision and innovation, Coleman has been rewarded by many accolades, including the MacArthur "Genius" Award, and an induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letter. an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, the American Music Center Letter of Distinction, and the New York State Governor Arts Award.

But the path to his present universal acclaim has not always been smooth.

Born in a largely segregated Fort Worth, Texas on March 9, 1930, Coleman's father died when he was seven. His seamstress mother worked hard to buy Coleman his first saxophone when he was 14 years old. Teaching himself sight-reading from a how-to piano book, Coleman absorbed the instrument and began playing with local rhythm and blues bands.

In his search for a sound that expressed reality as he perceived it, Coleman knew he was not alone. The competitive cutting sessions that denoted 'bebop' were all about self-expression in the highest form. "I could play and sound like Charlie Parker note-for-note, but I was only playing it from method. So I tried to figure out where to go from there," Coleman said.

Los Angeles proved to be the laboratory for what came to be called free jazz. There began to gather around Ornette a core of players who would figure largely in his life: a lanky teenage trumpeter, Don Cherry and a cherubic double bass player with a pensive, muscular style named Charlie Haden, drummers Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins also joined the intense exploratory rehearsals in which Coleman was honing his vocabulary on a plastic sax, despite the lack of live gigs.

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Nathan Hanson
saxophone
David Bond
saxophone
Samo Salamon
guitar, electric
Richard Oppenheim
saxophone, alto
Aaron Bennett
saxophone
Jorge Sylvester
saxophone, alto
Orhan Demir
guitar
Ian Dogole
percussion
Joe McPhee
woodwinds
Pat Metheny
guitar
Gary Peacock
bass, acoustic
Bruno Raberg
bass, acoustic
Avi Granite
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Miguel Zenon
saxophone, alto
Blaise Siwula
saxophone
Fredrik Lundin
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Richard Andersson
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Tony Passarell
multi-instrumentalist
Philip Yaeger
trombone
John Pietaro
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Matthias Broede
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Dorian Wallace
composer / conductor
Piero Bittolo Bon
saxophone, alto
George Starks
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Maria Dybbroe
saxophone, alto
John Purcell
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Waxwing
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Alex Moxon
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Jason Kush
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Space Whale Orchestra
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Jason Quick
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Steven Faivus
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Andrew Dixon
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Gregg Fine
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Rex Shepherd
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Seba Molnar
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Matthew Ottignon
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Tumi Árnason
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Angela on the Arts
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Felipe Mendoza
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Adam Nolan
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Adam Simmons
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Lyndon Owen
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Yiannis Papanastasiou
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CODE Quartet
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Andres Hayes
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Benjy Sandler
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João Gato
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Pieter Egriega
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Christoph Gallio
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Andrew Ginzel
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