While at school at University of Illinois I had the great luck to see Ornette Coleman accidentally. He was performing at a small theatre on campus with guitarist Pat Metheny, who at the time was probably a lot better known as a crossover performer to at least college students. Ornette and Pat were taking a short tour to promote their new collaborative album Song X. My roommate was trying to get me to go--he was a journalism major and he was always playing Windham Hill stuff like George Winston. So he wanted to see some nice live jazz. I preferred mostly noisy stuff, Stiff Little Fingers, Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Husker Du.
I had heard of Ornette Coleman and for some reason thought he played guitar, possibly getting him confused with James "Blood" Ulmer who was a collaborator and disciple of Coleman's "Harmelodics". Harmelodics I guess is sort of a free form riffing I guess, where you aren't worrying so much about song structure or keys, but you play off of the other musicians and they play off of you--with the music bending, speeding up, slowing down--sometimes it just sounds like playing tag. When he first came out with his first lp, being on the cover with the cheap plastic yellow sax, he was almost universally panned. Critics knew what jazz was, and to them, this clearly was not jazz. Just like the punk movement, when he played clubs he would sometimes get physically attacked because people didn't care for what he was doing--it was outre, beyond their comfort zone.
I had no great desire to see that show--I didn't know his music and I really had no use for jazz at the time. But he pretty much bugged me and begged me and I finally gave in (In his defense later on I did get him to go see The Feelies, or maybe it was Salem 66.) I remember sitting in my seat, waiting for the show to start, listening to these dudes in front me--"oh, I hope this Coleman gets off the stage quick so we can hear Pat play!!" Much to their disappointment, they were on stage together. And it didn't take me too long to realize that I really loved what these guys were doing. And as jazz goes, it was pretty damned loud. Electric guitar, Ornette's son Denardo pounding away on the skins.
Even crazier, it didn't take long to come to the conclusion who the star was here. It became quite obvious to me that Ornette was blowing the younger upstart out of the building. Such an amazing combination of passion, chops, and poise. I just remember watching him improvise his way through a quiet ballad, Kathelin Gray I think, and I was just trying to remember to breathe. I was thinking even then that I was watching a musical icon, like a Mick Jagger, but of jazz. I was an immediate convert to free jazz after this. After leaving the show, my ears abuzz, I asked my roommate how he liked the concert. He said "well, it was a little loud". I thought it was a truly inspired performance and I sought out to find more music like this.
The Naked Lunch soundtrack is just amazing to me--an ominous and beautiful collaboration between varied sources. First of all you have the producer Howard Shore, who has scored numerous films including many others by the director of Naked Lunch, David Cronenburg. He also scored the Return of the King from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He was the original musical director of Saturday Night Live back in the 70's and had actually booked Ornette Coleman to perform on the show. How I wish they would be half as adventurous today, rather than pander to the mass media. Additionally Shore enlists the skills of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Bachir Attar and the Master Musician of Jajouka, a musical group from Morocco. This group had performed with Ornette Coleman many years earlier, but most of that music has vanished or been destroyed. Midnight Sunrise (outtake) from Dancing in My Head is the only existing recorded evidence of this collaboration that I have heard of. Also performing are ECM jazz bassist Barre Phillips, and Denardo Coleman on drums. But as you might expect Ornette rules the roost here.
Whether he is improvising against the backdrop of a 70+ piece orchestra or in counterpoint with Barre Phillips' bass lines (ECM please rerelease his Three Day Moon), or weaving through the glorious cacophony and ululation of the Master Musicians of Jajouka, it is all memorable evocative free form expression. At some points the saxophone playing is just so amazingly poignant. Just listen to Intersong, or the title track, or Simpatico/Mysterioso to see what I mean. There are also speedy percussive free workouts like the concluding Writeman. The mesmerizing Interzone Suite with the Moroccan musicians is just unbelievable. Their music by itself should be a part of any "world" music collection and well worth tracking down as their music is really in a category of its own.
All in all this is good place to investigate Ornette Coleman and even more to the point, a very delightful and creative collaboration of gifted musicians.
And I again wish my cousin a lot of luck on her new instrument and hope she has within herself the patience to persevere. The benefits are beyond exaggeration.
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