Music Monday: Ornette Coleman

Last Friday would have been Ornette Coleman’s 94th birthday and it seems fair and reasonable to start today’s music Monday with a bit of his work. Readers of this blog undoubtedly know Coleman’s most famous late 1950s and early 1960s output. In fact, one of my favorite collections of Coleman’s music is Beauty is a Rare Thing which assembles all the recordings that produced The Shape of Jazz to Come (October 1959), Change of the Century (June 1960), This Is Our Music (February 1961), Free Jazz (September 1961), Ornette! (February 1962), and Ornette on Tenor (December 1962) in order. Think of it as Ornette Coleman’s version of Coltrane’s contemporary recordings at Atlantic (which have their own mid-1990s box set).

Instead, I spent a good bit of time listening to Coleman’s 1970s output with Columbia. Starting with Science Fiction (1971) where he plays with Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, and Charlie Haden as well as some others. The Complete Science Fiction Sessions release from Columbia in 2000 includes the tracks that would appear in their 1982 release Broken Shadows.

Check out Science Fiction here: 

Another, perhaps somewhat quirky release that embraces some of the 1970s spirit of globalizing jazz (perhaps best embodied in cats like Randy Weston) is Coleman’s 1977 album Dancing in Your Head. Two guitars (Bern Nix and Charlie Ellerbee), Jamaaladeen Tacuma (bass), drummers, Moroccan musicians, and Ornette Coleman’s distinctive and piercing alto. Flavors of blues, free funk, and of course Ornette Coleman’s improvisation. It feels like spring.

Finally, I don’t really know what “harmolodic funk” is, but if that’s what Ornette Coleman says he’s doing with Ellerbee, Nix, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma and his son Denardo Coleman, then I like it. Check out Of Human Feelings (1982):

If you still find yourself want more Ornette Coleman, check out this 1997 interview with Jacques Derrida.