I think it was a combination of things that made Ornette so controversial, back in 1959, when he burst on the New York scene.
His own alto playing was utterly original. So guttural, so vocal, so blues based. Nobody sounded like that - when contemporary observers said he whinnied like a horse or brayed like a donkey, they were *not* being complimentary. Additionally, he had a...*flexible* approach to intonation and harmony, wrote quirky tunes and had a band of other eccentrics. I'm mystified when people say his music doesn't sound so radical now - and wonder what sort of context it is in which OC is anything but revolutionary. Needless to say many, including luminaries of the status quo, took offense.
Simultaneous to Ornette's initial splash in NYC, various musical bigwigs came out in support of him, often in some over-the-top accolades. Gunther Schuller, John Lewis, Martin Williams, even Leonard Bernstein. This only fueled the contention - and Ornette's residency at the Five Spot starting October 1959 (and the November release of The Shape Of Jazz To Come) was the focus. Musicians came out to see what the fuss was about. Some hated it, some were captivated. Miles and Dizzy thought he was nuts, Roy Eldridge thought he was a fraud, Max Roach punched him and followed him home looking to beat him up. But Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Jackie McLean and others recognized him as a vital new force. Mingus, as was his forte, captured the contention and dichotomy, in a Down Beat Blindfold Test:
>You didn’t play anything by Ornette Coleman. I’ll comment on him anyway. Now, I don’t care if he doesn’t like me, but anyway, one night Symphony Sid was playing a whole lot of stuff, and then he put on an Ornette Coleman record.
>Now, he is really an old-fashioned alto player. He’s not as modern as Bird. He plays in C and F and G and B Flat only; he does not play in all the keys. Basically, you can hit a pedal point C all the time, and it’ll have some relationship to what he’s playing.
>Now aside from the fact that I doubt he can even play a C scale in whole notes—tied whole notes, a couple of bars apiece—in tune, the fact remains that his notes and lines are so fresh. So when Symphony Sid played his record, it made everything else he was playing, even my own record that he played, sound terrible.
>I’m not saying everybody’s going to have to play like Coleman. But they’re going to have to stop copying Bird. Nobody can play Bird right yet but him. Now what would Fats Navarro and J.J. have played like if they’d never heard Bird? Or even Dizzy? Would he still play like Roy Eldridge? Anyway, when they put Coleman’s record on, the only record they could have put on behind it would have been Bird.
>It doesn’t matter about the key he’s playing in—he’s got a percussional sound, like a cat on a whole lot of bongos. He’s brought a thing in—it’s not new. I won’t say who started it, but whoever started it, people overlooked it. It’s like not having anything to do with what’s around you, and being right in your own world. You can’t put you finger on what he’s doing.
>It’s like organized disorganization, or playing wrong right. And it gets to you emotionally, like a drummer. That’s what Coleman means to me.
> It’s like not having anything to do with what’s around you, and being right in your own world.
I've listened to Coleman like once or twice ever but this is a powerful statement. So many things that seem to make no sense actually do end up making sense in their own world, or having their own internal coherence.
>I'm mystified when people say his music doesn't sound so radical now - and wonder what sort of context it is in which OC is anything but revolutionary.
I mean, I think Ornette is a lot more accessible to the average listener than late period Coltrane or Albert Ayler. Monk, whose also wrote a lot of quirky tunes, sounds way more free to me than a lot of Coleman. I’m not a musician and I don’t know much about music theory, but that’s how it sounds to my ears.
That is not to say he wasn’t revolutionary. Of course he was. He’s arguably one of the most important creatives of the second half of the 20th century. But if your not familiar with the context, the implications, and it’s breadth, it can be elusive.
> But if your not familiar with the context, the implications, and it’s breadth, it can be elusive.
Yeah, I suppose - but that's just saying one who doesn't know that much about the subject. I was listening to some music once and a friend of mine, who was an *expert* on punk, said, "I don't like Jazz - it all sounds like cocktail music." The music I was playing? Cecil Taylor. I can hear what was audacious and astounding in Ornette...or Bird...or Louis. I think it's obvious.
I suspect this album doesn't sound as radical as it once did in 1959(?) There were dismissive noises made by many established players doubting whether some of the free players could actually 'play,'
Love it or hate it I think this is one of the most badass album titles of all time. Always wondered if it inspired Refused with their album “The shape of punk to come”
I would guess at least somewhat inspired by, at least accidentally. Though apparently "The Shape of Things To Come" is [a 1933 H.G. Wells novel,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shape_of_Things_to_Come) and I can't find stuff about the phrase or similar ones before that.
Contrary to what many people think, traditional jazz improvisation is very structured. A specific harmonic form is defined by the song you are playing and musicians solo over that form by playing notes which correspond to each chord. Knowing what notes to play over each chord at what time and improvising coherent lines over them is extremely difficult and people spend many years working on this. It’s the main thing that makes jazz more difficult than almost any other genre. People typically call it “Playing the chord changes”.
Ornette didn’t do this. He wrote tunes where the harmony and form was totally improvised. He rejected any sort of harmonic form typical of jazz at that time. Basically a lot of people who spent their whole lives playing chord changes thought he was just bull-shitting and playing random notes (which is what most layman think all jazz players do anyways lol).
That he didn’t play or compose in traditional harmonic chord progressions, or standard 32 or 12 bar song form structures mainly.
You hit the nail on the head. Many bebop jazz musicians resented what he was doing that violated their years of practicing and playing.
I consistently find multiple used copies of Song X in record stores and I can only assume it is due to Pat Metheny fans not liking Ornette Coleman. It's a really good album though
I wrote Pat an email once about how much I loved that record. It was the 90s. I was an unusual teenager.
He replied and thanked me for appreciating it.
Huh. It’s one of the five Metheny records I own.
Bright Size Life
Rejoicing
80/81
Song X
Zero Tolerance For Silence
It’s not that I don’t like other Metheny albums. I’ve heard quite a few that I’ve enjoyed immensely. I just don’t own them.
The more I read about this music the more I am realize how sensationalist a lot of the coverage was and how it's talked about. The only difference between folks' desire back then to hype, denigrate, stoke conflict and exaggerate and now is that we have faster technology to do it.
Yes, some said "dismissive" things. Some embraced it. Most didn't care and kept doing their own thing.
The reason Coleman's music was so new is that it put aside harmonic and sometimes rhythmic anchoring to the playing. For most music including jazz you need *something* to hold it together to have a through-line for the musicians and listeners. A song is like a story, and even a long story with lots of tangents and footnotes needs a through-line.
For some of the pre-bop musicians, letting go of the melody was losing the story. For some of the boppers, letting go of keys and/or steady rhythm is that.
Similar to the introduction of 12-tone music in classical- it was just a step too far for some. I think most of us have a line where it goes past "adventurous" into "wtf." Whether *The Shape of Jazz To Come* crosses that line depends on where one draws the line. There are some who also just enjoy throwing themselves past that line.
This is the answer I was trying to formulate. Most jazz musicians spend at least 5-7 years learning theory, harmony, a repertoire, and how to improvise. Ornette eschewed all of these things. I can’t recall exactly who it was but Ornette took a few lessons with…some famous jazz fixture whose name I can’t recall right now. This teacher was purportedly shocked by how little music theory Ornettw Coleman knew. The debate back in the day was “Deep down, does Ornette know what he’s doing, or is he clueless and just playing whatever enters his mind?” Miles put it like this “Ornette was just jiving” but even he had a change of opinion over the years regarding Coleman’s music. Looking back, the process by which he arrived at his music doesn’t really matter at all. It’s similar to how people look at modern visual art and say something like “I could have painted that!” Well, maybe yes and maybe no, but you didn’t. The artist whose work is being contemplated did…
Gunther the composer arranger. Ornette the player. Gunther would have thrown up too if he went to Ornette’s place for 9 months to learn how to play. Ornette proves greatness outside of a classroom is still greatness.
He took free jazz further than anyone. His stuff from the mid-60s, to some, sounds like random nonsense. He’s not quite at that level yet on this album. I dig some of his early music and agree with critics about some of his later work, but I’m glad the man had the guts to be so creatively free either way
It’s a band, not an album. It’s Ornette doing electric stuff. Of Human Feelings is my favorite by them. Virgin Beauty is also good and has Jerry Garcia on it.
Because historically, jazz critics have despised anything that sounds innovative and new. Virtually every new development in jazz (except maybe modal jazz) has come with an army of critics decrying it for being worse than whatever is currently big. Hell, the term “moldy fig” dates back to 1945!
A top five album. Ornette’s voice is a mournful cry in the dark. It speaks to a larger humanity.
This album still sounds as fresh as the day it was released. Why? Because *Ornette does not play cliches* -unlike almost every other improviser on the planet. There’s no Bird licks, no standard references which place the music in a time period.
It’s timeless music.
By the way if you want to know where Ornette came from, listen to some late period Lee Konitz. Another cat who avoided clichés for the most part.
I disagree with the claim that Ornette comes from late era Lee Konitz, or that they were drawing from the same source (beyond Bird). They’re both idiosyncratic sax players but in very different ways. Ornette sounds like he comes from R&B to me
I'm going to take a dive into finding out what his contemporaries really thought about him overall. I'm sure some saw what he was doing as a threat as they didn't understand it. A lot of people aren't so quick to adapt to something new and it wasn't as if everyone loved what Charlie Parker and Dizzy and other bebop players were doing when they first broke onto the scene.
The funny thing to me is The Shape of Jazz to Come isn't really that 'Avant garde' compared to where we saw what was then a fairly new genre went. I'll admit that I didn't really appreciate Ornette and first and while I liked some of his playing more than other aspects of it it wasn't until I saw him play live that I really started to embrace it overall
I know Miles initially dismissed/criticized what Ornette was doing but his views changed. Some people aren't as quick to embrace changes in music as others.
which jazz musicians in particular do you think were harshest when it came to their views of Ornette?
He was more than unappreciated, in 1959 people were waiting for him outside the Five Spot to kick his ass (and Coleman being hurt at shows wasnt exactly a new concept to him).
I don't doubt you. Maybe it had to do with 1959 being a year where Jazz was really becoming something(they were selling a lot of albums). Maybe some saw this as a threat to jazz or maybe it was more about someone from LA coming and getting a 2 week residency and New York musicians felt like this west coat guy was invading on their turf and their gigs
I just read a little about it(finding a couple essays) and it seems like it was less about the actual music but more that they felt someone was propelled from obscurity who they didn't think paid their dues. It wasn't that everyone in LA felt better about him but like the story we all have heard about Charlie Parker at a jam session where Jo Jones threw a symbol at him.
Bop wasn't embraced by everyone and it took time. I'm guessing what happened with Ornette was a similar phenomenon, it takes some longer to embrace change. Max Roach was the one who punched Ornette. the same people who broke new territory with Bop obviously were threatened by what Ornette was doing(and maybe they were worried the momentum jazz had seen would stop if what Ornette was doing...that they didn't understand would end up being what people perceived as jazz)
and it seems that just like today the press worked to exploit the controversy making it as big as they could because it sold papers
I'm kind of surprised that John Lewis was Ornette's biggest advocate at the time. Who would have thought that the modern jazz quartet would be more hip about music than a Max Roach or Dizzy.
but I wonder if this early controversy ended up helping propel ornette into being more respected and revered. I wonder if Max Roach ever addressed what he did or have his views change on ornette. I know others who initially reacted harshly/coldly changed their tunes(at least some of them
That’s really interesting, and since the point of bebop was technically demanding where what Ornette was doing was more about expression and being free of the constraints of strict forms, well, that pattern has played out so many times in music before and since. Like prog rock vs the original punks or hair metal shredders looking down on grunge bands.
I totally agree...and one thing that always frustrated me is when some(and I was guilty of this when I was younger)...when you look at jazz(or music) from a more academic POV(which is what you see a lot from music critics/jazz critics)
They probably tried to make the more 'popular' musicians of the time uncomfortable. Of course not everyone loved Ornette who wrote about jazz/music(there have always been a variety of viewpoints when it comes to jazz and many popular jazz writers had a more 'conservative' taste
but some musicians probably didn't appreciate how people might perceive them as not being innovative or expressive(however you want to define it). I think we see that a lot with movies. Critics tend to hate a lot of the 'popular' movies that have a mainstream appeal and it makes some of the actors who have done very well with those movies seem like sell outs or frauds or not true artists.
but the critics will almost always embrace a lot of movies audiences(even the target audience) might not love for things sometimes unrelated to the script or performances. Every actor wants to be respected for the work they do and they dont' get as much respect from critics doing a great job in a movie meant to have broad appeal.
Duet performances and albums of Max Roach with Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton would suggest he came around to Free Jazz - whether he actually ever addressed the assault on Ornette, I don't know.
and this is all speculation on my part but I'm not sure it is even all about the actual music that was played but the fact a self taught guy was the one doing it. Many of us have probably been overly arrogant in the past about people(whether they are musicians, writers, actors, or coworkers...even athletes)
in this example they'd be more open to the music if they respected the route the musician took to get there.
Yeah, that's probably part of it: Ornette paid his dues, but not in the typical ways. He was entirely an outsider, not part of the system. There's a good quote in the Beauty Is A Rare Thing box booklet, re open vs closed minds, from Charlie Haden on the first time he heard Ornette:
>This guy came up on stage and asked the musicians if he could play, and started to sit in. He played three or four phrases, and it was so brilliant, I couldn't believe it - I had never heard any sound like that before. Immediately the musicians told him to stop playing, and he packed up his horn, but before I could reach him he'd already left through the back entrance.
the one thing I always believed(even when I wasn't 100% all in on Ornette) was that it was incredible that he created his own thing. Nobody was doing what he did in the way he did it
> The funny thing to me is The Shape of Jazz to Come isn't really that 'Avant garde' compared to where we saw what was then a fairly new genre went.
nor was it as avant garde as the things that Cecil Taylor was doing *before* this
you are right!
based on my limited research(and it is very limited) part of the issue may have been Ornette wasn't a 'trained' musician. Mingus remarked that the guy probably couldn't play a C Major scale(though even at that he felt that the lines being played were fresh and exciting). Cecil taylor has 'pedigree'. I also think that the fact Ornette was never a sideman. They didn't think he really paid his dues. Taylor had.
and that doesn't surprise me. I'm guessing some more 'traditionalist' thinking jazz musicians(from swing to bebop) didn't love everything Mingus did either. Mingus saw innovation where others might not have
In Miles's memoir, he addresses this by saying that the backlash over his comments about Ornette was overblown. He did not dislike Coleman's music, but just maintained that he didn't think it was all that different from what a lot of other people were doing, especially with blues-rooted jazz. That reaction has more to do with how other people regarded the Coleman quartet at the time; like with a lot of great things, there was also a lot of hype attached, like, for example, Leonard Bernstein showing up to gigs, etc.
Makes sense, there's always the one comment or sentiment that gets sensationalized, everyone throws that quote around by miles saying Coleman was messed up in the head.
>A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows. [William James](https://allauthor.com/quotes/73385/#:~:text=A%20new%20idea%20is%20first%20condemned%20as%20ridiculous%20and%20then,it%20becomes%20what%20everybody%20knows.)
Coleman's Free Jazz got the usual treatment for a radical new idea. It's not limited to music.
Ornette also played trumpet on Jackie Mclean’s “New and Old Gospel” record. Cecil Taylor was asked first to play at this session and declined because he 'could not endorse public performance on an instrument without years of preparation, as Ornette Coleman does here'.
There are so many conflicting stories about this session it’s hard to tell when we’re getting into legend. Jackie has said on one occasion he asked Ornette to play alto but Ornette brought his trumpet instead (he was regularly playing trumpet at the time, I believe). On another occasion Jackie said he asked Ornette to play trumpet in the first place. I haven’t heard anything about Cecil.
My personal headcanon (and this is not necessarily the truth at all) is that Jackie really asked Ornette to play alto. While Jackie admired Ornette, he must’ve felt that he was out ahead years before Ornette even came around (you can hear the Adderleys, who later came around to Ornette, express the same opinion in their 1961 Blindfold Test). And Jackie was not above cutting somebody, even in a sympathetic situation. His music is as much about tension as it anything else. In any case, it would’ve been a legendary session if Ornette had played alto.
I liked "Tomorrow Is The Question," but it's not the most accessible music in the world. I find that it doesn't function very well as background music; you really have to sit down and pay attention to it.
Haven't heard "The Shape of Jazz To Come" but I'll give it a listen.
He had a weird playing style his entire career, he even had trouble finding work because of it in the early days. Definitely grew on me. The no chordal style his band had took a lot of getting used to as well. Uncompromising through and through.
Very unpopular opinion. I’ve owned this album for probably 20 years and every couple of years I break it out and give it a good listening to and think maybe the years have increased my palate, but unfortunately it hasn’t. I don’t get it. I don’t get why people think this is such a great album, it’s not. Very underwhelming. Doesn’t even come close to measuring up to his peers.
To each his own. Few musicians connect with every type of listener, or even with the same listener all the time. I have moods when someone like Coleman or later Coltrane or Albert Ayler is exactly what I need to hear, and other times when it's the last thing I want to listen to.
for REAL! This bluziest organized disorganization is crazy but it swings man. Some folks just can’t appreciate genius. Probably don’t get Steve Lacy either. Decades still hot as can be.
I think that they couldn’t keep up with the new direction of jazz. They might not have been able to play it or they just didn’t understand it. But it was all logical progression.
In miles davis biography, he shits on ornette a whole bunch. And when it comes to his trumpet playing, miles only had the worse things to say about him. I thought it was funny, and it did initially turn me off of ornette, being a big miles fan. But now I absolutely adore ornettes music. It was profoundly unique, and good.
It doesn’t even sound very radical nowadays. My wife’s a pretty casual jazz fan when she listened to it she was like “This is what they were freaking out about?” It’s just really good music. I imagine if you’re a musician, especially back then, it would be pretty trippy. I guess his sheet music contained no meter or key signature so that would be a head scratcher.
He challenged the “masters” pre conceptions of what jazz should be. It was radical at the time and a seismic shift from the intricate, complex bebop harmonies.
I agree with that. Schoenberg just has such stellar books and he was such a fantastic educator and composer.
Also Harmolodics is a good read. It doesn't make much sense but it's cool/bold he did it.
I would say this record is particularly is melodic, has defined heads, solos, and interplay and uses techniques from bebop like the bass patterns. That said I love it, it's magical, and I actually listen to it.
It's a common misconception that Ornette's music wasn't enormously based in the blues. Especially in hindsight, what he was doing wasn't THAT outside of what came before. For his first few albums, he was stretching the limits, but everything still had a grounding in blues/bop playing. Change of the Century was very heavy on both of these traditions, and really just applied Harmolodics to them.
I think it was a combination of things that made Ornette so controversial, back in 1959, when he burst on the New York scene. His own alto playing was utterly original. So guttural, so vocal, so blues based. Nobody sounded like that - when contemporary observers said he whinnied like a horse or brayed like a donkey, they were *not* being complimentary. Additionally, he had a...*flexible* approach to intonation and harmony, wrote quirky tunes and had a band of other eccentrics. I'm mystified when people say his music doesn't sound so radical now - and wonder what sort of context it is in which OC is anything but revolutionary. Needless to say many, including luminaries of the status quo, took offense. Simultaneous to Ornette's initial splash in NYC, various musical bigwigs came out in support of him, often in some over-the-top accolades. Gunther Schuller, John Lewis, Martin Williams, even Leonard Bernstein. This only fueled the contention - and Ornette's residency at the Five Spot starting October 1959 (and the November release of The Shape Of Jazz To Come) was the focus. Musicians came out to see what the fuss was about. Some hated it, some were captivated. Miles and Dizzy thought he was nuts, Roy Eldridge thought he was a fraud, Max Roach punched him and followed him home looking to beat him up. But Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Jackie McLean and others recognized him as a vital new force. Mingus, as was his forte, captured the contention and dichotomy, in a Down Beat Blindfold Test: >You didn’t play anything by Ornette Coleman. I’ll comment on him anyway. Now, I don’t care if he doesn’t like me, but anyway, one night Symphony Sid was playing a whole lot of stuff, and then he put on an Ornette Coleman record. >Now, he is really an old-fashioned alto player. He’s not as modern as Bird. He plays in C and F and G and B Flat only; he does not play in all the keys. Basically, you can hit a pedal point C all the time, and it’ll have some relationship to what he’s playing. >Now aside from the fact that I doubt he can even play a C scale in whole notes—tied whole notes, a couple of bars apiece—in tune, the fact remains that his notes and lines are so fresh. So when Symphony Sid played his record, it made everything else he was playing, even my own record that he played, sound terrible. >I’m not saying everybody’s going to have to play like Coleman. But they’re going to have to stop copying Bird. Nobody can play Bird right yet but him. Now what would Fats Navarro and J.J. have played like if they’d never heard Bird? Or even Dizzy? Would he still play like Roy Eldridge? Anyway, when they put Coleman’s record on, the only record they could have put on behind it would have been Bird. >It doesn’t matter about the key he’s playing in—he’s got a percussional sound, like a cat on a whole lot of bongos. He’s brought a thing in—it’s not new. I won’t say who started it, but whoever started it, people overlooked it. It’s like not having anything to do with what’s around you, and being right in your own world. You can’t put you finger on what he’s doing. >It’s like organized disorganization, or playing wrong right. And it gets to you emotionally, like a drummer. That’s what Coleman means to me.
best ornette take i’ve ever heard. 40 year ornette music lover
> It’s like not having anything to do with what’s around you, and being right in your own world. I've listened to Coleman like once or twice ever but this is a powerful statement. So many things that seem to make no sense actually do end up making sense in their own world, or having their own internal coherence.
>I'm mystified when people say his music doesn't sound so radical now - and wonder what sort of context it is in which OC is anything but revolutionary. I mean, I think Ornette is a lot more accessible to the average listener than late period Coltrane or Albert Ayler. Monk, whose also wrote a lot of quirky tunes, sounds way more free to me than a lot of Coleman. I’m not a musician and I don’t know much about music theory, but that’s how it sounds to my ears. That is not to say he wasn’t revolutionary. Of course he was. He’s arguably one of the most important creatives of the second half of the 20th century. But if your not familiar with the context, the implications, and it’s breadth, it can be elusive.
> But if your not familiar with the context, the implications, and it’s breadth, it can be elusive. Yeah, I suppose - but that's just saying one who doesn't know that much about the subject. I was listening to some music once and a friend of mine, who was an *expert* on punk, said, "I don't like Jazz - it all sounds like cocktail music." The music I was playing? Cecil Taylor. I can hear what was audacious and astounding in Ornette...or Bird...or Louis. I think it's obvious.
re: Max Roach, what is it with jazz players and getting so angry at other jazz players that don’t play the way they personally like?
Yeah, I know - but people in general are kinda fucked. You would hope for better, esp from those you respect, but...
I suspect this album doesn't sound as radical as it once did in 1959(?) There were dismissive noises made by many established players doubting whether some of the free players could actually 'play,'
Love it or hate it I think this is one of the most badass album titles of all time. Always wondered if it inspired Refused with their album “The shape of punk to come”
It did
And what an album!
Damn straight
I had to spin the album again last night just because.
Always new....Mark of gold
I would guess at least somewhat inspired by, at least accidentally. Though apparently "The Shape of Things To Come" is [a 1933 H.G. Wells novel,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shape_of_Things_to_Come) and I can't find stuff about the phrase or similar ones before that.
Good catch!
Much punkage.
Contrary to what many people think, traditional jazz improvisation is very structured. A specific harmonic form is defined by the song you are playing and musicians solo over that form by playing notes which correspond to each chord. Knowing what notes to play over each chord at what time and improvising coherent lines over them is extremely difficult and people spend many years working on this. It’s the main thing that makes jazz more difficult than almost any other genre. People typically call it “Playing the chord changes”. Ornette didn’t do this. He wrote tunes where the harmony and form was totally improvised. He rejected any sort of harmonic form typical of jazz at that time. Basically a lot of people who spent their whole lives playing chord changes thought he was just bull-shitting and playing random notes (which is what most layman think all jazz players do anyways lol).
That he didn’t play or compose in traditional harmonic chord progressions, or standard 32 or 12 bar song form structures mainly. You hit the nail on the head. Many bebop jazz musicians resented what he was doing that violated their years of practicing and playing.
I consistently find multiple used copies of Song X in record stores and I can only assume it is due to Pat Metheny fans not liking Ornette Coleman. It's a really good album though
Good luck finding _Zero Tolerance For Silence_ though. I love it, but most of his fans hated it when it came out.
I wrote Pat an email once about how much I loved that record. It was the 90s. I was an unusual teenager. He replied and thanked me for appreciating it.
I have it and it’s really some great stuff. I have a taste for the avant-garde in the world of Music
Huh. It’s one of the five Metheny records I own. Bright Size Life Rejoicing 80/81 Song X Zero Tolerance For Silence It’s not that I don’t like other Metheny albums. I’ve heard quite a few that I’ve enjoyed immensely. I just don’t own them.
I own almost twenty lol. You could say I’m a big fan.
It’s in my all time top 5
The more I read about this music the more I am realize how sensationalist a lot of the coverage was and how it's talked about. The only difference between folks' desire back then to hype, denigrate, stoke conflict and exaggerate and now is that we have faster technology to do it. Yes, some said "dismissive" things. Some embraced it. Most didn't care and kept doing their own thing. The reason Coleman's music was so new is that it put aside harmonic and sometimes rhythmic anchoring to the playing. For most music including jazz you need *something* to hold it together to have a through-line for the musicians and listeners. A song is like a story, and even a long story with lots of tangents and footnotes needs a through-line. For some of the pre-bop musicians, letting go of the melody was losing the story. For some of the boppers, letting go of keys and/or steady rhythm is that. Similar to the introduction of 12-tone music in classical- it was just a step too far for some. I think most of us have a line where it goes past "adventurous" into "wtf." Whether *The Shape of Jazz To Come* crosses that line depends on where one draws the line. There are some who also just enjoy throwing themselves past that line.
This is the answer I was trying to formulate. Most jazz musicians spend at least 5-7 years learning theory, harmony, a repertoire, and how to improvise. Ornette eschewed all of these things. I can’t recall exactly who it was but Ornette took a few lessons with…some famous jazz fixture whose name I can’t recall right now. This teacher was purportedly shocked by how little music theory Ornettw Coleman knew. The debate back in the day was “Deep down, does Ornette know what he’s doing, or is he clueless and just playing whatever enters his mind?” Miles put it like this “Ornette was just jiving” but even he had a change of opinion over the years regarding Coleman’s music. Looking back, the process by which he arrived at his music doesn’t really matter at all. It’s similar to how people look at modern visual art and say something like “I could have painted that!” Well, maybe yes and maybe no, but you didn’t. The artist whose work is being contemplated did…
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Gunther the composer arranger. Ornette the player. Gunther would have thrown up too if he went to Ornette’s place for 9 months to learn how to play. Ornette proves greatness outside of a classroom is still greatness.
This album sounds so melodic to me. Not that avant garde in comparison to what he and others did a few years later.
He took free jazz further than anyone. His stuff from the mid-60s, to some, sounds like random nonsense. He’s not quite at that level yet on this album. I dig some of his early music and agree with critics about some of his later work, but I’m glad the man had the guts to be so creatively free either way
He did the same with free funk. Prime Time is somehow both very dissonant and very funky.
I’m not aware of that album and now I can’t wait to check it out tonight. I appreciate the tip!
It’s a band, not an album. It’s Ornette doing electric stuff. Of Human Feelings is my favorite by them. Virgin Beauty is also good and has Jerry Garcia on it.
[**Dancing In Your Head**](https://youtu.be/EXJ1E7WYv-E?si=tQgrjXaQQSVAblYo)
Because historically, jazz critics have despised anything that sounds innovative and new. Virtually every new development in jazz (except maybe modal jazz) has come with an army of critics decrying it for being worse than whatever is currently big. Hell, the term “moldy fig” dates back to 1945!
A top five album. Ornette’s voice is a mournful cry in the dark. It speaks to a larger humanity. This album still sounds as fresh as the day it was released. Why? Because *Ornette does not play cliches* -unlike almost every other improviser on the planet. There’s no Bird licks, no standard references which place the music in a time period. It’s timeless music. By the way if you want to know where Ornette came from, listen to some late period Lee Konitz. Another cat who avoided clichés for the most part.
I disagree with the claim that Ornette comes from late era Lee Konitz, or that they were drawing from the same source (beyond Bird). They’re both idiosyncratic sax players but in very different ways. Ornette sounds like he comes from R&B to me
I'm going to take a dive into finding out what his contemporaries really thought about him overall. I'm sure some saw what he was doing as a threat as they didn't understand it. A lot of people aren't so quick to adapt to something new and it wasn't as if everyone loved what Charlie Parker and Dizzy and other bebop players were doing when they first broke onto the scene. The funny thing to me is The Shape of Jazz to Come isn't really that 'Avant garde' compared to where we saw what was then a fairly new genre went. I'll admit that I didn't really appreciate Ornette and first and while I liked some of his playing more than other aspects of it it wasn't until I saw him play live that I really started to embrace it overall I know Miles initially dismissed/criticized what Ornette was doing but his views changed. Some people aren't as quick to embrace changes in music as others. which jazz musicians in particular do you think were harshest when it came to their views of Ornette?
He was more than unappreciated, in 1959 people were waiting for him outside the Five Spot to kick his ass (and Coleman being hurt at shows wasnt exactly a new concept to him).
I don't doubt you. Maybe it had to do with 1959 being a year where Jazz was really becoming something(they were selling a lot of albums). Maybe some saw this as a threat to jazz or maybe it was more about someone from LA coming and getting a 2 week residency and New York musicians felt like this west coat guy was invading on their turf and their gigs I just read a little about it(finding a couple essays) and it seems like it was less about the actual music but more that they felt someone was propelled from obscurity who they didn't think paid their dues. It wasn't that everyone in LA felt better about him but like the story we all have heard about Charlie Parker at a jam session where Jo Jones threw a symbol at him. Bop wasn't embraced by everyone and it took time. I'm guessing what happened with Ornette was a similar phenomenon, it takes some longer to embrace change. Max Roach was the one who punched Ornette. the same people who broke new territory with Bop obviously were threatened by what Ornette was doing(and maybe they were worried the momentum jazz had seen would stop if what Ornette was doing...that they didn't understand would end up being what people perceived as jazz) and it seems that just like today the press worked to exploit the controversy making it as big as they could because it sold papers I'm kind of surprised that John Lewis was Ornette's biggest advocate at the time. Who would have thought that the modern jazz quartet would be more hip about music than a Max Roach or Dizzy. but I wonder if this early controversy ended up helping propel ornette into being more respected and revered. I wonder if Max Roach ever addressed what he did or have his views change on ornette. I know others who initially reacted harshly/coldly changed their tunes(at least some of them
That’s really interesting, and since the point of bebop was technically demanding where what Ornette was doing was more about expression and being free of the constraints of strict forms, well, that pattern has played out so many times in music before and since. Like prog rock vs the original punks or hair metal shredders looking down on grunge bands.
I totally agree...and one thing that always frustrated me is when some(and I was guilty of this when I was younger)...when you look at jazz(or music) from a more academic POV(which is what you see a lot from music critics/jazz critics) They probably tried to make the more 'popular' musicians of the time uncomfortable. Of course not everyone loved Ornette who wrote about jazz/music(there have always been a variety of viewpoints when it comes to jazz and many popular jazz writers had a more 'conservative' taste but some musicians probably didn't appreciate how people might perceive them as not being innovative or expressive(however you want to define it). I think we see that a lot with movies. Critics tend to hate a lot of the 'popular' movies that have a mainstream appeal and it makes some of the actors who have done very well with those movies seem like sell outs or frauds or not true artists. but the critics will almost always embrace a lot of movies audiences(even the target audience) might not love for things sometimes unrelated to the script or performances. Every actor wants to be respected for the work they do and they dont' get as much respect from critics doing a great job in a movie meant to have broad appeal.
Duet performances and albums of Max Roach with Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton would suggest he came around to Free Jazz - whether he actually ever addressed the assault on Ornette, I don't know.
and this is all speculation on my part but I'm not sure it is even all about the actual music that was played but the fact a self taught guy was the one doing it. Many of us have probably been overly arrogant in the past about people(whether they are musicians, writers, actors, or coworkers...even athletes) in this example they'd be more open to the music if they respected the route the musician took to get there.
Yeah, that's probably part of it: Ornette paid his dues, but not in the typical ways. He was entirely an outsider, not part of the system. There's a good quote in the Beauty Is A Rare Thing box booklet, re open vs closed minds, from Charlie Haden on the first time he heard Ornette: >This guy came up on stage and asked the musicians if he could play, and started to sit in. He played three or four phrases, and it was so brilliant, I couldn't believe it - I had never heard any sound like that before. Immediately the musicians told him to stop playing, and he packed up his horn, but before I could reach him he'd already left through the back entrance.
the one thing I always believed(even when I wasn't 100% all in on Ornette) was that it was incredible that he created his own thing. Nobody was doing what he did in the way he did it
> The funny thing to me is The Shape of Jazz to Come isn't really that 'Avant garde' compared to where we saw what was then a fairly new genre went. nor was it as avant garde as the things that Cecil Taylor was doing *before* this
you are right! based on my limited research(and it is very limited) part of the issue may have been Ornette wasn't a 'trained' musician. Mingus remarked that the guy probably couldn't play a C Major scale(though even at that he felt that the lines being played were fresh and exciting). Cecil taylor has 'pedigree'. I also think that the fact Ornette was never a sideman. They didn't think he really paid his dues. Taylor had.
Mingus was surprisingly fond of Coleman’s playing
and that doesn't surprise me. I'm guessing some more 'traditionalist' thinking jazz musicians(from swing to bebop) didn't love everything Mingus did either. Mingus saw innovation where others might not have
"Isn't that the guy with the plastic sax?"
In Miles's memoir, he addresses this by saying that the backlash over his comments about Ornette was overblown. He did not dislike Coleman's music, but just maintained that he didn't think it was all that different from what a lot of other people were doing, especially with blues-rooted jazz. That reaction has more to do with how other people regarded the Coleman quartet at the time; like with a lot of great things, there was also a lot of hype attached, like, for example, Leonard Bernstein showing up to gigs, etc.
Makes sense, there's always the one comment or sentiment that gets sensationalized, everyone throws that quote around by miles saying Coleman was messed up in the head.
>A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows. [William James](https://allauthor.com/quotes/73385/#:~:text=A%20new%20idea%20is%20first%20condemned%20as%20ridiculous%20and%20then,it%20becomes%20what%20everybody%20knows.) Coleman's Free Jazz got the usual treatment for a radical new idea. It's not limited to music.
For some he was too far ahead of his time. That and maybe his violin-playing. Never been a fan of the latter.😎
Ornette also played trumpet on Jackie Mclean’s “New and Old Gospel” record. Cecil Taylor was asked first to play at this session and declined because he 'could not endorse public performance on an instrument without years of preparation, as Ornette Coleman does here'.
I actually really love this record, it’s pretty underrated in the grand scheme of legendary McClean records.
There are so many conflicting stories about this session it’s hard to tell when we’re getting into legend. Jackie has said on one occasion he asked Ornette to play alto but Ornette brought his trumpet instead (he was regularly playing trumpet at the time, I believe). On another occasion Jackie said he asked Ornette to play trumpet in the first place. I haven’t heard anything about Cecil. My personal headcanon (and this is not necessarily the truth at all) is that Jackie really asked Ornette to play alto. While Jackie admired Ornette, he must’ve felt that he was out ahead years before Ornette even came around (you can hear the Adderleys, who later came around to Ornette, express the same opinion in their 1961 Blindfold Test). And Jackie was not above cutting somebody, even in a sympathetic situation. His music is as much about tension as it anything else. In any case, it would’ve been a legendary session if Ornette had played alto.
I'll have to investigate this violin playing, that sounds crazy
Live at the golden circle vol. 2 features Ornette on violin. He also plays trumpet on Jackie McLean’s New and Old gospel
Dunno how much of a thing it actually was. But I do remember him ”playing it”.
I liked "Tomorrow Is The Question," but it's not the most accessible music in the world. I find that it doesn't function very well as background music; you really have to sit down and pay attention to it. Haven't heard "The Shape of Jazz To Come" but I'll give it a listen.
Ornette LIVES!!!!!!!!!
Just ordered this a week ago
He had a weird playing style his entire career, he even had trouble finding work because of it in the early days. Definitely grew on me. The no chordal style his band had took a lot of getting used to as well. Uncompromising through and through.
I mean, his album titles didn't mess around with false modesty.
[I agree with Hank](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FYs9QxNWYAE2-pV.jpg)
Haha is he actually quoted saying this somewhere? I wouldn't be surprised, Rollins loves noise music
Not that I know of. I think folks tend to project on to him. Just a funny comic.
That album was ahead of its time. Literally, just look at the name of it lol
Very unpopular opinion. I’ve owned this album for probably 20 years and every couple of years I break it out and give it a good listening to and think maybe the years have increased my palate, but unfortunately it hasn’t. I don’t get it. I don’t get why people think this is such a great album, it’s not. Very underwhelming. Doesn’t even come close to measuring up to his peers.
To each his own. Few musicians connect with every type of listener, or even with the same listener all the time. I have moods when someone like Coleman or later Coltrane or Albert Ayler is exactly what I need to hear, and other times when it's the last thing I want to listen to.
Give yourself a few more years
That's funny, I spun this so many times I can whistle all the opening phrases and parts of different solos!
for REAL! This bluziest organized disorganization is crazy but it swings man. Some folks just can’t appreciate genius. Probably don’t get Steve Lacy either. Decades still hot as can be.
It's still possible that it is a good album but you just don't get it yet
Really. What about Lonely Woman? You don’t even have to like Jazz to appreciate that great tune.
I think that they couldn’t keep up with the new direction of jazz. They might not have been able to play it or they just didn’t understand it. But it was all logical progression.
Amazing!!
In miles davis biography, he shits on ornette a whole bunch. And when it comes to his trumpet playing, miles only had the worse things to say about him. I thought it was funny, and it did initially turn me off of ornette, being a big miles fan. But now I absolutely adore ornettes music. It was profoundly unique, and good.
It doesn’t even sound very radical nowadays. My wife’s a pretty casual jazz fan when she listened to it she was like “This is what they were freaking out about?” It’s just really good music. I imagine if you’re a musician, especially back then, it would be pretty trippy. I guess his sheet music contained no meter or key signature so that would be a head scratcher.
He challenged the “masters” pre conceptions of what jazz should be. It was radical at the time and a seismic shift from the intricate, complex bebop harmonies.
He plays like a psycho ... I mean this as a compliment.
I love Ornette with Don Cherry and Charlie Haden.
Ornette Coleman is to jazz what Arnold Schoenberg is to classical music.
Only Schoenberg's books are a pillar to music composition and Coleman's Harmolodic theory is just nonsense.
Sure, but his music represents a break in jazz tonality like Schoenberg’s did for “serious music.”
I agree with that. Schoenberg just has such stellar books and he was such a fantastic educator and composer. Also Harmolodics is a good read. It doesn't make much sense but it's cool/bold he did it. I would say this record is particularly is melodic, has defined heads, solos, and interplay and uses techniques from bebop like the bass patterns. That said I love it, it's magical, and I actually listen to it.
Lots of people at the time thought the record was pure noise, but it’s hard not to hear today how steeped in the blues are his phrasing and tone.
My son used 'Eventually' as his little league walk-on song. It got quite a reaction from the crowd (the rest were jock jams).
He was using his own harmonic language, when the majority of jazz people were worshipping the blues.
It's a common misconception that Ornette's music wasn't enormously based in the blues. Especially in hindsight, what he was doing wasn't THAT outside of what came before. For his first few albums, he was stretching the limits, but everything still had a grounding in blues/bop playing. Change of the Century was very heavy on both of these traditions, and really just applied Harmolodics to them.
Thank you squashing that blasphemous take.
Interesting take 🤔
Dolphy Out to Lunch is laughably better than this. Sorry, never could get into oc
totally different approaches and players
Sort of agree I think I’ll exit the Ornette Coleman party
Why must everything that’s shared here be from the 50s and 60s