Ornette Coleman

{{Short description|American jazz musician and composer (1930–2015)}}

{{Infobox musical artist

| image = Ornette-Coleman-2008-Heidelberg-schindelbeck.jpg

| caption = Coleman at the Enjoy Jazz Festival in Heidelberg, 2008

| background = non_vocal_instrumentalist

| birth_name = Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman

| birth_date = {{birth date|1930|3|9}}

| birth_place = Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2015|6|11|1930|3|9|mf=y}}

| death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S.

| genre = {{flatlist|

}}

| occupation = {{flatlist|

Musician
composer

}}

| instrument = {{flatlist|

}}

| years_active = 1940s–2015

| label = {{flatlist|

}}

| spouse = {{marriage|Jayne Cortez|1954|1964|reason=divorced}}

}}

Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015){{cite news |last1=Ratliff |first1=Ben |title=Ornette Coleman, Saxophonist Who Rewrote the Language of Jazz, Dies at 85 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/arts/music/ornette-coleman-jazz-saxophonist-dies-at-85-obituary.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=December 16, 2018 |date=June 11, 2015}} was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. His pioneering works often abandoned the harmony-based composition, tonality, chord changes, and fixed rhythm found in earlier jazz idioms.{{cite web |last1=Mandell |first1=Howard |title=Ornette Coleman, Jazz Iconoclast, Dies At 85 |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/ablogsupreme/2015/06/11/413630335/ornette-coleman-jazz-iconoclast-dies-at-85 |website=NPR Music |access-date=12 January 2023}} Instead, Coleman emphasized an experimental approach to improvisation rooted in ensemble playing and blues phrasing. Thom Jurek of AllMusic called him "one of the most beloved and polarizing figures in jazz history," noting that while "now celebrated as a fearless innovator and a genius, he was initially regarded by peers and critics as rebellious, disruptive, and even a fraud."

Born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, Coleman taught himself to play the saxophone when he was a teenager. He began his musical career playing in local R&B and bebop groups, and eventually formed his own group in Los Angeles, featuring members such as Ed Blackwell, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins. In November 1959, his quartet began a controversial residency at the Five Spot jazz club in New York City and he released the influential album The Shape of Jazz to Come, his debut LP on Atlantic Records. Coleman's subsequent Atlantic releases in the early 1960s would profoundly influence the direction of jazz in that decade, and his compositions "Lonely Woman" and "Broadway Blues" became genre standards that are cited as important early works in free jazz.{{cite book|last1=Hellmer|first1=Jeffrey|last2=Lawn|first2=Richard|title=Jazz Theory and Practice: For Performers, Arrangers and Composers |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mjaITr2NdkEC&pg=PA234 |access-date=December 15, 2018 |date=May 3, 2005 |publisher=Alfred Music |isbn=978-1-4574-1068-0 |pages=234–}}

In the mid 1960s, Coleman left Atlantic for labels such as Blue Note and Columbia Records, and began performing with his young son Denardo Coleman on drums. He explored symphonic compositions with his 1972 album Skies of America, featuring the London Symphony Orchestra. In the mid-1970s, he formed the group Prime Time and explored electric jazz-funk and his concept of harmolodic music. In 1995, Coleman and his son Denardo founded the Harmolodic record label. His 2006 album Sound Grammar received the Pulitzer Prize for Music, making Coleman the second jazz musician ever to receive the honor.{{cite web |url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/2007 |title=2007 Pulitzer Prizes |website=Pulitzer.org |access-date=July 13, 2020}}

Biography

= Early life =

Coleman was born Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman on March 9, 1930, in Fort Worth, Texas,{{cite web |last1=Fordham |first1=John |title=Ornette Coleman obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/11/ornette-coleman |website=The Guardian |access-date=December 16, 2018 |date=June 11, 2015}} where he was raised.{{cite journal |last1=Palmer |first1=Robert |title=Ornette Coleman and the Circle with a Hole in the Middle |journal=The Atlantic Monthly |date=December 1972 |quote=Ornette Coleman since March 19, 1930, when he was born in Fort Worth, Texas}}{{cite web|url=http://jetson.unl.edu/cocoon/encyclopedia/doc/egp.afam.015 |title=Coleman, Ornette (b. 1930) |publisher=Encyclopedia of the Great Plains|editor1-link=David J. Wishart |editor=Wishart, David J. |access-date=March 26, 2012 |quote=Ornette Coleman, born in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 19, 1930 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120707184611/http://jetson.unl.edu/cocoon/encyclopedia/doc/egp.afam.015 |archive-date=July 7, 2012 }}{{cite book |last1=Litweiler |first1=John |title=Ornette Coleman: the harmolodic life |date=1992 |publisher=Quartet |location=London |isbn=0-7043-2516-0 |pages=21–31}} He attended I.M. Terrell High School in Fort Worth, where he participated in band until he was dismissed for improvising during John Philip Sousa's march "The Washington Post". He began performing R&B and bebop on tenor saxophone, and formed The Jam Jivers with Prince Lasha and Charles Moffett.

Eager to leave town, he accepted a job in 1949 with a Silas Green from New Orleans traveling show and then with touring rhythm and blues shows. After a show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he was assaulted and his saxophone was destroyed.{{cite book |last1=Spellman |first1=A.B. |title=Four Lives in the Bebop Business |date=1985 |publisher=Limelight |isbn=0-87910-042-7 |pages=98–101 |edition=1st Limelight}}

Coleman subsequently switched to alto saxophone, first playing it in New Orleans after the Baton Rouge incident; the alto would remain his primary instrument for the rest of his life. He then joined the band of Pee Wee Crayton and traveled with them to Los Angeles. He worked at various jobs in Los Angeles, including as an elevator operator, while pursuing his music career.{{cite book | last = Hentoff | first = Nat | author-link = Nat Hentoff |title =The Jazz Life | publisher = Da Capo Press | year = 1975 | pages=235–236 }}

Coleman found like-minded musicians in Los Angeles, such as Ed Blackwell, Bobby Bradford, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins, and Charles Moffett.{{cite web |last1=Jurek |first1=Thom |title=Ornette Coleman |url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ornette-coleman-mn0000484396/biography |website=AllMusic |access-date=August 14, 2018}}{{cite web|title=Ornette Coleman biography on Europe Jazz Network |url=http://www.europejazz.net/mus/coleman.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050502160154/http://www.europejazz.net/mus/coleman.htm |archive-date=May 2, 2005 }} Thanks to the intercession of friends and a successful audition, Ornette signed his first recording contract with LA-based Contemporary Records,{{Cite book |last=Golia |first=Maria |title=Ornette Coleman: The Territory and the Adventure |date=2020 |publisher=Reaktion Books Ltd |isbn=9781789142235 |location=Unit 32, Waterside 44-48 Wharf Road, London NI 7UX UK |publication-date=2020 |pages=100 |language=en}} which allowed him to sell the tracks from his debut album, Something Else!!!! (1958), with Cherry, Higgins, Walter Norris, and Don Payne.{{cite web |last1=Jurek |first1=Thom |title=Something Else: The Music of Ornette Coleman |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/something-else-the-music-of-ornette-coleman-mw0000198903 |website=AllMusic |access-date=August 14, 2018 }} During the same year he briefly belonged to a quintet led by Paul Bley that performed at a club in New York City (that band is recorded on Live at the Hilcrest Club 1958). By the time Tomorrow Is the Question! was recorded soon after with Cherry, bassists Percy Heath and Red Mitchell, and drummer Shelly Manne, the jazz world had been shaken up by Coleman's alien music. Some jazz musicians called him a fraud, while conductor Leonard Bernstein praised him.

= 1959: ''The Shape of Jazz to Come'' =

In 1959, Atlantic Records released Coleman's third studio album, The Shape of Jazz to Come. According to music critic Steve Huey, the album "was a watershed event in the genesis of avant-garde jazz, profoundly steering its future course and throwing down a gauntlet that some still haven't come to grips with."{{cite web |last1=Huey |first1=Steve |title=The Shape of Jazz to Come |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-shape-of-jazz-to-come-mw0000187968 |website=AllMusic |access-date=August 14, 2018}} Jazzwise listed it at number three on their list of the 100 best jazz albums of all time in 2017.{{cite web |last1=Flynn |first1=Mike |title=The 100 Jazz Albums That Shook The World |url=http://www.jazzwisemagazine.com/pages/jazz-album-reviews/11585-the-100-jazz-albums-that-shook-the-world |website=www.jazzwisemagazine.com |access-date=December 16, 2018 |date=July 18, 2017}}

Coleman's quartet received a long and sometimes controversial engagement at the Five Spot Café in Manhattan. Leonard Bernstein, Lionel Hampton, and the Modern Jazz Quartet were impressed and offered encouragement. Hampton asked to perform with the quartet; Bernstein helped Haden obtain a composition grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. A young Lou Reed followed Coleman's quartet around New York City.{{Cite magazine |last=Shteamer |first=Hank |date=2019-05-22 |title=Flashback: Ornette Coleman Sums Up Solitude on 'Lonely Woman' |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ornette-coleman-lonely-woman-lou-reed-837918/ |access-date=2024-07-16 |magazine=Rolling Stone |language=en-US}} Miles Davis said that Coleman was "all screwed up inside",Miles Davis, quoted in John Litwiler, Ornette Coleman: A Harmolodic Life (NY: W. Morrow, 1992), 82. {{ISBN|0688072127}}, 9780688072124{{cite web |last1=Roberts |first1=Randall |title=Why was Ornette Coleman so important? Jazz masters both living and dead chime in |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-why-was-ornette-coleman-so-important-jazz-masters-both-living-and-dead-chime-in-20150611-column.html |website=Los Angeles Times |access-date=December 16, 2018 |date=January 11, 2015}} although he later became a proponent of Coleman's innovations;{{cite news |last1=Kahn |first1=Ashley |title=Ornette Coleman: Decades of Jazz on the Edge |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6449431 |website=NPR.org |access-date=December 16, 2018 |date=November 13, 2006}} Dizzy Gillespie remarked of Coleman that “I don’t know what he’s playing, but it’s not jazz."

Coleman's early sound was due in part to his use of a plastic saxophone; he had purchased it in Los Angeles in 1954 because he was unable to afford a metal saxophone at the time.

On his Atlantic recordings, Coleman's sidemen were Cherry on cornet or pocket trumpet; Charlie Haden, Scott LaFaro, and then Jimmy Garrison on bass; and Higgins or Ed Blackwell on drums. Coleman's complete recordings for the label were collected on the box set Beauty Is a Rare Thing in 1993.{{cite web |last1=Yanow |first1=Scott |title=Ornette Coleman |url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ornette-coleman-mn0000484396/biography |access-date=August 14, 2018 |website=AllMusic}}

= 1960s: ''Free Jazz'' and Blue Note=

In 1960, Coleman recorded Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation, which featured a double quartet, including Don Cherry and Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet, Haden and LaFaro on bass, and both Higgins and Blackwell on drums.{{cite web|title=Happy 55th: Ornette Coleman, Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation|url=https://www.rhino.com/article/happy-55th-ornette-coleman-free-jazz-a-collective-improvisation|work=Rhino Records|date=December 21, 2015|access-date=November 17, 2019}} The album was recorded in stereo, with a reed/brass/bass/drums quartet isolated in each stereo channel. Free Jazz was, at 37 minutes, the longest recorded continuous jazz performance at the time{{cite news|last=Hewett|first=Ivan|title=Ornette Coleman: the godfather of free jazz|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/worldfolkandjazz/11668275/Ornette-Coleman-the-godfather-of-free-jazz.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/worldfolkandjazz/11668275/Ornette-Coleman-the-godfather-of-free-jazz.html |archive-date=January 12, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|work=The Telegraph|date=June 11, 2015|access-date=November 17, 2019}}{{cbignore}} and was one of Coleman's most controversial albums.{{cite web|last=Bailey|first=C. Michael|title=Ornette Coleman: Free Jazz |url=https://www.allaboutjazz.com/free-jazz-by-c-michael-bailey.php|work=All About Jazz|date=September 30, 2011|access-date=November 17, 2019}} In the January 18, 1962, issue of Down Beat magazine, Pete Welding gave the album five stars while John A. Tynan rated it zero stars.{{cite journal |last1=Welding |first1=Pete |title=Double View of a Double Quartet |journal=DownBeat |date=January 18, 1962 |volume=29 |issue=2}}

While Coleman had intended "free jazz" as simply an album title, free jazz was soon considered a new genre; Coleman expressed discomfort with the term.{{cite book|author=Howard Reich |title=Let Freedom Swing: Collected Writings on Jazz, Blues, and Gospel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z6hAiX1i5jEC&pg=PA333 |date=September 30, 2010 |publisher=Northwestern University Press |isbn=978-0-8101-2705-0 |pages=333–}}

After the Atlantic period, Coleman's music became more angular and engaged with the avant-garde jazz which had developed in part around his innovations. After his quartet disbanded, he formed a trio with David Izenzon on bass and Charles Moffett on drums, and began playing trumpet and violin in addition to the saxophone. His friendship with Albert Ayler influenced his development on trumpet and violin. Charlie Haden sometimes joined this trio to form a two-bass quartet.

In 1966, Coleman signed with Blue Note and released the two-volume live album At the "Golden Circle" Stockholm, featuring Izenzon and Moffett.{{cite web |last1=Freeman |first1=Phil |title=Good Old Days: Ornette Coleman On Blue Note |url=http://www.bluenote.com/spotlight/good-old-days-ornette-coleman-on-blue-note |website=Blue Note Records |access-date=August 14, 2018 |date=December 18, 2012}} Later that year, he recorded The Empty Foxhole with his ten year-old son Denardo Coleman and Haden;{{cite news| title=Remembering What Made Ornette Coleman a Jazz Visionary | first=Andrew R.|last=Chow|newspaper=The New York Times | date=June 28, 2015 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/arts/music/remembering-what-made-ornette-coleman-a-jazz-visionary.html | access-date=April 25, 2021}} Freddie Hubbard and Shelly Manne regarded Denardo's appearance on the album as an ill-advised piece of publicity.{{cite web |last1=Gabel |first1=J. C. |title=Making Knowledge Out of Sound |url=http://www.stopsmilingonline.com/twitter/SS-Ornette.pdf |website=stopsmilingonline.com |access-date=August 14, 2018 }}{{cite web |last1=Spencer |first1=Robert |title=Ornette Coleman: The Empty Foxhole |url=https://www.allaboutjazz.com/the-empty-foxhole-ornette-coleman-blue-note-records-review-by-robert-spencer.php?width=1680 |website=All About Jazz |access-date=August 14, 2018 |date=April 1, 1997}} Denardo later became his father's primary drummer in the late 1970s.

Coleman formed another quartet. Haden, Garrison, and Elvin Jones appeared, and Dewey Redman joined the group, usually on tenor saxophone. On February 29, 1968, Coleman's quartet performed live with Yoko Ono at the Royal Albert Hall, and a recording from their rehearsal was subsequently included on Ono's 1970 album Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band as the track "AOS".{{cite web |last1=Chrispell |first1=James |title=Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/yoko-ono-plastic-ono-band-mw0000026229 |website=AllMusic |access-date=August 14, 2018}}

He explored his interest in string textures on Town Hall, 1962, culminating in the 1972 album Skies of America with the London Symphony Orchestra.

=1970s–1990s: Harmolodic funk and Prime Time=

File:Ornette Coleman-140911-0002-96WP.jpg

File:Ornette Coleman 1978.jpg

Coleman, like Miles Davis before him, soon took to playing with electric instruments. The 1976 album Dancing in Your Head, Coleman's first recording with the group which later became known as Prime Time, prominently featured two electric guitarists. While this marked a stylistic departure for Coleman, the music retained aspects of what he called harmolodics.

File:Ornette at The Forum 1982.jpg in 1982.]]

File:Ornette Coleman trumpet.jpg, San Francisco in 1981]]

Coleman's 1980s albums with Prime Time such as Virgin Beauty and Of Human Feelings continued to use rock and funk rhythms in a style sometimes called free funk.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TMZMAgAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA146 |title=Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience |first1=Kwame Anthony |last1=Appiah |author-link=Kwame Anthony Appiah|author2=Henry Louis Gates Jr.|author2-link=Henry Louis Gates Jr.|date=March 16, 2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=March 18, 2017|isbn=9780195170559 }}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rd82AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1980 |title=The Jazz Book: From Ragtime to the 21st Century |first1=Joachim-Ernst |last1=Berendt |first2=Günther |last2=Huesmann |date=August 1, 2009 |publisher=Chicago Review Press |access-date=March 18, 2017 |isbn=9781613746042 }} Jerry Garcia played guitar on three tracks on Virgin Beauty: "Three Wishes", "Singing in the Shower", and "Desert Players". Coleman joined the Grateful Dead on stage in 1993 during "Space" and stayed for "The Other One", "Stella Blue", Bobby Bland's "Turn on Your Lovelight", and the encore "Brokedown Palace".{{cite book |title=DeadBase XI: The Complete Guide to Grateful Dead Song Lists |last=Scott |first=John W. |author2=Dolgushkin, Mike |author3=Nixon, Stu |year=1999 |publisher=DeadBase |location=Cornish, New Hampshire |isbn=1-877657-22-0}}{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/gd93-02-23.sbd.hall.1611.sbeok.shnf |title=Grateful Dead Live at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on 1993-02-23 |work=Internet Archive|date=February 23, 1993 }}

In December 1985, Coleman and guitarist Pat Metheny recorded Song X.

File:Ornette Coleman.jpg alto saxophone (with low A) at The Hague in 1994.]]

In 1990, the city of Reggio Emilia, Italy, held a three-day "Portrait of the Artist" festival in Coleman's honor, in which he performed with Cherry, Haden, and Higgins. The festival also presented performances of his chamber music and Skies of America.{{cite web |url=https://www.allaboutjazz.com/quartet-reunion-1990-ornette-coleman-solo-piano-publications-review-by-aaji-staff.php? |title=Ornette Coleman: Quartet Reunion 1990 |website=AllAboutJazz.com |date=January 10, 2011 |access-date=July 13, 2020}} In 1991, Coleman played on the soundtrack of David Cronenberg's film Naked Lunch; the orchestra was conducted by Howard Shore.{{cite web |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/naked-lunch-music-from-the-original-soundtrack-mw0000274736 |title=Howard Shore / Ornette Coleman / London Philharmonic Orchestra: Naked Lunch [Music from the Original Soundtrack] |website=AllMusic |last=Mills |first=Ted |access-date=July 13, 2020}} Coleman released four records in 1995 and 1996, and for the first time in many years worked regularly with piano players (Geri Allen and Joachim Kühn).

= 2000s =

Two 1972 Coleman recordings, "Happy House" and "Foreigner in a Free Land", were used in Gus Van Sant's 2000 Finding Forrester.{{cite web |title=Finding Forrester: Music From The Motion Picture |url=https://www.discogs.com/Various-Finding-Forrester-Music-From-The-Motion-Picture/master/781806 |access-date=July 15, 2020 |website=discogs.com}}

In September 2006, Coleman released the album Sound Grammar. Recorded live in Ludwigshafen, Germany, in 2005, it was his first album of new material in ten years. It won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for music, making Coleman only the second jazz musician (after Wynton Marsalis) to win the prize.{{cite web |title=Pulitzer Prize winning jazz visionary Ornette Coleman dies aged 85 |url=https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13412464.pulitzer-prize-winning-jazz-visionary-ornette-coleman-dies-aged-85/ |website=HeraldScotland |date=June 11, 2015 |access-date=December 16, 2018 |language=en}}

Personal life

Jazz pianist Joanne Brackeen stated in an interview with Marian McPartland that Coleman mentored her and gave her music lessons.{{cite news |last1=Lyon |first1=David |title=Joanne Brackeen On Piano Jazz |url=https://www.npr.org/2011/11/04/101558445/joanne-brackeen-on-piano-jazz |website=NPR.org |access-date=December 16, 2018 |date=March 14, 2014}}

Coleman married poet Jayne Cortez in 1954. The couple divorced in 1964.{{cite web |url=https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Poet-Jayne-Cortez-makes-heady-music-with-Ornette-3237076.php |title=Poet Jayne Cortez makes heady music with Ornette Coleman sidemen |last=Rubien |first=David |date=October 26, 2007| website=sfgate.com |access-date=July 13, 2020}} They had one son, Denardo, born in 1956.{{cite news |last1=Fox |first1=Margalit |title=Jayne Cortez, Jazz Poet, Dies at 78 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/arts/jayne-cortez-poet-and-performance-artist-dies-at-78.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=December 16, 2018 |date=January 3, 2013}}

Coleman died of cardiac arrest in Manhattan on June 11, 2015, aged 85. His funeral was a three-hour event with performances and speeches by several of his collaborators and contemporaries.{{cite magazine |last1=Remnick |first1=David |title=Ornette Coleman and a Joyful Funeral |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/ornette-coleman-and-a-joyful-funeral |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=December 16, 2018 |date=June 27, 2015}}

Awards and honors

Guggenheim Fellowship, 1967 and 1974{{Cite web |title=Ornette Coleman - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/ornette-coleman/ |access-date=2024-06-26 |website=www.gf.org}}
Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame, 1969
MacArthur Fellowship, 1994
Praemium Imperiale, 2001
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, 2004[http://gishprize.com/index.html The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131006072738/http://gishprize.com/index.html |date=October 6, 2013 }}, official website.
Honorary doctorate of music, Berklee College of Music, 2006{{cite web |url=https://jazztimes.com/news/ornette-coleman-honored-at-berklee/ |title=Ornette Coleman Honored at Berklee - JazzTimes |access-date=April 18, 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170419002856/https://jazztimes.com/news/ornette-coleman-honored-at-berklee/ |archive-date=April 19, 2017 }}
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 2007
Pulitzer Prize for music, 2007
Miles Davis Award, Montreal International Jazz Festival, 2009{{Cite web|url=http://www.montrealjazzfest.com/maison-du-festival-online/miles-davis-award.aspx|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100516053059/http://www.montrealjazzfest.com/maison-du-festival-online/miles-davis-award.aspx|url-status=dead|title=Montreal Jazz Festival official page|archivedate=May 16, 2010}}
Honorary doctorate, CUNY Graduate Center, 2008{{cite web |title=Press Release: 2008 CUNY Graduate Center Commencement |url=https://www.gc.cuny.edu/News/All-News/Detail?id=5849 |website=www.gc.cuny.edu |access-date=December 16, 2018}}{{cite web |title=CUNY 2008 Commencements |url=http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/forum/2008/05/16/cuny-2008-commencements/ |website=cuny.edu |access-date=December 16, 2018 |archive-date=August 14, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180814071643/http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/forum/2008/05/16/cuny-2008-commencements/ |url-status=dead }}
Honorary doctorate of music, University of Michigan, 2010{{cite web |last1=Mergner |first1=Lee |title=Ornette Coleman Awarded Honorary Degree from University of Michigan |url=https://jazztimes.com/news/ornette-coleman-awarded-honorary-degree-from-university-of-michigan/ |website=JazzTimes |access-date=December 16, 2018 |date=June 3, 2010 |archive-date=November 7, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181107135838/https://jazztimes.com/news/ornette-coleman-awarded-honorary-degree-from-university-of-michigan/ |url-status=dead }}

Discography

In popular culture

McClintic Sphere, a character in Thomas Pynchon's 1963 novel V., is modeled on Coleman and Thelonious Monk.{{cite web |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/jazz/dornette.htm |title=Ornette's Permanent Revolution |work=The Atlantic |date=September 1985 |access-date=May 11, 2020 |author=Davis, Francis |quote=In Thomas Pynchon's novel V. there is a character named McClintic Sphere, who plays an alto saxophone of hand-carved ivory (Coleman's was made of white plastic) at a club called the V Note.}}{{cite journal |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/art-improviser/ |title=The Art of the Improviser |journal=The Nation |date=April 26, 2007 |access-date=May 11, 2020 |author=Yaffe, David |quote=Of all the ink spilled on Coleman's impact, perhaps the most memorable came from Thomas Pynchon's 1963 debut novel, V., in which the character McClintic Sphere (with a last name nodding to Thelonious Monk's middle name) sets the jazz world on end at a club called the V-Note.}}{{cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/seeing-ornette-coleman |title=Seeing Ornette Coleman |magazine=The New Yorker |date=June 12, 2015 |access-date=May 11, 2020 |author=Bynum, Taylor Ho |quote=In Thomas Pynchon's 1963 novel 'V.', a thinly veiled character named McClintic Sphere appears, playing a 'white ivory' saxophone at the 'V Spot.' Pynchon's wonderfully terse parody of the portentous debate around Coleman's music is as follows: 'He plays all the notes Bird missed,' somebody whispered in front of Fu. Fu went silently through the motions of breaking a beer bottle on the edge of the table, jamming it into the speaker's back and twisting.}}

Notes

References

Interview with Roy Eldridge, Esquire March 1961
Interview with Andy Hamilton. "A Question of Scale" The Wire July 2005
{{cite book| author= Broecking, Christian |author-link=Christian Broecking |title=Respekt!| publisher=Verbrecher| year=2004| isbn=3-935843-38-0}}
{{cite book| author=Jost, Ekkehard| title=Free Jazz (Studies in Jazz Research 4)| publisher=Universal Edition| year=1975}}
{{cite book| author= Mandel, Howard| title=Miles, Ornette, Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz| publisher=Routledge| year=2007| isbn=978-0-415-96714-3}}

External links

{{Sister project links|wikt=no|b=no|q=Ornette Coleman|s=no|commons=Ornette Coleman|n=no|v=no}}

[https://ethaniverson.com/rhythm-and-blues/ornette-1-forms-and-sounds/ "Forms and Sounds"] by Ethan Iverson about early Coleman and Harmolodics
[http://www2.yk.psu.edu/~jmj3/p_ornett.htm Interviewed by Michael Jarrett in Cadence magazine, October 1995] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307055508/http://www2.yk.psu.edu/~jmj3/p_ornett.htm |date=March 7, 2008 }}
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080907023534/http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/ornette-coleman-interview-1996/1191/ "Ornette Coleman interview, 1996", LA Weekly]
[http://observer.com/2005/12/ornette-coleman-2/ New York Observer], December 19, 2005