Open Country

After Ornette Coleman played one of his first big gigs in New York, bop drummer Max Roach met him after the performance and punched him in the face. At least that’s how the story goes. Coleman made huge strides in jazz but with a price. Those with a long view of the history of jazz might notice that this story is somewhat similar to the anecdote involving Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. Once when asked about the new music, bop, as it was just entering the public consciousness, Armstrong quipped that he didn’t have a lot of interest in “Chinese music.”

The album to me that defines the innovation made by Coleman more than many others is the Blue Note album “The Ornette Coleman Trio Live at the Golden Circle Stockholm” recorded the nights of December 3rd and 4th 1965 in the Gyllene Cirkeln club in Stockholm, Sweden. Moreso than albums like “Free Jazz” where Coleman “competes” with the sounds of so many other improvisers, with “Golden Circle” he’s really out on a limb almost entirely on his own. The experiment, as a trio, is sink or swim when the stakes are raised. Coleman’s Dizzy—Don Cherry—who often served as a creative foil for Coleman (although Cherry on pocket trumpet was a million-dollar improviser in his own right), is noticeably absent in this live session. Especially on the tune “Faces and Places” the listener is confronted with the sound of Coleman’s horn and the sound of a single cymbal keeping frenetic time and nothing else. Coleman shines through in this song and the intensity rises until he reaches a creative high water mark, then the storm passes and after restating the opening the song levels out and ends. That song single handedly illustrates more than many other avant numbers exactly why free jazz is so unlike the styles that preceded it. Simplicity and a certain minimalism allow the listener to focus on how Coleman still swings as he detonates the entire jazz pantheon with a shrug. Coleman, it should be mentioned, never stated that he held any animosity toward those who kept playing more trad jazz even throughout the 1960s, when so many innovators were taking over.

Some would immediately claim that Coleman does without harmonic structure (he mostly does without even the modal structures that the post-bop players found as their liberating force) because he simply couldn’t master the nuances of such music, so was forced to move into atonal territory. Somehow that argument is similar to an observer implying that Picasso didn’t paint like Rembrandt because he was unable to. Coleman and the more trad players are merely speaking two separate languages—equally valid. Coleman’s discoveries don’t necessarily refute the groundwork laid by Lester Young. Without the support of harmonic structure, the “Faces and Places” amazes by sheer rhythmic brilliance and force of will. Although Coleman does indulge in a chorus or two, beyond that it’s a no man’s land of wide-open country. This probably proved frightening to some listeners when they first heard it. More than just playing with the net down, Coleman plays world-class tennis with no net—and in zero gravity.


Have a look at this list of 100 Best Jazz Drummers. I'm a fan of lists like this. Is Chico Hamilton even there? That's not right. I think Ed Blackwell should definitely be in the top ten, too.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

The music of the Beatles has been covered ad nauseam but the version of “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” played here by guitarist Marc Ribot is really worth a listen. Ribot somehow makes the listener forget that he or she is hearing a Beatles classic because of all the harmonic rivulets he discovers inside each phrase of the original.

Also, try to catch the new Albert Ayler film if you can. If the goal of being a musician is originality, Ayler did that better than most. Ayler’s music is symphonic noise and an acquired taste, sure. But you’ll never hear anything else like it.

Prez

Eric Dolphy was so outside he had a cot set up out there and probably a magazine rack, too. I’m listening to Eric Dolphy and Booker Little’s “Ode to Charlie Parker” and meditating on the line of tradition that exists with jazz music. In the other arts, appropriation is not always made with reverence or respect for those who came before.

One of the admirable qualities of jazz music and musicians is that homage is usually paid where it’s due, whether in the middle of a solo as a musical aside, via song titles, or else in its most malleable form—its spirit. Most jazz music is a continuation. My meaning doesn’t extend to mimicry, however. Copping someone else’s style in jazz is the cardinal sin. Musical asides in the midst of a solo can serve to acknowledge many things. Respect would be the first reason for a soloist to break into a few recognizable bars of someone else’s tune, but soloists also name-check other musicians in the middle of a solo for comic effect or as an inside joke. Sometimes a few bars of someone else’s solo inserted in a strategic way also provides a counterpoint to the ingenuity and skill being demonstrated. When a soloist like Dolphy was on the stand, however, he would rarely make an acknowledgment to another player within a song. He was far too original to spend even a moment walking in another man’s shoes.

Most callouts made by jazz soloists are the realm of the bluesy crowd-pleaser, though. Avant-gardists would find it outré. The free-flights of Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, and Marion Brown wouldn’t have been possible without the likes of Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins.