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.
2 comments:
Certain ideas pervade the myth of free players/artists esp. that they can play whatever they want and choose to play free/out there. I don't think that's true of Coleman--he can't play whatever he wants.
Still, the mainstream poetry crowd always talks about finding "voice," and regarding original voice in jazz, Coleman certainly has one. It seems sax players in improvised music today move in one of two directions: imitate Coltrane or imitate Coleman. Coleman has the tinny/vibrattoless tone that is all his own. He moves through the rooms of jazz in his own way, with his own sound.
As for the drummer list, it should include Sunny Murray and Hamid Drake, among others. Is it in order?
Yeah, I think the list is supposed to be in order. It's good to see Jack DeJohnette so close to the top, but I'd say Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins deserve to be in the top ten. It's strange to see Lionel Hampton so far down the list. Among straight-ahead players it seems he's always held in much higher regard.
Re: Ornette. You're right. He can't match the blinding precision of the bop masters, but I guess if we're considering his ingenuity he is capable of burning down the house, i.e., playing whatever he wants. At some point intention, in all the arts, took over as the primary focus (versus technical mastery) to some degree.
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