Klactoveesedstene

My friend, the poet Steve Halle, asked me via e-mail the other day about Ornette Coleman’s album “Sound Grammar,” and I remember hearing bits and pieces of it online a while ago. It’s a great album, but I found myself really thinking about it again because of Steve’s comment, so I dug around online a bit and stumbled upon this Slate article that raises an even larger question. I really like this article (sure it’s a little dusty but who cares) because of its embedded links. Putting these two riffs side by side is genius (one of Charlie Parker laying down a long solo in the song “Klactoveesedstene” and Ornette Coleman playing nearly the same but in his unique way). [Here’s an interesting side note found on a Portuguese jazz blog about theories as to what “Klactoveesedstene” might mean.]

Listening to both shows how different Ornette’s sound is, even in 1958. Not being a musician I can’t define it in musical terms, but I’ve always thought that Ornette’s solos seem to spread out instead of building. Ornette uses sound in a really nonlinear way, and not to just fill space in a song. His solos don’t rise to crescendo or logically unfold, they burst forth in rivulets—fits and starts. It’s obvious that the journey itself is the destination. One reason that Ornette doesn’t often play with pianists in his combos could be that the piano, as defined in those rough terms, is limiting to a certain extent. There are spaces between the keys on a piano whereas the saxophone is a much more liquid instrument. Even so, Ornette paired with a player like Thelonious Monk would seem to make sense, but Monk’s playing was also much more angular and structured, though in an offbeat way.

I'd never seen the above photo of Charlie Parker before, so I thought I'd post it.