This week we lost a music legend: saxophonist Ornette Coleman passed away on June 11 at the age of 85. Coleman, according to Ben Ratliff in the New York Times, was “a kind of musician-philosopher” who “was seen as a native avant-gardist, personifying the American independent will as much as any artist of the last century.” His recorded output was vast and dense, and for the unfamiliar listener it was difficult to penetrate. There was no one Ornette Coleman — there were many personas, many ideas, all swimming together in one direction: forward.For this week’s “In Tune” feature I’ve provided something of a curated introduction to the world of Ornette Coleman. This isn’t a primer, or comprehensive, or even cohesive. It’s simply five subjective pathways into Coleman’s music, from which there are many to choose. For more information of Coleman’s life and musical philosophy, I suggest checking out Shirley Clarke’s remarkable documentary “Ornette: Made in America” (1986) and John Litweiler’s excellent biography “A Harmolodic Life.”The Early YearsAlbums: “The Shape of Jazz to Come” (1959); “Change of the Century” (1959); “This is Our Music” (1960); “Free Jazz” (1960); “Ornette!” (1961); “Ornette on Tenor” (1961)Ornette’s most notable recordings, and his most fondly remembered by a large audience, are his string of albums made for Atlantic in the late 1950s and early 1960s. As Ornette proclaimed on the first album, this is the sound of the future, and it’s astonishing to hear its progression.Ornette LiveAlbums: “Town Hall, 1962” (1965); “At the Golden Circle Stockholm” (1965); “Friends and Neighbors: Live at Prince Street” (1972)No performance by Coleman was like one another, but these three recordings, all with different backing musicians, hint at the intensity of seeing him during his formative years, when the music was changing by the second.Weird ExperimentsAlbums: “Science Fiction” (1971); “Skies of America” (1972)Some of my favorite recordings by Coleman are also his strangest: “Science Fiction” features vocalist Asha Puthi and Charlie Haden playing bass through a wah-wah pedal, while “Skies of America” features one long composition played by the London Symphony Orchestra. These albums also form a bridge between the early material and the electric vibes that come next. Prime TimeAlbums: “Dancing in Your Hear” (1977); “Body Meta” (1978); “Of Human Feelings” (1982); “In All Languages” (1987)Prime Time was Coleman’s “fusion” band that, if we’re being honest, doesn’t sound like a “fusion” band at all. They do sound funky though, especially on “Of Human Feelings,” which might be Coleman’s most underappreciated album.The Late PeriodAlbums: “Sound Grammar” (2006)Coleman slowed down in the last decade, but in 2004 he formed a new quartet (his son Denardo Coleman, who had been playing drums with his father since the age of 10, stuck around) and released “Sound Grammar,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2007.
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