Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman (born March 19, 1930) was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s, and one of the most notable figures in jazz history.

Prime Time and Recent Career

Later, however, Coleman, like Miles Davis before him, took to playing with electrified instruments. Albums like Virgin Beauty and Of Human Feelings used rock and funk rhythms, sometimes called free funk. On the face of it, this could seem to be an adoption of the jazz fusion mode fashionable at the time, but Ornette's first record with Prime Time (the 1976 Dancing in Your Head) was sufficiently different to have considerable shock value. Electric guitars were prominent, but the music was, at heart, rather similar to his earlier work. These performances have the same angular melodies and simultaneous group improvisations — what Joe Zawinul referred to as "nobody solos, everybody solos" and what Coleman calls "harmolodics" — and although the nature of the pulse has altered, Coleman's own rhythmic approach has not.

Related Topics:
Miles Davis - Electrified instruments - Rock - Funk - Rhythm - Free funk - Jazz fusion - 1976 - Electric guitar - Improvisation - Joe Zawinul - Harmolodics

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Some critics have suggested Coleman's frequent use of the vaguely-defined term "harmolodics" is a musical MacGuffin: a red herring of sorts designed to occupy critics over-focused on Coleman's sometimes unorthodox compositional style.

Related Topics:
MacGuffin - Red herring

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In 1991, Coleman played on the soundtrack for David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch; the orchestra was conducted by Howard Shore.

Related Topics:
David Cronenberg - Naked Lunch - Howard Shore

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The mid-1990s saw a flurry of activity from Coleman: He released four records between 1995 and 1996, and for the first time in nearly forty years, Coleman worked regularly with piano players (either Geri Allen or Joachim Kühn). Many critics noted that it took jazz piano nearly that long to catch up with Coleman's innovations.

Related Topics:
Piano - Geri Allen - Joachim Kühn

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Coleman has rarely performed on other musicians' records: Albums with Jackie McLean in 1967 (on which Coleman played trumpet), James Blood Ulmer in 1978, Pat Metheny in 1985, Joe Henry's Scar in 2001 and Lou Reed in 2003 are among the few exceptions.

Related Topics:
Jackie McLean - 1967 - James Blood Ulmer - 1978 - Pat Metheny - 1985 - Joe Henry - 2001 - Lou Reed - 2003

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