Getting Schooled: An Interview with Ornette Coleman, 1-24-07

[Lazaro Vega]

Getting Schooled: An Interview with Ornette Coleman, January 24, 2007. Coleman spoke by phone from his home in New York City. Lazaro Vega is Jazz Director at Blue Lake Public Radio, the broadcast service of Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. The interview will air in edited form with music from Coleman’s new CD “Sound Grammar” on Blue Lake Public Radio Sunday evening February 11 from 7 to 10 p.m. est. over WBLV FM 90.3/WBLU FM 88.9, Grand Rapids, MI, and streaming live from www.bluelake.org.

Lazaro Vega: Hello, Mr. Coleman? This is Lazaro Vega from Blue Lake Public Radio.

Ornette Coleman: Oh yes. I was waiting for your call.

Vega: It really is a pleasure to be able to speak to you Mr. Coleman. I had a chance to see you in Ann Arbor at Hill Auditorium (http://tinyurl.com/yu3sf3 ) with the current band when you came through on your birthday, just after your birthday. Do you remember that concert?

Coleman: Faintly I do. Yeah, kinda. I do.

Vega: Oh, it was marvelous because I had seen and heard Prime Time in Chicago and in Ann Arbor at the Power Center and to hear the new band was a revelation, to hear you in a more acoustic setting with fewer instruments.

Coleman: Oh yeah, thank you very much. Do you play an instrument?

Vega: I have a cornet.

Coleman: Oh yeah you do. That’s good. Have you been playing it very long?

Vega: I’ve had it for about 10 years but I...

Coleman: Oh yeah, you’re way past time. That’s good.

Vega: ...(delighted) but I don’t read.

Coleman: Oh, that’s not important.

Vega: No, you don’t think so?

Coleman: Not until someone asks you to.

Vega: (Laughs). O.K. Well, see, I’m on the radio doing a jazz program 31 hours a week.

Coleman: Oh my goodness.

Vega: So while I’m listening to records I “play” along with them.

Coleman: Oh that’s good. You play the clarinet?

Vega: Yeah, the cornet.

Coleman: Cornet, yeah. Well, I want to share something with you and that’s the name of three changes that you might look into: C major 7; E flat minor 7; and D minor with a flatted fifth: D, F, A flat and A.

Vega: Those are the ones to work on?

Coleman: No, those are the ones that everyone has to work on if they want to do something about how they feel and think about sound.

Vega: Now is that in concert or in the cornet’s B flat?

Coleman: No, well, you can play it as your notes of ideas regardless what key you think it is. It’s only 12 notes, right?

Vega: Right.

Coleman: O.K. So, if you say C natural the only way C natural can represent 12 notes is to call it the major 7th, the third, the fourth and like that, but it doesn’t change sound. It’s just a title for sound, but the notes themselves -- there’s 12 different sounds, but the one note cannot be those 12 different sounds. It can be in 12 different positions, that same sound I mean.

Vega: The same sound CAN be in 12 different positions?

Coleman: Yeah, like you can have it as a major 3rd, a minor 3rd, a flatted 5th up until, I mean, if you start with one note. Basically, I guess, what I’m trying to say is that the concept of sound and the concept of intervals most have to do with the instrument and the way that you hear physically and mentally as far as the instrument you’re playing. Which instrument do you play?

Vega: The cornet.

Coleman: Uh huh, so that’s in B flat. O.K. now, for instance, let’s see? Let’s see, let me give you a good example. The major 3rd of F sharp is B flat, right? It’s called, F sharp to B flat, is a third, right? O.K., but from F sharp to C is a flatted fifth, right?

Vega: O.K.

Coleman: Uh-huh, well, that makes the C higher than B flat doesn’t it?

Vega: Yes.

Coleman: But one is called a fifth and one is called a third. But now if you take A flat and put the F sharp that’s called a second.

Vega: That’s a really sharp sound the second sound. Monk used to use that a lot didn’t he?

Coleman: Yes, but the point I’m trying to make is that the mathematical part of how we address sound is different than how the sound address what we call harmony, keys and modulation. Those things are done only because of the instrument you’re playing, not the note.

Vega: I see. Yeah, I noticed in the liner note to a recent Odean Pope Saxophone Choir record that you talk quite a bit about modulation in the liner note to that.

Coleman: Yeah, yeah, well it’s the only thing that will allow notes that are not in keys and chords to be a part of what’s causing the idea to sound the way it does.

Vega: Is the modulation.

Coleman: Yeah, because you know if you have C to F sharp that’s the flatted fifth, right? But C to G is a major fifth.

Vega: And that’s modulating.

Coleman: No, that’s not modulating, that’s just addressing the notes from what the tonic is. Modulation would be, for instance, F sharp, A flat and B flat doesn’t come in the key of C. Now that would be a modulation: the flatted fifth, the flatted sixth and the flatted seven of C.

Vega: I see. O.K. One thing that I noticed when I heard you in Ann Arbor there are a lot of these things going on, these theoretical aspects of the music, and I noticed when you switched from the alto sax to the trumpet that the trumpet had a more augmented sound.

Coleman: Um, yeah, what you’re describing is the idea changes that more than the note.

Vega: O.K. Another thing I noticed, too, was that your playing was very melodic and lyrical. In fact I heard you quote on “Turnaround,” I believe the encore in Ann Arbor was “Turnaround”?, I think you played “When the Saints Go Marching In” during that.

Coleman: Is that right? I can’t remember.

Vega: Yes, and you played “Beautiful Dreamer.” I heard all kinds of different melodies. In Prime Time you weren’t doing that as much (ED: Or I wasn’t catching it as often). It was more of a rhythmic approach to the alto and your part in the band was a little bit more rhythmic in my mind. But when I heard you in the current band it seemed you were completely involved in melody.

Coleman: Oh yeah, I think that, well, not that I think, but melody is the only thing that changes the idea into a structure that we call unison. But harmony is a communist title because the same note changes many different sounds when you put it in, so to speak, different keys. But the keys don’t know that.

Vega: (Laughs). That’s interesting.

Coleman: (Smiling laughter). The keys don’t know that.

Probably the hardest thing to do with sound is to free yourself of it in relationship to restriction to chords and keys. Like for instance all the C naturals. If you play the A flat major scale all the notes that C comes in covers the A flat major scale. Like A flat, B flat, C, D flat, E flat, F and G. Each one of those notes as a key, C appears in those keys. Which means that if that’s true for that key it’s got to be true for any other key.

Vega: So that gives you a great deal of possibilities.

Coleman: Not only do you get a great deal for possibilities but whatever you want to call the note you can establish that without worrying about how dissonant it is from one key to another.

Vega: That gives you a lot more freedom.

Coleman: Well, not a lot more freedom: it’s the only freedom that exists.

Vega: (Laughs). There’s only one freedom, right, and you’re either playing it or your not. O.K.

Coleman: (Smiling). You got it, you got it.

Vega: I got that. Well, that’s about what I’m at because I’m not a theoretical or trained musician. I’ve got my horn and I can make a few sounds. You know what my favorite song to try play on the horn is? “The Blessing.”

Coleman: Oh! (Sings the head). Is that the way it goes?

Vega: I love that song.

Coleman: Oh, uh-huh.

Vega: I do. Don Cherry played it so beautifully on your record. Actually he played that one with Coltrane, right?

Coleman: I think so. Well, that’s the one thing that human beings do. The brain and the emotion actually cause form to be developed -- in the form of meaning and what we call intelligence. Like for instance when you say “The Blessing,” the first, I think, four notes in the melody is the G flat major 7th (sings head). I think it’s a G flat major 7 chord. But the G flat major 7 chord doesn’t represent the key, it just represents the sound of those notes in the order that they’re played in. And that’s basically what we all do when we’re improvising.

Probably one of the hardest things about improvising -- the word doesn’t always mean that you’re doing that because of keys and chords. Sometimes you’re doing that only because of range.

Vega: Because of range?

Coleman: Yeah. Say the flatted fifth of C is F sharp, right? But the major seven of D flat is C. And from C to F sharp is a flatted fifth. Yet, the C to F sharp is a flatted fifth and the C to C sharp is a fifth. Basically...oh, how can I say it? C to F sharp is a flatted fifth, right? And C to C sharp is a fifth. But what’s amazing: C sharp to F sharp is a fourth. Now how can a fourth be higher than a fifth?

Vega: How did that happen?

Coleman: Well, it didn’t happen, someone just made it like that...

Vega: (Laughs).

Coleman: (Laughing)...so you’d get off their back! (Both laugh). But I think you won’t be put in jail by doing that. You might be able to make better music, but maybe no one will actually agree that what you’re doing is the most advanced way to make the mistakes.

Vega: Well that’s the thing about jazz I think, so-called jazz, is that there is always this sense of pushing against the given, I mean, things that have already been established such as Western harmony and the “correct” way to play your instrument. It’s something that people since King Oliver have been pushing against. And Jelly Roll Morton. Even Baby Dodds when he invented the drum set, when he asked ‘Why do we need seven people to play this when I can sit down and figure out a way to do it all by myself?’

Coleman: Yeah, this is true. Yeah, yeah, yeah that’s, what you just described is humanity approaching humanism, which is good. Because what we do is to acknowledge what are parents appreciate by responding to them as our peers. But when it comes to ideas and feeling and all these other things that parents and money can’t do, you have to respect the people that are inspiring you to do it in a way that you can appreciate how that same quality applied to what you’re doing might change even something that that person isn’t doing.

Vega: You’re talking about being inspired by someone else and how you can take it and run with it?

Coleman: Well, I’m saying that, but the reason why I’m saying that is, for instance, you play the trumpet don’t you?

Vega: Cornet, so, yes.

Coleman: The trumpet is in B flat isn’t it?

Vega: Yes, so your C is B flat. It’s open: no buttons down just open.

Coleman: But, but, but, but look: from F sharp to B flat is a third, right?

Vega: That’s what you said, yes, um-hum.

Coleman: But from C sharp to F sharp is a flatted fifth.

Vega: So it’s going backwards, right?

Coleman: (Laughs) Yeah, right, right. So, the point I’m trying to make: the education of the natural life of knowledge is different than the position of sound. Like, for instance, the major third of F sharp is B flat. But the minor third of G is B flat. But G is higher than F sharp.

Vega: So, it’s a conundrum. You’re basically saying sound exists in its own world and it’s just like God. It’s like religion is trying to explain God like musical theory is trying to explain sound but sound exists on a higher level.

Coleman: Oh yeah you got it. What you just said then, you should go to the top of the class. Yeah! O.K. Top that.

Vega: (Laughs). Thank you Ornette. It’s because I’ve been listening to you for a long time, man, I love you.

Coleman: I appreciate that.

Vega: I think what you did with jazz, too, in a way it is not just about getting to that absolute sound but it’s also about getting to absolute emotion to determine the sound you play, right?

Coleman: Yeah, right, right, right. See what you’re describing is why human beings exist. Human beings exist before they had parents. Phew, that’s pretty good. (Laughs a lot). Imagine! It’s true!

Vega: (Laughs). That’s gotta be like you’re talking about the first people like Adam and Eve or something.

Coleman: Yeah, you said it, you said it, you said it. But what’s so amazing -- what about today? I mean, imagine: human is a good word; life is a good word; love is a good word; but when does it make us all better?

Vega: Wow. (Sighs). When it’s heard more. When people hear it more clearly and not just, “Yeah, o.k. ‘Love,’ I’ve gotta go fill my gas tank.” It’s got to be that’s the point of getting up in the morning.

Coleman: But isn’t there a sound -- a message in sound -- isn’t there something when you hear it, the frequency of it whatever it is, touches you in a way that you hadn’t thought before because of what it makes you aware of that it’s doing? Right? And for some reason when people say the flatted fifth they’re speaking about sound that’s not in a diatonic key but that’s not true. Because the major seventh of B flat is A, and the fourth of C sharp is F sharp, but from F sharp to C IS the flatted fifth. But in the key of A flat it’s the dominant seven and the third!

So what I’m trying to say is that, and I’m not an authority on knowledge because whatever knowledge is nobody controls it. But knowledge does exist, right?

Vega: It’s a sort of free force in the universe that you can tap into, yeah.

Coleman: But does it exist to limit others and free a few, or does it exist the same way regardless who you are or what you’re doing?

Vega: Right, it’s the second. It’s like air, right?

Coleman: Yeah well that’s what I’m saying. That’s what I’m saying. We as human beings have created lots of things because of the classification of how we have grown up to relate to it. But as far as the concept of what it is it doesn’t change the way it’s going to effect whoever is trying to find some information by the use of it.

For instance -- do you have a certain key that you play in your horn?

Vega: Well, you know, C, which is B flat, is easy for me. I like F but I don’t know what that is in concert. I don’t transpose.

Coleman: F is E flat. You’re playing the trumpet, right?

Vega: Um hum. It’s just the first valve, you know.

Coleman: Yeah well F, that’s the concert E flat.

Vega: And I really like the interval on the horn between C, G and A. [Editor’s note: In the category of a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing: few days before this interview a musician was teaching me “Blues Walk” on the trumpet spelled CC AG C. That sound grammar was imprinted, the C higher than G, to the exclusion of what Ornette asks later in the interview, which is why my answer to such a basic question is wrong]. That’s a great interval between the upper C, the lower G and the A in the middle of it. Or how you can go from E flat to A or E flat to E and sort of revolve around that.

Coleman: Well, you know A in the bass clef is C. And the G flat you say is B flat in the bass.

The reason why I’m saying that the twelve notes have twelve different titles for the same sound. Trust me, it’s true.

Vega: All right. That’s it in a nut shell right there. Hey Ornette, does your band, your current band, did they absorb these concepts readily? Were they able to understand where you were going with this and then just jump right in? Because you’re working with new guys now, in a sense. For so many years you had your band guys who had a chance to grow and absorb and be part of your musical universe and now with this new group, which is what? four or five years old, how did it go?

Coleman: Yeah, that’s true. Well, that’s what I’m about to try and explain. The chromatic scale, right? Which, it goes vertical, right? Well the four instruments which are the piano, the bass, the trumpet and the saxophone -- I mean it’s more than four instruments, but the piano, the bass, the B flat and E flat instruments; the piano’s in C, the bass in F, the trumpet in B flat and the sax in E flat. Those four instruments are built in fourths like C, F, B flat and E flat. But there is no melody that starts on the fourth.

Vega: None?

Coleman: Do you know any?

Vega: Not off the top of my head.

Coleman: Right. Right. And why do you think it’s like that?

Vega: I don’t know.

Coleman: Because the fourth can only become the fourth when the third is right.

Vega: You have to have that first.

Coleman: No, the third is already always in front of the fourth because of mathematics. But at the same time C and F in the treble clef is a half step; in the bass clef they’re a whole step. You realize that?

Vega: No I didn’t, but I knew that when you get into the bass the sounds are further apart, I was aware of that, but I didn’t know specifically that example.

Coleman: Yeah, well, that’s very important, not because of the note but how you’re trying to achieve what you want to do with music. Right? The fingering the instrument doesn’t tell you how good you’re playing it’s only telling you what you’re fingering. The only way you know how good you’re playing is when you map out the results you want before you do it.

Vega: (Not comprehending) Yeah?

Coleman: Well what other way are you going to know how good it can get?

Vega: So, you mean you hit points that you were intending to hit?

Coleman: No! I mean, not intending. You make points that you know is going to change the things that you hear!

Like, for instance, E and F, o.k.? All right. Let’s say E and F and let’s pick a key, say C sharp. That’s the major third and the minor third of C sharp. But in the key of B flat it’s the flatted fifth and the fifth. The same two notes! Same sound!

But no, let’s put it another way. Say you have B flat to C. Then say you have A flat to B flat. Which one is the highest?

Vega: The C is going to be the highest of all of those, right?

Coleman: I don’t know. Wait just a minute. O.K. let’s go it again. B flat to C, right? It’s a whole step. A flat to B flat is a whole step. Isn’t it? O.K. which one is the highest?

Vega: I thought we were at C. C would be, wouldn’t it?

Coleman: Well C is called the second, and A flat for C is called the third. You understand what I mean? So the C would be, the C is higher when it’s in A flat than when B is one whole step above C, but that’s the second, right? But from A flat to C is a third. But from A flat to B flat is a second.

That’s what I’m saying, that for some reason the mathematical part of what we call musical intervals is not the same thing as the subtraction part, say A flat to B flat is a whole step. If you have A flat to B flat in the key of F sharp it’s the second and the third.

Vega: So, Ornette, what’s the conclusion?

Coleman: The conclusion is that sound has no parents.

Vega: (Explosive laughter).

Coleman: (Laughing). That’s the conclusion.

Vega: That’s the conclusion!

Coleman: Sure!

Vega: Yeah man!

Coleman: Go for it!

Vega: O.K. !

Coleman: (Laughing).

Vega: Very good: Sound Has No Parents!

Coleman: Yeah, this is true.

Vega: That’s it.

Coleman: I’m telling you.

Vega: That is it.

Coleman: Oh, tell me about it.

Vega: I mean people try to tell me Beethoven is sound’s parent but maybe not.

Coleman: No, no. It doesn’t work. Whoever it is. Sound doesn’t have to put on any clothes to represent what it is.

Vega: Well, that gives you a great deal of possibilities. That to me that’s freedom when you have multiple possibilities.

Coleman: But the most freedom is is your own. I mean, imagine: we were all born and when someone spanked us on the butt we started crying. And we ain’t know who it was! (Laughs).

Vega: (Laughs).

Coleman: If your mother do that then you’d be saying, Oh Mommy don’t beat me, or something, you know. (Laughs). It’s true, it’s really true. It’s amazing. The only reason I’m saying that is that whatever we are or whatever we turn out to be, something designed something for us to respond to or not respond to but that no one on this planet can tell you how good or bad you can do something if you can’t do it. Somebody can teach you what it is, but you have to make what it is for you to exist. Right?

I mean, look, let’s face it. Look it, I’m just saying there’s men and women, right? O.K. Why do you need a woman?

Vega: Why do I need a woman?

Coleman: Yeah, why does anyone need a woman?

Vega: I need one for love. I have personal needs that a woman can take care of.

Coleman (Suppressing a laugh): Don’t tell nobody that! (Cracks up).

Vega: (Laughing) You asked me. That’s why I’m married. My wife and I take care of each other’s needs.

Coleman: Well then God bless you. I hope that’s working for you.

Vega: Oh yeah, so far so good: ten years on.

Coleman: Oh that’s so good. Because I imagine women don’t have that ability to choose that way.

Vega: Imagine that they don’t?

Coleman: It’s not that they don’t. A woman can’t see you and say, “You mine.” But you can go to one and say, “Come with me,” and she says, “Where? Where are we going?” (Laughs). You know? I mean, no, let’s face it if it wasn’t for women we wouldn’t be here.

There is something in life that is eternal and it’s not based on any negativism about what you want, how you want it, who you want it to be or what you don’t want it to be. Because no one has designed anything for anybody for them to be in that big problem. That’s a big problem for you to tell someone what you want and what you don’t and you don’t even know who you are.

Vega: Well, that’s the first thing. You have to find out who you are first, right?

Coleman: Well, it helps.

Vega: But it’s always changing. You might think you’re telling somebody who you are but it might change next week and then you’re back to square one.

Coleman: Um um, it’s true, and not only that but whatever it is that you tell someone it’s not going to last long enough for them to find out if it’s true or not. All I’m saying is that the reason why we exist -- something created the reason why we exist. And it’s not someone you have to get permission to know that you can exist. It’s true!

Vega: I understand, Ornette. I think that helps clarify your music to me, too. When you play, when I hear your music, I enter a different place, and I like that place a lot. I’ve really enjoyed it through the years.

We spoke in 1992 about “Naked Lunch” and I developed a half hour long radio program out of that. I also spoke to Howard Shore. And now here we are in 2007 and it’s such an honor to be able to talk to you again because, face it, there aren’t very many people like you on the planet who have this kind of insight about existence, and I like that your music keys into that. It’s not just about playing music, it’s about everything it is to be a human being.

Coleman: Yeah, well, that’s the most important. Everything is based upon the quality of the human being. Isn’t that right?

What I’m saying, whether you’re a child or whatever it is, when you grow into a human being you was a human being when you were a child. When you grow up you just learn more and you’re able to be responsible for what you do and what you don’t want to do. But the fact is is that nothing tells you what you’re going to end up being. No one can know that.

Vega: So, in terms of your current band do you think that the examples of David Izenzon and Charlie Haden inform what your guys are now doing in your ensemble?

Coleman: No. I don’t think -- it’s no relationship at all. You know why?

Vega: O.K. tell me.

Coleman: Because the idea doesn’t have a twin. The idea is always looking for the placement and not how it activates. Which is really unbelievable. I mean, imagine when you’re playing your ideas on your instrument you’re not placing them in a certain place for them to do something, they already are doing something that represents what you’re doing. If you play B to C and you get a certain revolution from it, which means it’s D and E in the bass clef, and it’s A flat and A in the tenor...imagine, every time you play a note there’s four different sounds waiting to take it’s place.

So that’s why it’s important for the human being to free us all. Whatever you do free somebody from something that they feel fearful of doing that only could help them to become better in what they’re doing. Really. It’s not about money, it’s not about race, it’s not about sex, it’s abut the quality of human beings living in an eternity because God don’t kill.

Vega: Like you said there’s something without negativity there, it’s all positive.

Coleman: For sure.

Vega: That’s beautiful Ornette. Now, your publicist told me you were going to have to go to a rehearsal here at 7 o’clock.

Coleman: Yes, yes, about almost. It’s 6:59.

Vega: Yeah. Where are you right now? Are you home in New York?

Coleman: Yes, I’m on 34th Street.

Vega: I think the last time we spoke you were on Broadway.

Coleman: Probably. Yeah, I guess so. That could be possible. I was.

Vega: So are you going to have a rehearsal right there at the house?

Coleman: Yes, I usually do. I’m waiting for the musicians when they get here. I rehearse here in my house.

Vega: So they’re not there yet?

Coleman: No.

Vega: You know I was reading Joachim Kuhn. He did a solo CD recently and he said there are about 150 of your compositions and he recorded two of them (never before recorded pieces). I’m wondering with this new group are you introducing new compositions to the public now?

Coleman: Well, no, I’m introducing them to the players. I mean because that’s the only way you can keep them on their feet.

Vega: I have to tell you I love the way that you did “Sleep Talking” on the new record because I heard it with Prime Time. I used to love that song with Prime Time, and when it came out so rubato and slow but the same melody on the new record I was just, ah, I just enjoy that about your melodies, that they’re so adaptable.

Coleman: Well, I know there must be a way that one day we will look in each others eyes and time tell us that we can’t do that right now. (Laughs).

Vega: One more quick question? Do you have to go now?

Coleman: Do I have to go now? I think the answer is, I’m on my way.

Vega: O.K. From “Carousel,” Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel,” there’s “If I Loved You.” That seems to be part of the Sound Grammar recording of “Turnaround.”

Coleman: Is that right?

Vega: Did you intend to put that in there?

Coleman: Well you’re now telling me about something I hadn’t heard before but I’m glad you discovered what it was.

Vega: Actually I had help from the jazz writer Larry Kart out of Chicago, he noticed that.

Coleman: I didn’t have any idea that’s what I was playing, it just came to me as an idea.

Vega: I just wanted to mention that real quick.

Coleman: Well, I’m going to get off the phone because I do have this Turnaround rehearsal coming up.

Vega: Well have a wonderful time, sir, and thank you very much for this interview. I very much appreciate it.

Coleman: Yeah, call me anytime.

Vega: Thank you Mr. Coleman.

Coleman: All right, thank you.

(END)

Edited February 7, 2007 by Lazaro Vega

[Lazaro Vega]

From Jim Sangrey who I appealed to for clarity:

Ok, I reread and this is the key phrase here - "from F sharp to C IS the

flatted fifth. In fact in the key of A flat it's the dominant seven and

the third."

What he's saying is that the common perception of the "flatted fifth" is

that it is a dissonant interval. But as he points out here, it's an

interval that is found in every dominant seventh chord. The interval

between the third and seventh of any such chord is a flatted fifth. In

this case, he's using an Ab7 chord as an example, and saying that the

interval of C-F# would be perceived as "dissonant" in the key of C or

F#, but not in Ab, because of the key/context of the interval.

I think his point is that intervals by themselves have no "meaning" or

"sound outside of context. Interestingly enough, perhaps, sonny Rollins

used that same concept in "Blue Seven".  The theme and solo center

around D & Ab, the 3rd & 7th of a Bb7 chord (the home chord/key for that

tune), as well as an E-natural, which is the true flatted fifth of Bb.

Gunther Schuller's analysis shrewdly pointed out that Doug Watkins's

bass intro was somewhat ambiguous tonally, and that until the piano

entered, you couldn't be absolutely certain if the D & Ab were the 3rd &

7th of a Bb7 chord, or the 7th & 3rd of an E7 chord (Ab is the

enharmonic - i.e. different name for the same note -  of G3).

The interval of the flatted fifth (aka Tritone) has been the subject of

endless fascination over the centuries. At one point (around the time of

Bach, I think, I don't remember exactly) it was deemed "The Devil's

Interval", and was forbidden to be used, not just in melodic structure,

but in chord voicings as well. It's since been used for both "shock

value" as well as for a harmonic "pivot point". Much of bebop's use of

substitute chords was based on the "tritone substitution", the principal

of substituting one chord w/the same type chord a tritone away. It opens

up all sorts of possibilities, and might well be seen as the precursor

to George Russell's Lydian Concept, the Lydian mode being one in which

the flatted fifth is a natural occurrence, it being the mode of the 4th

scale degree (ex. - the Lydian mode of the G Major scale ( G A B C D E

F# G - and note that the flatted fifth interval occurs naturally the

between the 4th & 7th scale degrees, C & F#, which is why 4th & 7th

scale degrees, the only ones with half-step separations from a

neighboring degrees, one up, the other down, inevitably have been used

to set up expectations of resolution)....

Let me get back on track here (HA!)

The Lydian mode of the G Major scale ( G A B C D E F# G ) is C D E F# G

A B C. Play that on a piano, and then play a C major scale ( C D E F G A

B C ) and you can hear the difference, and a pretty radical difference

it is too. For one thing, the 4th & 7th degrees BOTH have a natural

resolution upwards. For another, the "natural" midpoint of the C octave

(F#) is now included in the scale. In a regular C Major scale, it's not.

Now, build your diatonic triads off that Lydian mode, and you see that

functionality has been completely changed. The ii chord is now a

dominant 7th (i.e. - II7) & the V chord, the traditional "resolution"

chord, is no longer a dominant, but a MAJOR 7th - G B D F#. The shit's

been turned inside out functionally, even though the notes remain the

same.

This is the gist of what Ornette's saying, and what he's always been

about. It's a matter of an intuitive sense of correctness meeting an

initial misunderstanding of "formal" theory, and he's been trying to

reconcile/correct that ever since. The jargon gets twisted sometimes

but it's all rooted in the correct realization that any note

(and by extension, any interval) can serve any role in any given context,

that it's all TRULY relative.

Hope this helps.

[Joe G]

Can we at least agree that A# is the major third of F#, and that the Lydian scale contains an augmented 4th not a flatted 5th?

[Werf]

Just reading that interview got me high.

[Chuck Nessa]

Ornette is a wonderful, amazing soul.

Is Braxton next Laz?

[JSngry]

Can we at least agree that A# is the major third of F#, and that the Lydian scale contains an augmented 4th not a flatted 5th?

Yes, of course we can. Just not when interpreting Ornette's words.

[JSngry]

pretty sure FOT (fear o' tritones) ctually goes back to renaissance or even medieval period-- i've got the books here but i keep watching & rewatching the Michelle Phillips cameo scene in The Last Movie so my mind blasted, man... blasted.

Yeah, you're right. It was before Bach's time. I'm more than a little rusty on my Music History Memories.

and dude, Michelle in The Last Movie is enticing, but Michelle in American Dreamer is DEADLY!

[Rooster_Ties]

Man, after that second post, I wanna see a trascript of Ornette interviewing Jim Sangrey.

[Lazaro Vega]

Ornette Coleman still blazing a musical trail

Critics praise or skewer his musical theories

By Howard Reich

Tribune arts critic

September 21 2003

NEW YORK -- He has been called a charlatan and a genius, a musical illiterate and a fearless visionary, a destroyer of noble traditions and a builder of enthralling new idioms.

He has been skewered by listeners who yearn for the days when jazz was sweet and easy on the ear, he has been showered with some of the most prestigious prizes in American culture.

Along the way, he also has been falsely arrested, attacked by muggers,

beaten, bludgeoned and left for dead.

Yet on this warm September morning, Ornette Coleman -- his name to this day sparks fierce debate among listeners around the world -- looks and sounds the picture of tranquility and peace, a soft-spoken, septuagenarian gentleman if ever there were one.

As the saxophonist-composer welcomes a visitor into the lobby of his

Manhattan loft building, one might suspect that Coleman never had seen a day of strife in a career that, in truth, has generated more than its share of distress.

"Oh, man, I've had some really terrible things done to me," says Coleman, arguably the most influential jazz composer, theorist and freethinker of the past half century.

Nevertheless, "At a certain point in my life, I just decided that I would never fight any kind of class, any kind of race, and if someone said, `I don't like you,' I wouldn't try to defend myself," continues Coleman, who plays a rare Chicago performance Friday night at Symphony Center.

"I'm not trying to control, change, dominate, kill or be against anyone, or put somebody above another," adds Coleman, speaking at a hush in a spartan loft dotted by African-inspired sculpture and vividly abstract paintings. The accoutrements brighten a wide-open room that aptly reflects the spaciousness of much of Coleman's music.

"I think my position is that I'm no more than a speck of dust in the sand," says Coleman, "and I'm trying to avoid being stepped on."

In that regard, however, Coleman has not been thoroughly successful, for virtually every concert he has played, every recording he has issued and every unexplored musical avenue he has delved into has drawn at least a measure of derision. Though many fragments of the music establishment have long since acknowledged that Coleman not only changed the course of jazz but opened it up to uncounted possibilities, he has been a walking target at least since the mid-1950s, when he began to unfold his unconventional views of composing and

improvising music.

Yet he seems to have been as unfazed by the assaults as he has been unseduced by the accolades (which have included a MacArthur "genius" Fellowship in 1994 and Guggenheim Fellowships in 1967 and '73), instead steadily spreading the gospel of his unorthodox musical philosophy to any musician seeking it out.

Thinking differently

Although artists famous and obscure have spoken of Coleman's efforts to

instruct them in the self-styled musical language he long ago termed "harmolodics," Coleman himself recalls a recent encounter that sums up his approach to getting musicians to think differently.

"A young lady who is trying to make her debut professionally came by a couple of days ago, and though she makes a living doing something else, she also writes songs," says Coleman, 73.

"So I said, `Sing,' and she sang [music based upon] an F chord," a

not-exactly-radical gesture that clearly would hold little appeal for a set of ears as restlessly inquisitive as Coleman's.

"So I gave her a newspaper, and I said, `I want you to read the newspaper, and I'm going to play while you're reading,'" with Coleman presumably blowing unexpected pitches, bizarre melodic intervals and chord-shattering phrases into his alto saxophone.

"And the more she was reading the newspaper, the more her voice became a song," meanwhile leaving the F major chord behind and slipping, unwittingly, into Coleman's more free-ranging musical terrain.

"And I said to her, `You know what? You might not realize it, but when your voice sings ... it's [now] coming out to make you sound like an individual.

"And I call that `harmolodics.'"

In purely musical terms, Coleman's "harmolodics" -- a linguistically suave merger of "harmony" and "melody" -- represents a rebellion against the chord changes that has driven everything in Western music from the fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach to the pop songs of Elvis Costello. In Coleman's "harmolodics," the strictures of chord progressions are abandoned, allowing each instrumentalist in a band to pursue his own melody line. Instead of chord changes, then, the

players use the particular interrelationships of multiple melody lines to forge a common musical language.

"It's like having a million melodies all at once," explains Coleman, "yet it's still a kind of unison."

In Coleman's hands, this approach produces a music that is often sublimely lyrical, though also often harmonically provocative.

Love it or hate it, however, it continues to influence some of the most

significant experimenters in jazz.

Just a few weeks ago, the brilliant Chicago musician Ken Vandermark gave the Chicago Jazz Festival its most artistically significant performance leading his new Crisis Ensemble.

Named for Coleman album

"Yes, the Crisis Ensemble was named after [Coleman's] album `Crisis,'" says Vandermark, in an e-mail from Oslo (where Vandermark is on tour), referring to a characteristically adventurous Coleman recording of 1969.

"Ornette's use of `fluid tonality' [another way of describing `harmolodics'] has had a huge impact on the way I think about harmony in my compositions and playing," adds Vandermark, whose art embraces a broad range of techniques, many originating with Coleman. "Coleman's breakthrough with freeing harmony from a strict, repetitive structure has had a huge impact on the way improvisers have thought about tonality since the late 1950s. And his efforts to reduce the

hierarchy between soloist and rhythm section also indicated a direction that free improvisers have built on since the late 1960s."

Indeed, as Vandermark suggests, Coleman utterly rewrote the rules for

improvising and writing jazz. The conceptual leap he made -- from the extraordinarily complex chord changes of bebop giants such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk to a post-chordal language of his own device -- not only changed the music but liberated it.

Like most aesthetic revolutions, however, this one earned its leader

considerable fire.

In Los Angeles, in the mid-1950s, Coleman was hard-pressed to find musicians who would talk to him, let alone take his radical ideas onto a bandstand.

And in New York, in the early 1960s, revered swing trumpeter Roy Eldridge said, "I think he's jiving, baby"; trumpeter Miles Davis said, "If you're talking psychologically, the man is all screwed up"; and drummer Max Roach, after hearing Coleman play, "punched Ornette in the mouth," notes John Litweiler in his Coleman biography, "A Harmolodic Life" (William Morrow and Company Inc., 1992).

Even today, some observers hold serious reservations about the significance of Coleman's contributions.

"Free jazz is one of the things that anyone can do, because there are no rules to which you have to conform," says John McDonough, a veteran jazz critic who penned a famous anti-Coleman essay -- "Failed Experiment" -- in the January, 1992, issue of Down Beat, where he serves as contributing editor.

"It's empty in the same way that when Sid Caesar does a [fake] Japanese or French dialect. It sounds authentic, but it says nothing."

Others, such as veteran Chicago jazz impresario Joe Segal, have had mixed feelings about different facets of Coleman's work.

"I've heard him make some great music -- like when we had him at the Jazz Showcase [in 1975] with [bassist] Charlie Haden, [drummer] Ed Blackwell and [saxophonist] Dewey Redman. I liked the tunes, because they had that Charlie Parker flavor.

"But [later] I heard him playing all-electric, and me and the other beboppers left at intermission, because it sounded like a big mess."

Early on, however, a select few musicians instantly perceived the melodic beauty that Coleman's ideas made possible.

"Don Cherry [the innovative trumpeter] told me about this alto player,

Ornette Coleman, so I went to hear him, and Ornette takes out this white plastic alto saxophone, and I never had heard anything so beautiful in my life," recalled bassist Haden, in a conversation with the Tribune last year.

"When he walked out of the club, I ran back after him.

"I just thought he played like some revolutionary angel.

"So he invited me to come to his home -- actually, it was his apartment, a little one-room shack with music on the floor and everywhere.

"And I'll never forget what he said to me: `After we play the intro, listen to me, and we'll play what we want to play, not what we're supposed to be playing.'"

Altered direction of jazz

From these early collaborations with Haden, trumpeter Don Cherry and bassist Billy Higgins, among others, came recordings that radically altered the direction of jazz. The bracing sounds of "Something Else! The Music of Ornette Coleman" (1958), "Tomorrow is the Question" (1959), "The Shape of Jazz to Come" (1959), "Change of the Century" (1959) and "Free Jazz" (1960) signaled that jazz musicians content to play endless choruses on "All the Things You Are" permanently had lost their position on the front lines of the music.

If this work sounded shocking to the uninitiated, it represented a great gust of fresh air to musicians with open ears and minds.

"I remember listening to those records when they came out, and it's true that a lot of people didn't seem to understand what he was doing," recalls Chicago tenor saxophone virtuoso Fred Anderson, himself a cutting-edge player.

"But I understood what Ornette was doing -- he was coming right out of

Charlie Parker, and it was good.

"It wasn't that he was trying to play like Charlie Parker. He was trying to find his own voice."

Parker, indeed, was the alto saxophonist Coleman most admired, but while generations of imitators tried to ape Parker's breakthroughs, Coleman chose instead to push beyond Parker's bebop revolution.

"I saw Charlie Parker play when I just got to L.A.," in the early 1950s, recalls Coleman, "when I was really, really starving at that point. I couldn't even get in the nightclub, because of the way I was dressed.

"They said, `Please, the customers don't want to see you like this.'

"So I spoke to him outside . . . he opened up ears to hearing another way of playing music."

Coleman chose to do no less.

"Jazz means two things: `unknown' and `present,'" says Coleman, explaining his view of the music that has defined his life.

"In other words, you [bring] something unknown into the present, right?

"Now I didn't call the music I was doing `free jazz.' Someone [at the

Atlantic record label] named it that, put a Jackson Pollack painting on it and called it `Free Jazz.'"

The phrase, which has stuck to post-chordal jazz ever since, may have done a disservice to Coleman and his idiom, for it gave casual listeners the

impression that, in this music, anything goes, anyone can play anything.

In reality, however, Coleman's fluid system of "harmolodics" requires

musicians with uncommonly sensitive ears and nimble intellects, as well as audiences

willing to embrace bursts of abstract instrumental color, utterly

unpredictable phrase lengths and a kind of democracy among players that allows a robust

counterpoint to flourish.

So far as Coleman is concerned, this thinking-outside-the-margins approach to

creating music was shaped early on, in Ft. Worth, where the absence of

Coleman's father and the tiny wages earned by his mother left the family shut out of

mainstream society.

Beyond his reach

Even music seemed beyond his reach, at first.

"I don't ever remember hearing [classical] instruments like violins -- I was always hearing people with guitars and blues and stuff like that, because there was segregation," says Coleman.

"The first time I saw a guy play a saxophone, I didn't know what it was. And someone told me it was a saxophone. So I asked my mother, and she told me that if I go out and make money I could buy myself one. So I made me a shoeshine box and went on the streets smelling feet.

"Until one day she told me, `Look under the bed' -- it took about three or four years -- and I took it out and played it."

Or, more specifically, Coleman invented his own way of playing the

instrument, since music education was not in the family budget. Long unfamiliar with the technicalities of keys, transpositions and other nitty-gritty of the musician's art, Coleman conceptualized his own systems for how tones harmonize (and didn't harmonize), leading, perhaps, to his homemade "harmolodics."

Looking in other cultures

Ever since, Coleman has been relentless in his search for new sounds,

venturing to study the musical rituals of Hopi Indians in 1962, to absorb the "healing powers" of the master musicians of Joujouka, Morocco, in the early 1970s, and to practically every other culture to which he could obtain entree. These influences perpetually have refreshed his art, inspiring epic pieces such as the

jazz-meets-the-symphony "Skies of America" in the early 1970s, the

quasi-classical "Freedom Symbol" suite (featuring a 20-piece ensemble) in 1989 and the multimedia, multicultural social commentary of "Tone Dialing" in 1995.

Though these works have been praised and damned, Coleman remains undeterred.

"I'm drawn to what I can't see that represents God," says Coleman, who has put aside, he says, bitterness over race-driven arrests in his youth, beatings from fellow musicians early in his career in the South and two brutal muggings from apparently random criminals in his adopted home, New York.

"I remember that I got my horn in the '40s, and after I had some experience [on it], I discovered the word `art.'

"And it seemed to me that art was anything that was created that didn't have to give in to anyone's influence. . . .

"That's one thing that I haven't done yet, and I'm not planning to."

- - -

Essential Coleman

Essential listening from Ornette Coleman's discography:

"The Music of Ornette Coleman: Something Else!" (Original Jazz Classics; 1958). The opening shots in Coleman's revolution seem tame by today's standards but caught a generation of listeners off guard.

"The Shape of Jazz to Come" (Atlantic; 1959). The first recording of

Coleman's breakthrough quartet shows trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins forging a harmonically liberated, intensely melodic musical language.

"Change of the Century" (Atlantic; 1959). Coleman and the quartet venture more deeply into a post-chordal idiom.

"Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation" (Atlantic; 1960). Coleman's

pioneering double quartet foreshadows the composer's future projects.

"Beauty is a Rare Thing: The Complete Atlantic Recordings" (Rhino/Atlantic; 1959-1961; reissued 1993). This must-have, six-CD boxed set exhaustively documents Coleman's late '50s, early '60s innovations.

-- Howard Reich

[Lazaro Vega]

Chuck,

David Lee, author of "The Battle of the Five Spot, Ornette Coleman and the New York Jazz Field" is next on the "to do" list as I finished his book before Christmas.

Laz

[Lazaro Vega]

Hey, Ornette's publisher just informed me Ornette is a presenter Sunday night at the Grammys. Oh Tacos! So, you can hear an hour of him talking with music from Sound Grammar on Blue Lake, or 30 seconds to 2 or 3 mintues of him on t.v. ? The little radio station in the forest doesn't stand of a ghost of a chance against the Eye of Hell, which will blink towards heaven when Ornette appears. TiVo, baby, TiVo.

[Rooster_Ties]

Hey, Ornette's publisher just informed me Ornette is a presenter Sunday night at the Grammys.

Damn. Words fail me. 'cept -- Damn!

[brownie]

Very interesting interview!

Ornette Coleman is at long last receiving a very deserved recognition!

AP also had an interview with him:

A JAZZ VISIONARY: ORNETTE COLEMAN

By CHARLES J. GANS, Associated Press Writer

Ornette Coleman has always kept ahead of the curve, even as a teenager back in Fort Worth, Texas, when he'd play hot jazz licks on the saxophone and get a scolding from his church band leader.

Today, at 76, the jazz visionary is not slowing down to let others catch up, launching his own record label with his first disc of new music in nearly a decade — the Grammy-nominated CD "Sound Grammar."

As a largely self-taught musician who dared to be different in the late 1940s and '50s, Coleman suffered worse indignities than even the most hapless "American Idol" contestant. One bandleader paid him not to solo; others simply fired him. Musicians walked off the stage when he showed up at jam sessions. Coleman was told he played out-of-tune and didn't know the basics of jazz improvisation.

One incident remains deeply ingrained in his memory. That was the night circa 1950 when the saxophonist was playing with an R&B band at a Louisiana road house and his unconventional bebop-inspired solo stopped the dancers in their tracks. Coleman was dragged outside the club, roughed up and his horn was thrown over a cliff.

"One guy kicked me in my stomach ... and said, `You can't play like that!' He didn't even know what I was doing," recalled Coleman, perched on a stool in the music room of his Manhattan loft. "I think with dance music it's the rhythm that people like and I was just playing musical ideas. But I really did grow when I realized that all music uses the same notes whether it's classical or religious or funk. ... And when I realized that ... I decided to take my beatings until I can establish where people can say, `Oh don't beat him, listen.'"

Coleman now is regarded as one of the greatest innovators in jazz history along with Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker. In the late '50s, he originated "free jazz," challenging the bebop establishment by abandoning the conventional song form and liberating musicians to freely improvise off of the melody rather than the underlying chord changes. Coleman broke down the barrier between leader and sidemen, giving his band members freedom to solo, interact and develop their ideas.

"In order to play with Ornette, you have to listen to every note that he plays as you're playing, and you really learn about concentration and listening in that way. ... Ornette approaches improvisation completely different than most people," said bassist Charlie Haden, a member of Coleman's original quartet that rocked the jazz establishment when it burst on the scene in 1959 with the aptly titled album "The Shape of Jazz to Come."

The jazz revolutionary has now become a respected elder statesman with the accompanying honors, including membership in the elite American Academy of Arts and Letters.

This year, even the Grammys have finally gotten around to recognizing Coleman with a lifetime achievement award, even though he has never won a Grammy.

But Coleman feels an obligation to his musicians and audiences to write new music for every concert he performs rather than play his old compositions or jazz standards. "`Tea for Two' — I don't do that," he said.

Frustrated by dealing with fickle record company executives, he started his Sound Grammar label because he wanted "to put out lots of music and some people's tastes might not be the way mine is."

"Sound Grammar," nominated for a Grammy as best jazz instrumental album, is Coleman's first live recording in nearly 20 years. Its unusual sonic mix includes two acoustic bassists — the classically trained Tony Falanga, who mostly uses the bow, and Greg Cohen, who plucks his bass.

Coleman not only plays alto saxophone but also trumpet and violin, two instruments he taught himself to play in an unorthodox style in the 1960s to give himself a more colorful sound pallette. The drummer is Coleman's son, Denardo, who has developed an intuitive interplay with his father since his controversial debut in the saxophonist's band at age 10 in 1966.

The recording, from a 2005 concert in Ludwigshafen, Germany, features six new Coleman compositions, including the heart-wrenching ballad "Sleep Talking" on which he again shows his uncanny ability to make his saxophone cry out like a human voice with a full gamut of emotions. He also revisits two older pieces _the frenetic "Song X," the title track from a 1985 album with guitarist Pat Metheny, and "Turnaround" from his 1959 album "Tomorrow Is The Question" on which the alto saxophonist's bluesy wails reflect his R&B roots with some quotes thrown in from "Beautiful Dreamer" and "If I Loved You."

"I want everyone to have an equal relationship to the results," said Coleman. "I don't tell them what or how to play. ... Sometimes the drum is leading, sometimes the bass is leading. ... I don't think I'm the leader, I'm just paying the bills."

Coleman may be one of the most controversial figures in modern American music, but in person the slightly built musician comes across as a modest, gentle revolutionary — soft-spoken with a high-pitched voice that still bears a trace of a Texas twang.

"I don't claim at being the best at anything," said Coleman, whose mustachioed angular face is deeply lined. "But I do know that I have learned how to avoid making musical mistakes."

In conversation, Coleman shapes his responses almost as if he is improvising a jazz solo in words rather than notes, stating a theme and stretching it out in an unpredictable way, then returning to it and taking off in a different direction, occasionally bouncing an enigmatic question off of his interlocutor ("What is the purpose of human beings?").

One theme he constantly returns to is motherhood, and he likes to recall what his mother told him whenever he sought her approval: "Don't worry Junior, I know who you are?"

Coleman credits his mother with giving him the strength to overcome the adversity he faced growing up in a largely segregated Fort Worth. Coleman's father died when he was 7, and his mother supported the family on her seamstress earnings. She bought him his first saxophone when he was 14 from money he earned shining shoes.

"At that time bebop was just being born and Charlie Parker was the main man," said Coleman. "I said, `Oh man, what kind of music is that?' And I thought I'm going to play that."

Coleman's bebop solos made him a poor fit with the R&B bands dominating the local circuit. Tired of rejection, he moved to Los Angeles in 1952 where he got a job as a department store elevator operator, studying music theory on his breaks.

Coleman, who a decade before the Beatles had shoulder-length hair and a beard, soon found a like-minded group of musicians, including Haden, who had performed in his family's bluegrass band back in Missouri; Don Cherry, who played a tiny pocket trumpet, and drummer Billy Higgins.

"I wanted to play on the inspiration of a composition rather than on the chord structure ... and every time I tried to do this the other musicians that I was playing with would be upset with me," said Haden. "And the first time I played with Ornette all of a sudden the lights were turned on for me because here was someone else who was ... doing the same thing I was trying to do."

Coleman recorded his first album "Something Else" for Los Angeles-based Contemporary Records in 1958. The new sound caught the attention of the Modern Jazz Quartet's pianist and musical director John Lewis (news, bio, voting record), who introduced Coleman to Atlantic Records producer Nesuhi Ertegun.

The November 1959 New York debut of Coleman's quartet at the Five Spot set off a musical firestorm. Coleman's radical new approach had its champions, including the classical composers Leonard Bernstein and Virgil Thompson. But many leading jazz musicians denounced him as a charlatan.

Miles Davis remarked that "psychologically, the man is all screwed up inside."

Undaunted, Coleman went on to release a series of groundbreaking albums for Atlantic, most notably the double-quartet recording "Free Jazz" with a nearly 40-minute collective improvisation.

Coleman has always considered himself more than a jazz player. He has journeyed to Morocco to play in a mountain hut with the Master Musicians of Joujouka, performed with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, and composed works for string quartet, woodwind quintet and even a symphony, "Skies of America," that he performed with the New York Philharmonic and his own electric free-funk fusion band Prime Time.

Coleman, who previously called his musical system "harmolodics," now prefers to call it "sound grammar." He is seeking to decode that universal musical language that crosses all borders.

"I would like to go around the world and play with people that don't worry about the key they're in or the song they're playing ... because I really do play from sound," said Coleman, who has decorated the main room of his loft with folk art he has collected on his musical odysseys to Morocco, Nigeria, India and elsewhere. "To me sound is eternal ... and there are still some notes that haven't been heard. I don't know where to find them, but I know they are there."

[paul secor]

Lazaro - Thanks so much for posting that interview. I'm always happily amazed when I read interviews with or liner notes by Ornette at the way that he can use so few words and say things that are so profound. I feel blessed to be here on earth at the same time he's here.

[rockefeller center]

"To me sound is eternal ... and there are still some notes that haven't been heard. I don't know where to find them, but I know they are there."

O. Coleman isn't talking about music/sound waves, is he?

[clifford_thornton]

Lazaro - Thanks so much for posting that interview. I'm always happily amazed when I read interviews with or liner notes by Ornette at the way that he can use so few words and say things that are so profound. I feel blessed to be here on earth at the same time he's here.

What he said.

[ep1str0phy]

Always an insipiration. There may be elements that we won't see and don't understand, but there's no jive. Ornette was and is serious--and a beautiful soul.

[Lazaro Vega]

"To me sound is eternal ... and there are still some notes that haven't been heard. I don't know where to find them, but I know they are there."

O. Coleman isn't talking about music/sound waves, is he?

I think he's talking about this sort of thing --

Coleman: "We were in Joujouka and I saw a woman," recalls Coleman. "I don't know if

she was drunk or whatever, but she was out of her mind. They just stood

right in front of her and played and before she knew it, her face changed,

her spirit; everything changed just from that sound! I said, 'Oh, my

goodness! You can do that!' But to see it in a human condition, it blew my

mind. She got so got so calm and it looked like none of that had ever

happened. Well, music got that in it‹and it¹s nothing but sound! You know

what I'm saying?"

Edited February 23, 2007 by Lazaro Vega