Music Review: Ornette Coleman - Sound Grammar

But for the half century of composer and multi-instrumentalist Ornette Coleman's stalwart advocacy of freedom of expression, jazz (and other styles of improvised music) could have evolved (or devolved) into musical Jabberwocky. There are days when I think the bulk of improvised music has done exactly that despite torch-bearer Coleman's repeated call to arms.

Coleman's new CD, Sound Grammar (Sound Grammar, 2006), represents: his first album in more than 10 years; his first live album in 20 years; the recording debut of his current band: Ornette Coleman (sax, violin, and trumpet), his son, Denardo Coleman on drums, and two acoustic bassists, Tony Falanga and Greg Cohen; and, is the first release from Coleman's new label, Sound Grammar.

Today, the 77-year-old Coleman is generally acknowledged as a pivotal figure in the history of jazz. He's been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received: the MacArthur "Genius" Award; honorary doctorates from several colleges and universities; an American Music Center Letter of Distinction; the Lillian Gisch Prize, the New York State Governor Arts Award; and, on February 11, 2007, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (Sound Grammar was also nominated in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album category).

But, don't let the goodies fool you. It's been a long, hard road for this music iconoclast and his plastic saxophone.

Born 1930 in an essentially segregated area of Ft. Worth, Texas, Coleman received his first saxophone from his mother (a seamstress - his father passed away when he was ten) at the age of 14 and taught himself to sight read from a "how to" piano book. It wasn't long before Coleman was working the local honky tonk circuit with R&B bands. His horizons stretched beyond Texas when he joined Pee Wee Crayton's traveling band and Coleman eventually found himself in Los Angeles by the time he was 20. The road, however, had already turned rocky. The story goes that by the time Crayton and Coleman reached L.A., Crayton offered to pay Coleman not to solo.

In a 1960 Downbeat article, Coleman put it to writer Robert Tynan this way: "Most musicians didn't take to me; they said I didn't know the [chord] changes and was out of tune." It wasn't readily clear to most musicians (and critics) in the late '50s and early '60s that a player might pursue dissonance by choice. "I could play and sound like Charlie Parker note-for-note, but I was only playing it from method. So I tried to figure out where to go from there,"

Where Ornette Coleman went from there would (and continues to) alter and expand the way we think, talk about, listen to, and ultimately, enjoy music. Coleman's career from the late '50s, (especially the albums The Shape of Jazz To Come [1959] and Free Jazz [1960]) gave birth to three questions important to those who take their music listening pleasure seriously:

Article Author: Brad Chenowski

Chenowski is a stay-at-home proud father and husband. He writes about a specialized area of music for a living.

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