From 1950 to 1975 Harmolodics has always existed in my writing and playing. Yet I did not have a Harmolodic Band to compose and perform with as a working band. I often speak about being a composer that performs without prejudice of environment.
--Ornette Coleman, from the Body Meta liner notes.
"Harmolodics," a conception of Coleman's regarding a basic approach to music is not that simple to describe, except in broad terms. But listening to Ornette's unique sound long enough and you begin to understand. To my ears, it means harmonic progression without a tonal center. It can sometimes sound dissonant and sometimes rather agreeable but never tied to Western conventions about song structures or melodic flow.
That's the core aim of Coleman — if his songs are to connect to the listener, it connects at the absolute base level of what "sounds good" and not because it follows some preconceived formula. The song, as Coleman himself states above, is "without prejudice of environment."
However you describe it, the theory of "harmolodics" didn't really get put into practice according to its creator until Coleman formed his Prime Time band in 1975. A radical departure from even his previous unusual configurations, Coleman hired two electric guitarists (Charlie Ellerbe, Bern Nix), one electric bassist (Jamaladeen Tacuma née Rudy McDaniel), and two drummers (Ronald Shannon Jackson and Ornette's son Denardo). And of course, Ornette's singular alto sax.
When these guys got together in Paris that year for sessions that produced Body Meta and Dancing In Your Head, they brought Coleman's radical approach to music to the latter 20th century. Hearing these more contemporary instruments fleshing out his vision made the music sound familiar compared to his acoustic works and completely strange at the same time.
But before this becomes a professorial lecture dissecting the man's vast body of music, let's simply take one song of his catalog and just enjoy the damned thing. This is just another "One Track Mind," after all.
The first track from the earlier released album Body Meta does a beautiful job in forcing the listening to hear familiar tones and shapes in a non-familiar context. "Voice Poetry" starts out with a funky creole beat that could have been lifted from The Meters' "Hey Pocky A-Way." One guitar playing rhythm enters with a conventional chord, until the other guitar follows close behind playing single note lines and begins a weird chord progression.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
you almost have to see a band playing like this to get it. it can at first seem like everybody is ignoring everybody else, you know?
great stuff pico.
gees, too bad about Max.
2 - Pico
In contrast to me, describing Ornette'e music comes naturally to you. But I suspect I feel it about the same way as you do :&)
3 - Mark Saleski
dunno if i'd say it comes easy. maybe it's because i visualize music with weird 3D moving shapes....no drugs involved!! ;-)
4 - Michael J. West
There's actually a prototype for Ornette's "free-funk" sound. It's not as liberated from structure and restraint, or as demanding of the musicians' cooperation (in the sense of listening to each other), but it is as avant-garde and demanding of the listener.
Whose music am I speaking of? Think of Prime Time's early recordings without the alto saxophone, but with a gravelly blues shouter in its place, and see if the resulting sound in your head isn't remarkably like Captain Beefheart. :-)
5 - Pico
hmm, now that you mentioned it Michael, there are a lot of similarities between Coleman's Prime Time and Vliet. Yes, they did use different concepts but both arrived at roughly the same place.
6 - Mark Saleski
man,i wish i knew how to operate the software...because i'd be willing to bet that a cool mashup could be made using Trout Mask Replica and In All Languages.