When in doubt of where to go, Musically, when questioning one's ability to hear harmonic structures, to find the “in” groove or chord, or if just in need of a general aural cleansing, there is nothing that will substitute for Ornette Coleman.
I first experienced Ornette's harmolodics at Berklee, where often friends and I would spend late nights “with the double quartet of Coleman's Free Jazz: A Improvision by the Double Quartet barrelling forth from the speakers like the Mongol horde” (a quote from my journals at the time). Now, when you want to learn about phrasing, you turn to Miles' Sketches of Spain; when you want close-knit harmony that weaves in and out around the beat, I always like to put on The Gerry Mulligan Songbook; and when needing to hear just how much you can do in just two choruses (and how anything more than that is simply unnecessary, if you do it right), there's nothing like Charlie Parker. Doesn't matter what your instrument is, or what style you think you play. If you want to focus on these aspects of Music, here's where the clues are.
But if you want to know the secret of space, to stretch your ears, to cut to the bare bones, there's no substitute for Ornette Coleman. Just like James Brown can teach you, particularly on Love Power Peace (live in Paris, 1971) that there is nothing outside of a groove, Ornette can help you understand just how melodic the entire world is. Ah...but I digress...
Did I mention that it makes great headphone Music?
Back to my wonderful cup of tea, a darkened room, and that plastic saxophone ...
Here's a poem that I wrote after listening, one evening in Memphis, to Ornette, while discussing Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein over endless strong coffee ...
plastic pocket harmolodics
(1993)
run down changeling boots the funk
improve the shunned extractionary
stove in traction rips rough ready
pockets not for inner sanctums
cherry cola cough surrender
queasy compton did the mother
freaking heat in slumber tumble
xray eyelids slip the winking
bop the bird the sticky finger
fallen anglos sin cojones
open quiet quick and greasy
down the town round wound up lounging
run down starlings cop the mutants
the groove pontificates for shiva
flip the whip trip banned in boston
coleman-nation green and hunchbacked
cherry copper coated kicks
mazaltov and off the mother
speaking shit in rumble mumble
x the spot where malcolm put it
stop the word the slippery jungle
pent up houses of the holy
open skies bleed hard and humble
central busts the changes open.
peace, y'all.
