Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz
Ever think you’ve read a book or heard a record, then discover you haven’t? Years ago that happened to me with James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son; having read his other nonfiction, I somehow assumed I had read that one, too — maybe because it’s so famous — only to find out otherwise. (It was a little embarrassing. Here I was, known among my friends as this big Baldwin nut, but . . .)
Just recently something similar happened, with the 1960 Ornette Coleman album Free Jazz.
I didn’t know what a double quartet was before I checked out this record, but it’s pretty much what it says: play Free Jazz on your iPod and you’ve got one quartet coming in your left ear and another, playing (almost) the same instruments, in your right. So, blowing, plucking, and banging simultaneously with very little thought of unison, you’ve got Coleman and Eric Dolphy on woodwinds; on bass, Charlie Haden and the beastly Scott LaFaro (see my post “A Confession About Jazz” from May 2009); Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins on drums; and, on trumpet, Coleman’s regular partner, Don Cherry, and the great, recently deceased Freddie Hubbard, who played on just about every jazz record made in the 1960s, if my collection is at all representative. It’s as crazy as it sounds, and it’s wonderful.
Certain people have described jazz — over and over again — as being a metaphor for democracy: everybody has a say, etc., etc. A lot of jazz may symbolize what democracy is like in theory, but Free Jazz comes close to representing how it works in practice: so many people making so much noise at the same time that the result is near-chaos. In the two pieces that make up the album — one 37 minutes long, the other 17 — the closest thing to a refrain is a seven-note sequence, played less in harmony than in disharmony. Somehow it works. Somehow the country works. Go figure.
One Response to “Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz”
You’re just trying to incite me to write about Ornette (the extremely gifted and-I’m sure a number of us not too scared to do so would call him- at times, musically irritating, even grating free music man)..However, cacophonous screechings, prestigious awards aside, MacArther grants, whatever… I do understand, in context, the innovator he was and remains (in fact, at Sonny Rollins’ 80th recently he suddenly appeared, clad, as per his usual ‘getup’, in kaleidoscopic sports coat, diametrically opposed pants, then shoes and his standard hat-his only nod to past and current fashonista normalcy-then played beautifully if somewhat obtusely with Sonny)….For my money i prefer the Sonny forays into “outness” (i.e. East Broadway Rundown with your boy Hubbard “outing” himself with Sonny comes to mind but I know that stuff leans more towards melody and rhythm playing generally-Ornette would probably call it “playing tunes”-of which Sonny may be the greatest improvisor of the past and present century- but i digress, of course)..I’ll cop to the fact that I haven’t listened to my vinyl “Free Jazz”- as well as some of the other seminal Ornette ‘sides’, their titles elude me currently..However, and back to your main focus on how jazz itself is this clear metaphor for democracy…certainly- and i promise to give a listen soon to Ornette’s Opus shortly- free and avant-garde certainly represent what one might call primitive or a more organic form of democracy (if you will,the “cosmic” music..and maybe the “near chaos” or”so many people making so much noise at the same time” that you refer to) But again, in acknowledging the “outness” and total freedom of Ornette (which everyone’s got to envy)as one model, I still think that the “standard”- straight ahead- quartet (like many of the ‘Clifford’s’ with Max, and a thousand other sides by many musicians, for instance)is my model for what democracy should aspire to: that finely tuned, perfectly balanced and coordinated interplay of musicians that congeals into unadulterated swing…..that’s what moves me (and you too) in a way no other art- or democratic system short of utopian socialism- can….you know, you ELEVATE with that..and so on (i’m leaving out hundreds of current musicians who do “both” kinds of playing, of course)
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