International Ornette Coleman Day 2012

What I find inspiring about Ornette is his genuine creative impulse. He arrived on the scene with a fully formed concept that was innovative and completely honest, playing the way he did because that was just how he heard music. The integrity of that approach, let alone the nature of the content of his art, is something I think all creative people aspire towards in some way. I'm influenced by Ornette as a saxophone player and an improviser coming from the jazz tradition, but I'm not really interested in sounding just like him or recreating what he's already done. The truth Ornette's sound and concept represents to me has helped me to identify what's true within myself. If my music bears some resemblance to Ornette's for some people, I think it can be attributed to my working through these external truths that have validated and unlocked some internal ones that are distinctly mine. As time goes on, I hear myself developing my own style, and the process of working on music like this is a lifelong pursuit.

 - Nick Mazzarella

Ornette Coleman turns 82 today.  His music continues to shape the sound of jazz yet to come.  A substantial creative and spiritual force that reverberates as strong now as when he burst onto the scene in 1959 with that amazing quartet with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins.  I hear harmony different today because of Ornette Coleman.  I hear rhythm different today because of Ornette Coleman.  I understand improvisation different today because of Ornette Coleman.  And beyond the sum of all of those parts one finds the incredible melodic sensibility of Ornette Coleman.  Those melodies are striking.  A near perfect balance of lyrical and emotive as notes bleed into cries of joy and anguish.  The free jazz movement that ignited from his spark continues to burn today and is particularly strong in Chicago, where it was my privilege to hear the next generation of musicians inspired by his harmolodics this past year and a half.

A figure worthy of his own holiday.  Happy International Ornette Coleman Day.

International Ornette Coleman Day 2011

Happy Ornette Coleman Day! Harmolodic wishes to you and yours!

International Ornette Coleman Day 2010

When I saw Ornette Coleman perform at Davies Symphony Hall late last year it was like watching the Dalai Lama of hamolodic philosophy ply his craft to improvised music. The room erupted with an outpouring of love and respect for the lifetime of music that has been and continues to be The Shape of Jazz to Come. The musician who became so revolutionary by remaining true to his own sound. And when he picked up his tenor saxophone that night the familiar human cry and temperament left no doubt that he still possesses that unerring sense of melody. The intervallic phonemes that are so uniquely his. The controversy that greeted his explosive arrival onto the jazz scene has all but subsided into a collective awe for the path he blazed for later generations to explore. Now it is hard to imagine jazz history without the imprint he has left upon it.

Ornette Coleman turns 80 today. While beauty may be a rare thing, it is rarely farther away than his recordings. With song titles that read like poetry imbued with sounding qualities attached to the names. Have a harmolodic day.

Focus On Sanity
Chronology
Peace
Congeniality
Lonely Woman
Monk And The Nun
Just For You
Eventually
Una Muy Bonita
Bird Food
Change Of The Century
Music Always
The Face Of The Bass
Forerunner
Free
The Circle With A Hole In The Middle
Ramblin'
Little Symphony
The Tribes Of New York
Kaleidoscope
Rise And Shine
Mr. And Mrs. People
Blues Connotation
I Heard It Over The Radio
P.S. Unless One Has (Blues Connotation No. 2)
Revolving Doors
Brings Goodness
Joy Of A Toy
To Us
Humpty Dumpty
The Fifth of Beethoven
Motive For Its Use
Moon Inhabitants
The Legend Of Bebop
Some Other
Embraceable You
Folk Tale
Poise
Beauty Is A Rare Thing
Free Jazz
PROOF Readers
W.R.U.
Check Up
T. & T.
C. & D.
R.P.D.D.
The Alchemy Of Scott LaFaro
Eos
Enfant
Ecars
Cross Breeding
Harlem's Manhattan
Mapa

International Ornette Coleman Day 2009

March 9, 2009
International Ornette Coleman Day



Ornette Coleman turns 79 today. Since bursting onto the scene with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins in the late-50's he has stretched and challenged ears with the harmolodic beauty of his musical idealism. Music that continues to be made. Music that continues to reward both the listening ear and the practicing player.

Here at HurdAudio, March 9th is set aside as a day to contemplate and value a body of music that has done so much to advance the art of improvisation and individualism in music. A music that opens the ears to an intervallic logic that has shaped my own sense of linear harmony. Happy Ornette Coleman Day.

International Ornette Coleman Day 2008

Have a Harmolodic Day!

Check out this hour-long interview with Ornette. Coleman can be a challenging interview subject with his wide ranging into meta-physical musings and cagey - even strikingly Cage-esque - rhetorical style.

I'm particularly struck by his intuitive harmonic grasp that a mere 12 fixed tones simply is not enough or even an accurate representation of what can be expressed. His discussion of the "tonic" as something independent of key or tonality speaks volumes about his consistent intervallic logic that has produced so much astonishing music for more than a half-century.

The vaguely defined - and often divined - harmolodic theory of Ornette Coleman has been a source of speculation for decades now. Coleman's own slippery and spiritually laden language has almost become an integral part of this difficult to describe, difficult to pin down theory. His detractors have doubted its existence and claimed it to be a musical MacGuffin. But the music of that dynamic quartet of Coleman, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins clearly had it. And one can hear it in his Skies of America, in Song X, in Dancing in Your Head, Three Women and clear into the more recent Sound Grammar. When James "Blood" Ulmer adapted harmolodic theory into his own playing one can hear that same sense of intervallic construction and disciplined freedom. Ornette Coleman's proximity to truth makes it difficult for him to convey what he knows with mere words. But his music is clear and speaks brilliantly to those who listen and experience it.

In this same interview Coleman returns frequently to the subject of love. The idea of it, the feeling of it and the desire to be loved. It is fitting that an artistic soul so devoted to improvisation grounded in truth should find this single, universal human element so significant. These ears find love for the incredible music Ornette Coleman has recorded over his career. It appeals directly to the mind and holds an immediacy for the heart.

Happy Ornette Coleman Day.

Happy Ornette Coleman Day 2007

It seems that this is the year the world is starting to catch up to Ornette Coleman. With his lifetime achievement award and critical acclaim and buzz for last year's Sound Grammar, the old revolutionary is getting his due as he turns 77. The beauty of Coleman's output is clear to anyone who simply listens. And it takes time before enough sympathetic ears catch on to such an original, harmolodic soul.

Lately, my ears have renewed awe for Skies of America. It's pure Ornette at it's most ambitious, over-reaching and intoxicating state and I can't get enough of it. And it beautifully conveys the sound that makes every March 9th International Ornette Coleman Day here at HurdAudio.