06-11 Ornette Coleman dies aged 85
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Ornette Coleman (born March, 9, 1930, died June 11 2015) was a saxophonist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist who came to prominence
in the late 1950s by pioneering free jazz. At the start of his career, Coleman's unorthodox playing, largely ignoring the structure of
conventional jazz, made him somewhat of an outcast by those who simply believed him to be a poor musician. However, he was eventually
signed and released his debut,Something Else!!!!, which helped inject blues back into jazz after bebop had removed nearly all its traces.
Coleman's debut was original, but it did n ...read more
Ornette Coleman (born March, 9, 1930, died June 11 2015) was a saxophonist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist who came to prominence
in the late 1950s by pioneering free jazz. At the start of his career, Coleman's unorthodox playing, largely ignoring the structure of
conventional jazz, made him somewhat of an outcast by those who simply believed him to be a poor musician. However, he was eventually
signed and released his debut,Something Else!!!!, which helped inject blues back into jazz after bebop had removed nearly all its traces.
Coleman's debut was original, but it did not explore any new musical territory. In 1959, however, heplaced himself at the forefront of the
jazzworld with arguably the first free jazz album ever recorded,The Shape of Jazz to Come. Completely abandoning chord structures
andrelying almost solelyon improvisation, it indeed pointed to the future of jazz and soon bebop giants like Charles Mingusand particularly
JohnColtrane would experiment with this new type of music. Coleman furtheredexplored this new genre's capabilities with Free Jazz:
ACollective Improvisation, whichfeatured, for the first time, an entire album devoted to improvised music. Mixing in solos
withgroupimprovisations, it took the foundations of his previous album and firmly cemented free jazz as a formof music.
After recording avant-garde jazz albums through the 60s and 70s, Coleman turned to electronicfunk for the late 70s and 80s, in a manner
notentirely unlike Miles Davis. Starting with DancingIn Your Head, Coleman began to mix jazz fusion with funk and his own avant-
gardejazz, and soonadopted more electronic instruments in order to find new sounds.
One of the most important figures in jazz history and a master of the genre he helped invent, Coleman could also pressume of having livedfar
longer than most of his peers, the vast mayority of whom passed in the 90s and early 2000s in what seemed like the age of dyinglegends.
Unfortunately, no one is immortal, and on June 11th, 2015, Coleman passed away from cardiac arrest in New York City. « hide |
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