I got started on an Ornette Coleman post after Mwanji recently directed his readers to the extensive comments on his post parsing Darius Brubeck’s commentary on Ornette Coleman. That first post idea has grown into a long essay on Ornette’s early music that I’m still working on. For now, here is my response to those blog comments and the discussion of Ornette in general.
Dewey
I am quoted from my Dewey Redman obituary: “When Dewey Redman joined Jarrett's group, he told him that he couldn't play changes.” I should not have put that comment into the world without the source.
“Basically, he thought he was not as good at it as he really was. But I remember one night, at the Village Vanguard, it was the day Don Byas died, and Dewey played a solo on a tune with chords. Usually he’d ignore the changes, but he got into the chords, and he became Byas that day, as a sort of tribute thing. The rest of us just stared at him and I said to myself, ‘Jesus Christ, he doesn’t realize some of the things he could really do.” (Keith Jarrett quoted by Neil Tesser in the liner notes to Mysteries: The Impulse Years 1975-1976. The Dewey obit is now updated with this quote, too.)
A clear example of the Jarrett/Redman dichotomy is on the song “Shades of Jazz,” where Jarrett improvises on the chords of the bebop-style tune and Dewey plays free. Charlie Haden and Paul Motian sound basically the same behind each soloist, so probably many listeners don’t even realize the difference. Later Dewey became a bandleader and played a lot of tunes with changes very well, just as Jarrett claimed he could.
Harmolodic theory
Ornette believes every instrument has its own pitches; that the day Western music decided a C on the piano is an A on the alto was a dark day indeed. He also believes that a line of music written on the page (or taught by rote) should mean something different to every musician. When Ornette realized that the same note on a music staff meant different notes on different instruments, he found a way to give everybody the same melody but have every musician be heard with their own emotion. It was the dawn of harmolodics.
Ornette’s transposition logic makes experienced musicians scream in exasperation. He will tell anybody he meets about it, even total strangers. HE REALLY BELIEVES. My own response, after working with him for several hours on it, is not “He’s crazy,” but "Wow, I wish I had something like this." Two of the greatest songs ever recorded, “All My Life” and “What Reason Can I Give,” off of Science Fiction, could not have been created any other way than by harmolodics. The mass of horns read off of one line without transposing, creating a puffy pillow of harmony that surges up and down. Charlie Haden figures out the correct (totally independent) bass line to go with the horns, and Asha Puthli passionately embroiders the tune. Harmolodics requires each individual in the ensemble to actively participate and create, not be passive. On “What Reason Could I Give” there is one glorious moment in the song - the one place where the horns don't move in blocks - where Don Cherry moves from G to Ab while the rest of the horns are holding F and C. It happens both times through the tune. I don’t know for sure, of course, but I feel certain that Don did this in rehearsal - maybe even by accident - and they kept it.
The most thorough documentation of the transposition logic is Skies of America, where a whole orchestra reads off of one line. (Very occasional counterpoint is generated somehow, probably not by Ornette.) It is sort of ridiculous to have all those London Symphony players doing this, of course. (They regarded it as undignified.) But then again, I have heard hours and hours of orchestral music in my life, and most of it hasn’t stayed with me. Skies of America--that scorched-earth, post-apocalyptic mayhem—I’ll never forget that sound.
Harmolodic theory almost certainly requires an improvising drummer. Skies of America without Denardo and Blackwell is a lonely thought.
Ornette told me about studying some scores of European music like Beethoven. He thought it was pretty good music, but could hardly believe that the players in the orchestra couldn’t change their notes to go with they way they felt. Suppose Ornette could perform Skies of America again with an orchestra of talented creative players willing to take some harmolodic initiative? Would some of the rain forest be saved or something?
Quick correction and some drumming
The rhythm changes on Change of the Century that Wynton Marsalis refers to is “Bird Food,” a bop-like tune in Bb in AABA form. The A sections are 9.5 or 10 bars long and stay close to Bb. The 8-bar bridge is improvised, with Coleman and Haden even starting on a D dominant on both the in and out heads. Between the key, the form, and the title, it is clear that “Bird Food” is Ornette’s avant interpretation of rhythm changes. However, the band does not improvise on rhythm changes, just the idea of it. The first soloist is Don Cherry. It sounds like they might be actually be playing real rhythm changes for a chorus or so, since both Cherry and Charlie Haden are playing a lot in Bb and leave it on the first bridge, but they are not—they are just playing in the style of bop without really doing it. Once in a while Billy Higgins plays something that demarcates form, like the "ones" at 2:15 and 2:30 on "Bird Food." The band responds to those demarcations (especially Haden) and the result is an interesting, always morphing structure.
In the next edition of the band, Ed Blackwell would hardly ever subtly set up a "one" like Higgins did, but he wasn't afraid to stop the ride cymbal beat for many measures at a time, which had a similar ability to demarcate form. Blackwell's left hand comping was much louder than Higgins--Dave King was the first one to point out to me how loud and clear Blackwell’s left hand was compared to most other drummers of that era.
An old controversy
I sympathize with anyone not being able to get next to Ornette’s version of “Embraceable You.” I didn’t always like it either. These days I no longer hear the form as constantly getting lost, but instead as a through-composed collective improvisation. Ornette uses pure melody to shape his solo. Haden is right there, abstracting the tune’s changes without judgment and humbly serving Ornette’s broken-hearted smear. Blackwell’s mallets are perfect (although the first time he uses patterns on the toms it is a real time warp between him and Haden). The searing, Coleman-composed introduction may be better than the Gershwin tune. It’s a performance that requires compassion to be understood.
