Monday 9 March 2015

85th birthday of Ornette Coleman

(Born 9 March 1930, Fort Worth, Texas, US)
Alto saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, composer, one of the very top innovating jazz artists of all time – a leading exponent of the avant-garde/free jazz movement, beginning late 1950s/early 1960s, when his varying working quartets (personnel: Coleman, alto saxophone [tenor saxophone on Ornette on Tenor only], Don Cherry, cornet/trumpet/pocket trumpet; Charlie Haden/Scott LaFaro/Red Mitchell/Percy Heath/Jimmy Garrison/Don Payne, bass; Billy Higgins/Ed Blackwell/Shelly Manne, drums) and quintet (Something Else!!!! only, with Walter Norris on piano) record seven classic albums (Something Else!!!! [1958], Tomorrow is the Question [1959], The Shape of Jazz to Come [1959], Change of the Century [1959], This is our Music [1960], Ornette! [1961], Ornette on Tenor [1961]), and an eighth, this time recorded by an octet (Coleman, alto saxophone; Cherry, pocket trumpet; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; Haden, bass; LaFaro, bass; Blackwell, drums; Higgins, drums), appropriately titled Free Jazz (1960)

(Ornette Coleman Quartet, “Turnaround” [personnel: Coleman, alto saxophone; Don Cherry, trumpet; Red Mitchell, bass; Shelly Manne, drums; recorded: Contemporary’s Studio, Los Angeles, US, 23 February 1959])
Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

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