Thanks I forgot to mention Cecil Taylor (closer to Pollack) as a Real Fakir who also does it with the conviction of a tsunami, no lie. As Elaine said, fake, fake, fake.
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Ornette Coleman fans?
- Thread starter MattStonewall
- Start date
The very first time I heard "Dancing In Your Head" was in one of the mandatory academic courses of my undergrad work at Berklee, a creative writing class in the English department that focussed on writing record reviews. Using the old Rolling Stone Magazine model of The Record Review As Fiction, my review of "Dancing In Your Head" described clandestine black ops soldiers who had stolen the enemy's secret weapon, an audio recording that would drive listeners insane immediately upon hearing it.
But a few years later, after I'd heard both Ornette's subsequent works with Prime Time as well as gone back to his earlier 60s quartet recordings, I gave "Dancing In Your Head" another listen, and really came to appreciate the hypnotic spiraling self-referential aspect of its multi-layered melody(s).
Also, hearing a cover of "Dancing In Your Head" from bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma's second album really opened up my ears to what Coleman's original material consisted of, and allowed me to better differentiate the composed from the improvised on the original recording and recognize how Ornette's writing informs the improvisation on both versions. (Tacuma is also the bassist on Ornette's original, albeit credited as Rudy McDaniel.)
What is Ornette even doing nowadays? I can't find any info online and I cannot find an official website for him. I hope he will make another full length album.
He's getting up there (84 now), his most recent live appearances this year have been short guest spots at tribute concerts with many of his associates playing on the bill. There was one of these in Philadelphia where I don't think he played at all (although he was there), which I'm guessing means he is dealing with some health or just age related issues. I saw him in 2008 and he sounded and looked great.
Fortunately he has a wealth of previously released music and there are many unissued or currently bootleg-only live recordings. One of the best lesser known titles is "The Unprecedented Music Of..." . I keep hoping some quality recordings of the tour of Italy in '74 with James Blood Ulmer will appear. There is one scarce LP box set, but you can barely hear Ulmer. (Or maybe if there are any live recordings of Ornette with Ulmer as the nominal leader around the time "Tales of Captain Black" came out, that would do the trick nicely as well.)
Fortunately he has a wealth of previously released music and there are many unissued or currently bootleg-only live recordings. One of the best lesser known titles is "The Unprecedented Music Of..." . I keep hoping some quality recordings of the tour of Italy in '74 with James Blood Ulmer will appear. There is one scarce LP box set, but you can barely hear Ulmer. (Or maybe if there are any live recordings of Ornette with Ulmer as the nominal leader around the time "Tales of Captain Black" came out, that would do the trick nicely as well.)
Maybe I'm conflating the various spin-off groups, but isn't there a recording from that time period that features Ornette Coleman, James Blood Ulmer, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and Ronald Shannon Jackson?
That's the lineup of "Tales" except that Denardo Coleman is on drums rather than Ron Jackson, and I don't know of a quartet date with that particular line up, so that's probably the one you're thinking of. Great record. Those guys you mentioned minus Ulmer and plus Bern Nix and Charles Ellerbee are on Dancing in Your Head and Body Meta.
Rahsaan Roland Kirk pushes some boundaries. Plays multiple different woodwind instruments (various saxes and flutes mostly) at the same time.
I remember getting a steinberger catalogue that featured Jamaaladeen Tacuma. That made me get Virgin Beauty, came out in the 80's. It had some cool grooves and interesting soloing. It was a very "in" album compared his earlier electric stuff which I bought years later after I lost my taste for "out" jazz.
I also liked a lot of the acoustic albums with Don Cherry on them.
Sent from my iPhone using TalkBass
I also liked a lot of the acoustic albums with Don Cherry on them.
Sent from my iPhone using TalkBass
to me, early ornette (for instance the beauty is a rare thing box set) just sounds like the blues.
in terms of playing bass to this stuff. play melodies. that's what haden did. if you check him out, there are a lot of times where he's doubling certain notes so the pulse keeps going, but he gets more melodic contours. he also did a lot of pedals points and would then branch out from those.
some people get it, some people don't. hell some people are still pissed off about schoenberg and it's more than a hundred years later.
p.s. op, herbie's sextant album is brilliant. buster williams, eh? herbie's other mwandishi band albums are also excellent.
in terms of playing bass to this stuff. play melodies. that's what haden did. if you check him out, there are a lot of times where he's doubling certain notes so the pulse keeps going, but he gets more melodic contours. he also did a lot of pedals points and would then branch out from those.
some people get it, some people don't. hell some people are still pissed off about schoenberg and it's more than a hundred years later.
p.s. op, herbie's sextant album is brilliant. buster williams, eh? herbie's other mwandishi band albums are also excellent.
i'd pretty much dispute this and would like to know your reasoning for this thought.
I tried, I really tried to like Tomatoes. I don't like how they taste. Tomatoes are liars! Con vegetables. I taste bad, just like a tomato. 
do you want more hard-core stuff or just a whole range?
john zorn's naked city has a lot of quick-cut, often hard-edged stuff to it.
ruins is a a japanese drummer who pretty plays with only a bass player and sings in a made-up language. very intense, hard-edged stuff.
someone mentioned henry threadgil, who is pretty freaking great in my book.
anthony braxton, especially the 70s quartet with dave holland, barry altschul and kenny wheeler.
dave holland's conference of the birds is a watershed album.
late coltrane . . .
supersilent from norway is a newer band that is doing stuff that's pretty great (no bass player though).
stian westerhus is a really interesting guitar player who runs in that circle.
the nels cline singers are a very good band, imho. trevor dunn (of mister bungle fame, you might want to check them out as well) is the bass player these days.
for electric bass players, someone mentioned stomu with threadgil and he plays with others as well. and then there's jaquo, who you've met on this thread. skuli sverrison is really good (see him with jim black, for instance). bob ross, who chimed in, also does some of this stuff on the e-bass . . . and then you might check some of what i've done too
there's tons of this sort of stuff out there and i find new stuff all the time.
you can pm me if you want further leads . .
by all accounts from ornette, harmolodic playing allows the melodic aspect (or soloist) to play both with or against the rhythm section's tonal (chordal) support. both of these can be shifting freely through keys, although i always heard Ornette's playing as very tonally, diatonic based, and not "out" at all. the heads of his tunes are excellent examples of a composer who understood jazz very well but used its language as part of his stew- they're strong jazz-tinged melodies. i played a dozen of them in an Ornette tribute project 2 years ago, and they're great jazz lines to keep in one's catalogue.
his body of work has been seen as bulls**t by some (including some in this thread), by others as a refreshing break from the frantic hermeticism of bop, by others still as an approach with equal merit and power to, for example, the great chick corea/dave holland/anthony braxton/barry altschul quartet and all those tremendous freejazz groups of the late '60s-early '70s. he'll never be considered mainstream but he's definitely paid his dues for a place at the jazz table.
also, Ornette promoting his approach in the veiny chops-driven late-'50s bop period was pretty heroic, and was received initially like a performance of Stockhausen's "Gesang der Junglinge" at a Super Bowl halftime show... not very well, by the mainstream and by established cats like the great Mingus.. but those critics and listeners who heard it as a legit real direction outside of bop/post-bop ended up "getting" it, liking it and championing it.
i heard Ornette live a half dozen times, including the "Skies of America" string orchestra NYC performance and the town hall quartet performance with Don Cherry, Charlie and Ed, and all those events were filled with great tough focused playing built around his material, in packed houses.
a very interesting setting for Ornette is on the "Naked Lunch" soundtrack, for the Cronenberg film, score by Howard Shore. the first track is a very cool place to start, if you're interested in hearing him on something where he needs to fit his approach onto a dark string-driven orchestra piece.
( strictly as a sidebar, a once-in-a-lifetime experience i had was an impromptu invite to John Giorno's Bowery loft in '82 for a going-away party for Wm. Burroughs, who was headed to Lawrence KS to work on "Place of Dead Roads". Ornette was there and we talked for 10 minutes over large glasses of distilled refreshment. i remember we talked about the unique feel that Texas drummers brought to his music, and upcoming gigs he was working on. i was immersed in upright at that time and Charlie Haden was a big hero- i told him so, and he was happy to hear it. he was direct and cool and seemed happy to converse, and i hear those qualities in his music).
his body of work has been seen as bulls**t by some (including some in this thread), by others as a refreshing break from the frantic hermeticism of bop, by others still as an approach with equal merit and power to, for example, the great chick corea/dave holland/anthony braxton/barry altschul quartet and all those tremendous freejazz groups of the late '60s-early '70s. he'll never be considered mainstream but he's definitely paid his dues for a place at the jazz table.
also, Ornette promoting his approach in the veiny chops-driven late-'50s bop period was pretty heroic, and was received initially like a performance of Stockhausen's "Gesang der Junglinge" at a Super Bowl halftime show... not very well, by the mainstream and by established cats like the great Mingus.. but those critics and listeners who heard it as a legit real direction outside of bop/post-bop ended up "getting" it, liking it and championing it.
i heard Ornette live a half dozen times, including the "Skies of America" string orchestra NYC performance and the town hall quartet performance with Don Cherry, Charlie and Ed, and all those events were filled with great tough focused playing built around his material, in packed houses.
a very interesting setting for Ornette is on the "Naked Lunch" soundtrack, for the Cronenberg film, score by Howard Shore. the first track is a very cool place to start, if you're interested in hearing him on something where he needs to fit his approach onto a dark string-driven orchestra piece.
( strictly as a sidebar, a once-in-a-lifetime experience i had was an impromptu invite to John Giorno's Bowery loft in '82 for a going-away party for Wm. Burroughs, who was headed to Lawrence KS to work on "Place of Dead Roads". Ornette was there and we talked for 10 minutes over large glasses of distilled refreshment. i remember we talked about the unique feel that Texas drummers brought to his music, and upcoming gigs he was working on. i was immersed in upright at that time and Charlie Haden was a big hero- i told him so, and he was happy to hear it. he was direct and cool and seemed happy to converse, and i hear those qualities in his music).
Jazz evolved from the melding of African rhythm and European Harmony/melody. It was a progressive assimilation of both schools, and was certainly anything but perfectly formed from its inception..... I'm sure you know as much tho.
originally, you did say "uneducated attempt," which is a far cry from what you just said.
i guess i gets into how eurocentric you want to get about harmony.
i guess i gets into how eurocentric you want to get about harmony.
