Free Improvisation Series: Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman. Photo from breath of life.

Ornette Coleman’s string of highly influential Atlantic recordings in the late 1950’s set off a firestorm of controversy and experimenting. By the early- to mid-60's, a large community of musicians in New York and elsewhere were busily testing the boundaries of jazz composition and improvisation. Even major figures like John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis experimented using Coleman's head-free solos-head idiom. Whatever you thought about his music, Coleman was a disruptive force in the field of improvisation and couldn't be ignored. Improvisers were searching for ways to feel more freedom in their music, and Coleman provided a skeleton key.

In his small group work, Coleman has used the head-solo-head paradigm which originated in small group jazz in the 1930's or so. In this idiom, the harmonic progression outlined by the melody was also to be outlined by the soloists in their improvisations. Coleman used this idiom as well (many tunes on Tomorrow is the Question are altered blues or rhythm changes forms, and the solos follow the traditional forms) but more often he diverged from it, allowing the soloist to follow her own harmonic progression.

Improvisation can follow a chord progression with no set form, (see Miles Davis' “Flamenco Sketches”, “Teo” and “Spanish Key”) or form with no set chord progression (some of Tristano's and Dolphy's more-outside improvisations are examples of this). But in general, Coleman's music excised both, opting for a type of improvised counterpoint between soloist and bass that provided a great deal of insight into the role of the accompanying musicians, and by extension, the nature of the interplay between soloist and accompanist(s). If we are to maintain the traditional jazz value of mutual “listening”, then two options for interplay emerge: 1. the soloist/accompaniment roles are preserved, and the accompaniment leaps into a state of hyper-intense listening, or 2. the soloist/accompaniment roles simply collapse and the group arrives at collective improvisation.

Edited October 2022.