Ornette Coleman
Dancing In Your Head

Ornette Coleman was born in 1930 in Fort Worth and is one of the greatest American innovators of jazz. The 1958 bepop debut of "Something Else" showcases a quintet formed by him, the trumpeter Don Cherry, the drummer Billy Higgins, the bassist Don Payne, and the pianist Walter Norris.

No tonal center, drunken improvisation, and piercing sax notes. A universal way of playing. Coleman is part of the free jazz contingent that will be very important for the fusion with the rock of the 1960s. In 1959, the complexity and uniqueness of the genre are consecrated by albums like "The Shape Of Jazz To Come" featuring tracks such as "Congeniality" or the seminal stride of "Lonely Woman" and "Turnaround". All instruments are perfectly blended and there’s no base provided by the piano, for instance. Coleman's piercing notes climb independent paths and never self-serving. Scales are not respected, but free rein is given to squeaks, solos, and screams from the instrument.

There is, however, democracy within the improvisation, with each element magically highlighted amidst the general chaos. It’s the "classic" and miraculous case of "perfect anarchy", awareness, and the presence of rules within the purest freedom. He guests on the trumpet in "AOS" in "Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band" of 1970 and, in 1972, with "Skies Of America", he mocks Cage and his suspension of random abstraction. An orchestral suite that confirms the chameleon-like aspect of Ornette. In "Science Fiction", from the same year, we find the madness also seen in other works of the era like Keith Tippett or Centipede. Thus completing his free, avant-garde design.

1977. "Vernal Equinox" by Hassell and much punk are released. There is also "Dancing In Your Head" by Ornette and its surrealist artwork. The striking funky base and pompous bass guidance are dethroned to create inconceivable dialogues between Coleman's sax and the loyal guitar lines of Ellerbee and Nix. All this is supported by Shannon Jackson's percussive drums, a steamroller.

"Theme From A Symphony" is the twenty-six-minute suite divided into 2 parts. The first is disruptive in presenting the neurotic theme and all its effective variations. It is fun to try to listen to it each time by focusing only on the work of one instrument. We find that all instruments travel in a world of their own, yet at the same time perfectly in tune with each other. This is the goal of free jazz, and Coleman is its founder, its creator.

Praise must also go to Rudy McDaniel's lively bass and Robert Palmer's alienating clarinet in "Midnight Sunrise". This is the other track, which shows neither lapses in interest nor frivolous improvisations. A sort of raga howled by the sax and the stunning martiality of the percussion. After this, there is much more music, many albums, and concerts until just a few years ago. Precisely on June 11th of this year, the father of free jazz passed away.