R.I.P. Ornette Coleman

There have been quite a few artists in my life I have admired intensely, but only a few I would have considered to be my heroes. Ornette Coleman was certainly one of them.

I was still a teenager and only slowly educating myself about music. One of my most important references was the German Rocklexikon, a mid 70s rock dictionary that I still own (and its later updates). The book did not only describe rock musicians and bands but also artists from other musical genres of importance. There was a column on Ornette Coleman, of course, and not only that. in the authors' list of 100 must-have records they listed his 1971 Science Fiction album.

So, at the age of 15 I bought my very first jazz album: Ornette Coleman's Science Fiction (which I still have in my collection to this day - I have been told it's a collectible of value by now)! I still don't know why this particular record was recommended. While there certainly is hardly such a thing as a 'bad' album by Ornette Colemen, one would pick different oness as an introduction to this artist's work. Science Fiction, like it's title, is way out there, and I truly had a hard time as an uninitiated teenager to grasp the intricacies of the compositions. Free jazz it certainly is.

I don't know too many people who like jazz (or innovative music, for that matter), and those who do are mostly friends of my age. Most people will say they can enjoy jazz a bit, but they 'hate' free jazz. At one of my dinner parties my guests mentioned just that, so my pal and I decided to play them some early Ornette Coleman, who is famed as the inventor of free jazz and who was confronted with hate and aversion for his music from begin on. To our amazement the whole party (about 10 people) disagreed that this was free jazz at all, but rather plain and simple 'normal' jazz.

The surprising insight I got form that evening is that you cannot underestimate Ornette Coleman's influence on contemporary music. It has forever changed everybody's perception of music; even those among us who may have never heard of him nevertheless have accepted his shift in what we consider 'harmonious' music. Around 1960 and well into the 70s, people (jazz experts included) would cringe at the tunes of Coleman's earliest albums; nowadays, hardly anyone understands what the fuss was all about.

This is not to say that Ornette Coleman's music is no longer challenging; the Science Fiction album was already further advanced than his first recordings and he never stopped going on. In the 70s with his Prime Time combo he started playing with electrified instruments instigating the No Wave (sometime also called free funk or punk jazz, among many other monikers) which instantly ridiculed the popular jazz rock attempts of that time. Every new Coleman was a new phase and always surprising up to today.

To me Ornette Coleman has been an example of what I consider the perfect artist: a man with an aesthetic vision all his own and breaking all the rules and incorruptibly pursuing his own path against all obstacles.

In August 2009 my pal and I finally had the luck to see him play live at the Austrian jazz festival in Saalfelden, which now seems to have been one of his last performances. Even at the age of nearly 80 he was still able to thrill and awe. Ornette Coleman was my very first starting point to the world of jazz - and innovative music - and since then his music has been the milestone for me to appreciate music in general.