The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Posts 1 to 25 of 73
  1. #1

    User Info Menu

    Having never properly investigated them I was listening to Ornette Coleman's first 5 albums before "Free Jazz" and was surprised how enjoyable they were. I first listened to "Free Jazz" ages ago and didn't really like it that much. However the ones before it are all really melodic, swinging and funky.

    I was wondering why Coleman caused such a shock to the system at the time? Was it purely down to the "Free Jazz" album or did his earlier albums get negative responses as well? What I find strange it all the guys can obviously play, there are strong themes (not total chaos) and there are progressions and harmony you can follow. I vaguely understand the concept that everyone was meant to use the melody purely as the guide to their improv and also that the rhythm section was now freed to be an equal partner in the music making. However Charlie Haden is always playing funky lines and carefully guiding the harmony, albeit in an "in the moment" fashion. Ornette certainly has a very vocal inflected sound but he is quite smooth and logical.

    Is it just the passage of time that has made it seem straight forward as his language has been absorbed into the mainstream sound of modern jazz? What is it that drove people so insane with rage?

    I hope you are all staying safe and well btw!

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

    User Info Menu

    I think it was because they were revolutionary at the time. ‘The Shape Of Jazz To Come’ doesn’t sound all that ‘way out’ nowadays. But in 1959 it was something of a shock to listeners.

  4. #3

    User Info Menu

    I think Ornette also got some stick for using a plastic saxophone as seen on the cover of that album. In fact it was intended as a serious instrument, and Charlie Parker played one on the famous Massey Hall live album. Some critics said Ornette was playing a ‘toy saxophone’ so he must be a charlatan etc.

    Grafton saxophone - Wikipedia



    Explain why Ornette Coleman is different?-dd3b57ff-2f1e-450d-9bf5-bcde4bcc33fa-jpg

  5. #4

    User Info Menu

    His music remains revolutionary for its playfulness and swing. A lot of "free jazz" that came after was way too serious.

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    I think Ornette also got some stick for using a plastic saxophone as seen on the cover of that album. In fact it was intended as a serious instrument, and Charlie Parker played one on the famous Massey Hall live album. Some critics said Ornette was playing a ‘toy saxophone’ so he must be a charlatan etc.

    Grafton saxophone - Wikipedia



    Explain why Ornette Coleman is different?-dd3b57ff-2f1e-450d-9bf5-bcde4bcc33fa-jpg
    Never noticed that was a plastic sax lol!

  7. #6

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    I think Ornette also got some stick for using a plastic saxophone as seen on the cover of that album. In fact it was intended as a serious instrument, and Charlie Parker played one on the famous Massey Hall live album. Some critics said Ornette was playing a ‘toy saxophone’ so he must be a charlatan etc.
    Wonder if they were the same critics that dubbed Parker’s music as “Chinese Music” Given where I live now and that I often have to teach Asian musics, that’s quite an irony.
    Cheers!

  8. #7

    User Info Menu

    I read a lot of books written about that period of music (1959), and most jazz musicians hated OC's music when it first came out. Max Roach came down to the club where OC was playing back then, and on a break, walked up to OC backstage and knocked him out with one punch.
    Max followed him back to where he was staying, and beat him up again in front of his apt.

    James Moody still hates his music, and if you mention OC's name, he'll spend an hour (at least) telling you why he thinks OC is a jive ass.
    In a fairly recent interview with the great alto sax player Herb Geller, he said, "Don Cherry and OC played free, because they couldn't play changes. OC's version of 'Embraceable You' is a laugh. The emperor has no clothes. He showed me one of his original tunes, and all the bar lines were in the wrong places, and he didn't know what chord symbols to use. He blew the arpeggio of a G major chord thinking it was a B minor. He knew nothing about chords."
    Tubby Hayes, in his bio, said he heard OC live, when OC was sharing the bill with his GF, Joy Marshall for a stay at Ronnie Scott's. Hayes said he found his playing, "largely unappealing. A lot of it sounded pretty basic", he told Melody Maker. "Unfortunately, I found it a little boring at times."
    And so on...

  9. #8

    User Info Menu

    It wasn't just his own playing. He influenced a band of devotees, who proceeded to deconstruct the norms of their instruments, and created "something else" out of them. But he did it with a certain arrogance too, seen in the titles of his albums around this time: The Shape Of Jazz To Come, for example. With a title like that, you really do have to come up with the goods. And they did. That's my favourite Ornette period. But he should have left the violin at home. Not a fan of his violin playing! My all-time favourite album was Soapsuds, Soapsuds, duets with Charlie Haden.

  10. #9

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by sgcim
    James Moody still hates his music, and if you mention OC's name, he'll spend an hour (at least) telling you why he thinks OC is a jive ass.
    Even from beyond the grave...that’s a strongly-held opinion!

  11. #10

    User Info Menu

    I always hear a blues foundation embedded in Ornette's playing. And despite Geller's criticism, if you were to present the same discussion to Pat Martino he would recognize the B minor as being interchangeable with the G Major, because Martino converts everything to a minor in some form or another. It would be pretty silly to argue that Pat Martino doesn't know anything about chords.

    When bebop came along, it too provoked arguments and fistfights. People complained that Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie lacked instrumental skill and played fast to cover up that they couldn't play in tune, etc. There was a sense of discontinuity between swing and bebop and then between bebop and free jazz. although I don't know that Ornette and company were really playing "free jazz," as they did have some structure and rules to their approach. Ornette later referred to those as harmelodics.

    I think the real issue was that Ornette Coleman came along and blew the hell out of everything people thought they knew about jazz and music, which was profoundly disorienting and threatening. Edit: he was also more or less out of left field. There were some ground-shifting jazz albums that came out that year (Miles, Coltrane, Bruebeck, Mingus and OC- the other four were well-known and well respected. They had paid their dues whereas I think it maybe seemed like Ornette was cutting in line). A fair amount of Ornette's stuff was not "pretty" music and jazz, despite the developments of bebop and the complaints of its own detractors to the contrary, had not gone over to atonal music. The establishment got threatened, just as it would later again by fusion music as well as the astonishing rise of pop and rock music with the Beatles, etc.

    An irony in this is that by the end of his life Charlie Haden was revered in both the free and more traditionalist sides of the jazz family as one of their own. And heck, he even made forays back into country music where his roots were. Charlie bridged a lot of musics.
    Last edited by Cunamara; 04-09-2020 at 01:11 AM.

  12. #11

    User Info Menu

    If you want to read some of the contemporary reports on Ornette’s New York debut, check this out:

    The 1959 Project - November 17, 1959

  13. #12

    User Info Menu

    you guys should have all watched that charlie haden bio video that was linked here last week..rambling boy

    haden talks about meeting ornette...and going to ocs house and playing for days straight... immediately getting it...oc didnt want you to follow the changes..he wanted you to follow where the melody took him...

    playin to changes is not the only music in the world!!

    trane loved oc...and later albert ayler, who took it out equally

    tho it all kind of sounds relatively tame these days...


    cheers

  14. #13

    User Info Menu

    I love that Haden film.

  15. #14

    User Info Menu

    Long time lurker; first time poster. And not even a guitarist.

    Of all the music I've heard, Ornette's always seemed like something beamed in from another dimension.

  16. #15

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Cunamara
    I always hear a blues foundation embedded in Ornette's playing. And despite Geller's criticism, if you were to present the same discussion to Pat Martino he would recognize the B minor as being interchangeable with the G Major, because Martino converts everything to a minor in some form or another. It would be pretty silly to argue that Pat Martino doesn't know anything about chords.

    When bebop came along, it too provoked arguments and fistfights. People complained that Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie lacked instrumental skill and played fast to cover up that they couldn't play in tune, etc. There was a sense of discontinuity between swing and bebop and then between bebop and free jazz. although I don't know that Ornette and company were really playing "free jazz," as they did have some structure and rules to their approach. Ornette later referred to those as harmelodics.

    I think the real issue was that Ornette Coleman came along and blew the hell out of everything people thought they knew about jazz and music, which was profoundly disorienting and threatening. A fair amount of it was not "pretty" music and jazz, despite the developments of bebop and the complaints of its own detractors to the contrary, had not gone over to atonal music. The establishment got threatened, just as it would later again by fusion music as well as the astonishing rise of pop and rock music with the Beatles, etc.

    An irony in this is that by the end of his life Charlie Haden was revered in both the free and more traditionalist sides of the jazz family as one of their own. And heck, he even made forays back into country music where his roots were. Charlie bridged a lot of musics.
    No, Geller asked him to play a B minor arpeggio, and Ornette played B-D-G instead of B-D-F#. He literally didn't know how to spell out a Bm triad!

  17. #16

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Even from beyond the grave...that’s a strongly-held opinion!
    I hold regular seances with him...

  18. #17

    User Info Menu

    [QUOTE=neatomic;1023006]you guys should have all watched that charlie haden bio video that was linked here last week..rambling boy

    haden talks about meeting ornette...and going to ocs house and playing for days straight... immediately getting it...oc didnt want you to follow the changes..he wanted you to follow where the melody took him...

    playin to changes is not the only music in the world!!

    trane loved oc...and later albert ayler, who took it out equally

    tho it all kind of sounds relatively tame these days...


    Roland Kirk said, "you got go in, before you can go out!" Even Monk thought he was jive!
    I liked OC's later rock stuff, when he just stayed on one chord, he could even jam well with The Dead.

  19. #18

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
    ...the titles of his albums around this time: The Shape Of Jazz To Come, for example. With a title like that, you really do have to come up with the goods. And they did.
    Ornette may have come up with that title, but this was the era when small jazz labels were very fond of hyperbole when marketing their artists.

    "The Amazing Bud Powell!"
    Thelonious Monk, "Genius of Modern Music!"
    "The Incredible Jimmy Smith!"
    "The Prophetic Herbie Nichols!"
    "The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery!"

    Back then, all the artists who were a little "difficult" (and some who were simply virtuoso musicians) were marketed this way.

    I've read he was, in terms of his personality, an odd duck and sometimes out of touch with the realities of the jazz marketplace. He's not that often described as arrogant or self-satisfied.

  20. #19

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by sgcim
    No, Geller asked him to play a B minor arpeggio, and Ornette played B-D-G instead of B-D-F#. He literally didn't know how to spell out a Bm triad!
    That's awesome!! If I was Ornette and somebody asked me that I'd probably do the same just to get rid of them :)

  21. #20
    joelf Guest
    Many, if not most, musicians are reactionary and afraid of change---afraid of suddenly becoming irrelevant. OTOH a lot of listeners are either gullible or want to be seen as 'hip' enough to get in on new trends. Same goes for musicians and double for the younger critics trying to make their names behind being 'right' in their predictions.

    IMO we have to get behind people with the guts and self-believe to buck the herd and try new things---if they're really hearing it and it has the basic elements---builds on what was there before. Ornette had that, Dolphy had it. I think Woody Shaw was an innovator of sorts, maybe not as consistently 'out'. I personally find Albert Ayler unlistenable after the themes. But maybe he'll get to me one day. Never really heard Anthony Braxton.

    Innovation and originality are also often confused. A person can be original and have no influence on anyone else. Maybe that's a reflection on the art, maybe not. Innovation to me is defined by coming up with something that either supplants or builds on what was there, and others pick up on and incorporate (or, too often imitate) it.

    Then there's the ultimate arbiter: the test of time.

    So, as Beckett would say: On!...

  22. #21

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzism
    Wonder if they were the same critics that dubbed Parker’s music as “Chinese Music” Given where I live now and that I often have to teach Asian musics, that’s quite an irony.
    Cheers!
    I think it was Louis Armstrong who called bebop "Chinese music."

  23. #22
    joelf Guest
    Right. Was gonna post that myself. 'Ju Jitsu' music, he said---proving my above point...

  24. #23

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    I think it was Louis Armstrong who called bebop "Chinese music."
    Was that the source of the lyric reference in "Aja"?

  25. #24

    User Info Menu

    As if there's some problem with Chinese music...

  26. #25

    User Info Menu

    Ha.... just remembered that when I saw Ornette mid 70's he was wearing a nicely tailored suit that was made from Chinese brocade!!