Ornette Coleman biography

[Michael Eisenstadt]

---- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wayne Johnson" <cadaobh@shentel.net>
To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:00 AM
Subject: Re: Ornette Coleman biography

> http://www.ejn.it/mus/coleman.htm
 
Thanks Wayne for the link to this detailed
bio of Ornette Coleman. 

Madelon & I heard him at the Five Spot
and also in another place in the East Village
(the Five Spot was NOT in Greenwich 
Village, pace this biography).

The dates dont jibe in my memory. I do 
know that I/we had the records before
we heard him in New York. In 1964 in
Austin I had scored 20+ LP albums of jazz
from a dear friend of ours who worked at
a record store on Canal Street and who
was the bookkeeper. As she knew how
much the owner was cheating on his taxes,
he allowed her to "steal" from him by 
taking friends' orders for this or that album
and charging $1 per album. Later on she
went up to $2 per album.

Interestingly or not interestingly, as I even
then knew more or less squat about jazz,
I had thought to ask Leroy Jones (nowadays
styled Amiri Baraka) to recommend the
albums I should get Elsene to procure. I
traipsed over to the Coop to score me the
current Goody's record store catalog. And
was braced by the Coop detective for 
walking out the door with it. The Goody 
catalogue had a nominal price printed on
the cover but the piles of them on the 
counter were free back in NYC. I remember 
trying to explain to this prick that the printed 
price on the cover did not obtain in the real 
world. I vaguely remember that he made me 
put it back so it wasnt till another time when 
i scored a copy. I ripped out the jazz/blues 
section and mailed it to Leroy. He returned 
it with check marks without comment: 
noblesse oblige, de haut en bas, one nation 
under Canada.

So that's how I came to have all 6 early
Ornette albums. After you listen to them a 
bit, the music makes perfect sense and 
they seem as classic as John Coltrane 
riffs.

So when we heard him in NY his reputation
was already established and at the actual
gigs he was stretching his envelope so to
speak by playing the violin (sometimes).

He was AWFUL on violin, just terrible.

The problem with old time musicians is 
time itself. We heard Don Cherry (with
sidemen) a few years back (in the same 
venue: UT Performing Art Center) and he
was pretentious and musically jejeune.

I am flipflopping between optimism and 
pessimism about this forthcoming 
gig/concert. Like Miles his may have 
kept his cherry so to speak. Or he may
not have.