Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Waiting for Ornette






Today was a strange day. The weather had two casts and tempos: wind and rain or more wind and rain. Where is my cell phone? It disappeared somewhere mid-day between the gradeathon and the meeting I was not looking forward to. Phil and Friends had apparently sold out before I could even contemplate getting tickets for their two night run at the Crystal billed as a 40th Anniversary of the famous shows that took place in Feb 2008. I'm not sure I would have jumped at back to back Monday and Tuesday night shows, but I would have liked the chance to have considered it. Even a trip to the grocery store on the way home seemed to be embroiled with complication.

At home finally, I decided to burn through the new Rolling Stone while I ate. The latest issue features current fossilized versions of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant on the cover. The coverage of Iowa demos was interesting (What if Hillary comes in third on caucus night? It could happen.), but the evening and day turned around when I read a well done profile of Ornette Coleman by Scott Spenser. Spenser gets great credit for taking on the task of explaining this man and his music to somewhat mainstream America. "Coleman's great affront to the jazz establishment was to base his improvisations not on the chords of the song, but the melody and then not on the actual notes of the melody, but how the melody makes you feel."

Many years ago the great Portland weekend KBOO volunteer DJ, George Page would rail on about how he never had much affection for "yang music." Typically, my tastes are more towards hard bop than the free yangy stuff. In most circumstances, I'll pick out George Coleman and Harold Mabern before innovative saints like Ornette or Albert Ayler or even Rollins and Coltrane. I considered going to see Ornette during the Prime Time era, but the music seemed like a battle zone whenever I heard it and the collaborations with Jerry Garcia never really took off for me. Yet in about ten weeks, I'll be going to the opening weekend of the Portland Jazz festival weekend that begins with Ornette and ends with Cecil Taylor. This programming is inspired and one could only get such a dosage by living in NY with lots of spare time, ready cash and the stars to be lined up ever so correctly.

I'm now playing Coleman's Sound Grammar, which won the Pulitzer last year. I listened to it a couple times prior, but its spare dual basses and Ornette's son Denardo's drumming seemed too spare, not the first choice for Ipods and Spring walks home. But somehow they fare better for rain logged Mondays. These tunes are mostly all the blues underscored and countered by the bass players with kickouts of splintered percussion punctuation in just the right burst by Denardo. I'm not sure that I ever found the rhythm of the day, but Ornette's songs are working now well enough instead. And a good time and space for beginning to dip into the sounds and spaces of this master on the edges who I will have the privilege to see at work in February. Yet as this journey begins I need to keep in mind a comment Spencer's friend once made to him: "Ornette doesn't reward casual listening--and if you don't believe me, ask my neighbors."
posted by well-executed buffet at 12:01 AM
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