Passage IV

Free Jazz

[1]

In November 1959, when jazz musician Ornette Coleman arrived in New York City with saxophone in hand, the civil rights movement was about to shift into high gear. For many African Americans, the word, freedom would serve as a goal, a guiding principle, and a rallying cry.

[2]

Ornette Coleman had something new to offer. He had lonely developed an unorthodox approach over years of effort, first in his home state of Texas and then in Los Angeles, where he was routinely snubbed by older musicians (48). Coleman's approach involved improvisation guided by a personal expression of emotions and a freedom from fixed harmonic chord structures and tempos.

[3]

Eventually, his style caught the attention of other adventurous young players. In 1958, Coleman was given the opportunity to record, and the resulting album—Something Else!—served notice that a true innovator was on the scene.

[4]

Next came Coleman's controversial, but successful 1959 debut with his quartet at a New York club called the Five Spot: This engagement—coupled for the release of two more albums (The Shape of Jazz to Come and The Change of the Century)—which reversed Coleman's fortunes. Some musicians were concerned that his influence would ruin jazz.

[5]

As a uniquely African American musical form, jazz seemed poised to play in the struggle a role for freedom and equality. But many people felt that jazz was stagnating. Rock 'n' roll had become the most popular music of the era, and no major wave of inspiration had swept through jazz since the bebop revolution of the early forties.

[6]

Free jazz, as Coleman's style came to be known, provided an unconstrained sound to match the intensity and conviction of the times. This fusion of a new sound with a new activist spirit can be heard in many recordings of the early sixties, notably those of Sonny Rollins, Abbey Lincoln, and Charles Mingus. Yet, it was Ornette Coleman, through his determination and uncompromising individuality, who spearheaded this.