The first time I got really freaked out by a piece of music was in the eighth or ninth grade when I asked my band teacher about Ornette and Mingus. He looked at me funny and said, “Kid, you ain’t ready for Ornette or Mingus.” But I pressed him. I’d read so much about Ornette and how he had changed jazz, challenged jazz, destroyed jazz, enlivened jazz. I wanted to hear it. Mingus could wait but I had to hear Ornette. My teacher just shrugged, walked over to the stereo, and blasted “Free.” It broke my brain a little. I just couldn’t understand it. Having only been exposed to the most basic forms of accessible jazz, Ornette Coleman presented me with something I happened to be just a little bit afraid of. Like when some older kids saw my interest in Black Sabbath and Metallica and decided to expose me to Entombed and Napalm Death. I just wasn’t ready.
But the memory lingered, the tittering thrill, when all you can do is laugh in the face of the absurd. I let Ornette Coleman rest awhile. It wasn’t until after High School that I got deep into Mingus, allowing my ears to open a little. And then later someone at work hipped me to “Law Years,” from The Complete Science Fiction Sessions, and I was smitten. Then came Beauty Is A Rare Thing and Live At The Golden Circle. In those albums, I heard everything — all the love, joy, rage, hate, despair that I had ever felt in the world. It was beautiful.
I don’t listen to Ornette as much anymore. I guess my taste kinda just drifted. But when I do, I get that ghostly chill all over again. Ornette Coleman opened my musical world back on that fateful day in band class, though it took me years to realize it. Now I cannot imagine life without him. Here’s to many happy returns!
Ornette Coleman – alto sax; Don Cherry – pocket trumpet; Charlie Haden – bass; Billy Higgins – drums / Atlantic Records, 1960
