Ornette Coleman, who has died at the age of 85, was simply one of the most shocking, thrilling and influential voices in the history of jazz.
Dismissed from his high school marching band for refusing to follow the score, Coleman was always profoundly individual. Taking a job with a touring R&B band, his way out style caused audience members in Baton Rouge to chase the saxophonist backstage, destroying his instrument in the process.
Emerging from bop's more far out school, Ornette Coleman's high, keening tone would come to define the sound and approach of the earliest phase in free jazz. Ornette Coleman even popularised the term, taking 'Free Jazz' as the title of a seminal album.
Utilising the approach of what Joe Zawinul termed 'nobody solos, everybody solos', the saxophonist's work would blast the group improvisational approach which dominated jazz in the 1920s and 1930s into outer space.
Continually evolving, his later work would encompass funk, rock and what could loosely (but erroneously) be termed 'world music'. Using the name harmolodics to reflect his approach, Ornette Coleman built his thoughts on improvisation into something approaching a philosophy on life itself.
Remaining a thrilling live performer and composer to the last, Coleman's family have revealed (via New York Times) that he passed away following a cardiac arrest. Our thoughts are with his loved ones – a towering life.
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