Chicago hears Ornette Coleman -- This is our music

Having attended at least some of every Chicago Jazz Festival since the first and photographing virtually every set for a six year period in the early eighties, I'd rank Sunday's finale among the best across all thirty years. I've always appreciated the diverse programming strategy that matched the traditional and the avant garde on nightly bills. The audience always got more than they bargained for - and learned something along the way.

Thanks for the retrospective.

While Wilkerson does play alto, I doubt anyone would consider him an "alto saxophonist." He mostly plays tenor.

Josh Berman plays cornet, not trumpet.
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"...no storming out of sound range by angry attendees observed"

A bunch of folks in front of me, four rows back from the stage, made a quick (and thankfully quiet) exit a couple of tunes into Ornette's set. And lots of folks walked out of Ornette's Symphony Center concert only a few years back. So while I didn't survey the crowd after the show on Sunday, I think the phrase "Pulitzer Prize-winning" tends to keep the tomatoes in the bag, so to speak.

In any case, a truly wonderful performance by Ornette's quartet. MacDowell's tenor (or piccolo?) bass guitar added a nice Prime Time-like quality to the group sound.

HM: This is what I love about citizen journalism and Wiki editing, as opposed to the old fact-checking/copy editing process. Fast writing behooves slowing down, or else collective review and correction. I thank you, Jason.

And in enthusiasm plus the vantage of good seats I probably exaggerated the unanimity of audience response, but I maintain the vibe was overall positive. Pulitzer Prize notwithstanding, because it can't (and hasn't) conferred musicality on honorees, and if they don't have it the Prize doesn't matter. Ornette has it; luckily, the Pulitzer committee so recognized.

That's Ed Wilkerson's 8 Bold Souls, not Ernest Dawkins.

HM: Absolutely right George -- this is what comes of my writing after a long day of travel and decompression, I guess, but I can't believe I made that mental switcheroo. All apologies extended.

Ernest Dawkins was on the panel about Louis Jordan I moderated at the Chicago Blues Festival in June, and I know his music, his sound; I also saw Edward Wilkerson's set from the wings and complimented him on the music just as he came offstage. Thanks for the correction. They are two fine but distinctly different Chicago alto saxophonists-composer-improvisers.