{"id":1991,"date":"2016-03-09T12:24:44","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T17:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=1991"},"modified":"2019-09-12T14:18:49","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T18:18:49","slug":"ornette-day-bits-of-wisdom-with-video-clips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2016\/03\/ornette-day-bits-of-wisdom-with-video-clips.html","title":{"rendered":"Ornette Day, bits of wisdom with video clips"},"content":{"rendered":"
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White sax, Denardo Coleman – Blue Note Jazz Festival<\/p><\/div>\n

Ornette Coleman’s birthday<\/a> is today, and his son Denardo has invited everyone to a walk with him from noon to three in\u00c2\u00a0Woodlawn Cemetery <\/a>in the Bronx, where his father, the prophet of Harmolodics, is interred near Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Max Roach, Celia Cruz — a very good neighborhood.<\/p>\n

In Ornette’s honor\u00c2\u00a0here are excerpts of his talk from\u00c2\u00a0my book Miles Ornette Cecil — Jazz Beyond Jazz<\/a>. <\/em>Also,\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>how I came to love his music, and two videos:\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>a choice “free” solo performance with\u00c2\u00a0a rare\u00c2\u00a0piano episode (from\u00c2\u00a0Berlin, 1972) and\u00c2\u00a0a prime example of collective collaboration\u00c2\u00a0(with bassists Albert McDowell, and Tony Falanga and Denardo on drums) interpreting “Lonely Woman,” the Coleman classic, from Jazz a Vienne, 2008.<\/p>\n

On feelings in music<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

“I was out at [anthropologist] Margaret Mead\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s school, and was teaching some little kids how to play instantly. I asked the question ‘How many kids would like to play music and have fun?’ And all the little kids raised up their hands. I asked, ‘Well, how do you do that?’ And one little girl said, ‘You just apply your feelings to sound.’ I said, ‘Come and show me.’ When she went to the piano to do it she tried to show me, but she had forgotten about what she said. So I tried to show her why all of a sudden all her attention span had to go to another level, and after that she went ahead and did it. But she was right: If you apply your feelings to sound, regardless of what instrument you have, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably make good music.”<\/p>\n