Ornette Coleman, saxophonist and composer died on Thursday morning in Manhattan. He was 85. According to his family the cause of death of cardiac arrest. Coleman was one of the legendary figures in the world of jazz. He is best known for changing the game and opening jazz up to more options in music. Coleman worked hard in the 1950s and 1960s to to make jazz less confined by the rules of harmony and rhythm. More after the jump.
Coleman bought his first saxophone with money he had earned from shining shoes and learned to play it like a child learns to play with a toy. Coleman once said, “I didn’t know you had to learn to play,” he told the Guardian, “I didn’t know music was a style and that it had rules and stuff, I thought it was just sound. I thought you had to play to play, and I still think that.”
Coleman led by example in the 1950s and 1960s and changed the rules of jazz. In 1958 he led is first recording session for Contemporary, “Something Else!!!!: The Music of Ornette Coleman” alongside trumpeter Don Cherry, drummer Billy Higgins, bassist Don Payne and pianist Walter Norris.
Coleman signed with Atlantic Records in 1959 and released “The Shape of Jazz to Come” whose composition completely changed jazz.
His album “Sound Grammar” received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for music. Coleman was considered a challenge to even the best musicians and will greatly missed the music community.
RIP Ornette Coleman.
Source Fox News The Guardian
