The Evolution of Ornette Coleman's Music And

DANCING IN HIS HEAD: THE EVOLUTION OF ORNETTE COLEMAN’S MUSIC AND COMPOSITIONAL PHILOSOPHY by Nathan A. Frink B.A. Nazareth College of Rochester, 2009 M.A. University of Pittsburgh, 2012 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2016 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Nathan A. Frink It was defended on November 16, 2015 and approved by Lawrence Glasco, PhD, Professor, History Adriana Helbig, PhD, Associate Professor, Music Matthew Rosenblum, PhD, Professor, Music Dissertation Advisor: Eric Moe, PhD, Professor, Music ii DANCING IN HIS HEAD: THE EVOLUTION OF ORNETTE COLEMAN’S MUSIC AND COMPOSITIONAL PHILOSOPHY Nathan A. Frink, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2016 Copyright © by Nathan A. Frink 2016 iii DANCING IN HIS HEAD: THE EVOLUTION OF ORNETTE COLEMAN’S MUSIC AND COMPOSITIONAL PHILOSOPHY Nathan A. Frink, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2016 Ornette Coleman (1930-2015) is frequently referred to as not only a great visionary in jazz music but as also the father of the jazz avant-garde movement. As such, his work has been a topic of discussion for nearly five decades among jazz theorists, musicians, scholars and aficionados. While this music was once controversial and divisive, it eventually found a wealth of supporters within the artistic community and has been incorporated into the jazz narrative and canon. Coleman’s musical practices found their greatest acceptance among the following generations of improvisers who embraced the message of “free jazz” as a natural evolution in style. Performers such as Jamaaladeen Tacuma, David Murray, Pat Metheny and John Zorn incorporated the techniques of spontaneous group improvisation and what Coleman described as “harmolodic” organization into their own performance. This dissertation traces Coleman’s rise from relative obscurity to a place of greater celebrity in jazz and other musical circles. Coleman’s acceptance by the academy, other composers, notable jazz musicians, and the public is discussed in terms of how these shifts were made, and in what ways Coleman—who often felt victimized and mistreated by record company executives, critics, and musical establishments— transcended the gaps in his musical training in order to create his own distinctive and influential compositional style. This “harmolodic theory” was then refined over a period of nearly 55 years. iv The work discusses harmolodics in detail by building on the taxonomic models described by Ekkard Jost and Peter N. Wilson. It describes the variations in compositional practice as Coleman’s style evolved from 1980 until his death in 2015. The analysis supplements transcriptions and harmonic analyses with spectrograms and waveforms in order to illuminate specific areas of Coleman’s work. These graphic representations clarify observations made through transcription and reinforce some of the concepts embodied in Coleman’s unique philosophy of music. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................. IV 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 AIMS OF THIS STUDY ..................................................................................... 3 1.2 METHODOLOGY .............................................................................................. 6 1.2.1 Biographic Research ..................................................................................... 6 1.2.2 Ethnographic Research ................................................................................ 7 1.2.3 Analytical Framework .................................................................................. 8 2.0 BACKGROUND INFORMATION: COLEMAN’S LIFE AND MUSIC PRE-1980 ………………………………………………………………………………………...12 2.1 COLEMAN’S MUSIC PRE-1963 .................................................................... 13 2.2 COLEMAN’S MUSIC 1963-1969 .................................................................... 24 2.3 COLEMAN’S MUSIC 1970-1979 .................................................................... 30 3.0 COLEMAN’S MUSIC 1980-2015 ............................................................................. 50 3.1 1980-1993 COLEMAN AS A JAZZ ICON ..................................................... 50 3.2 1994-2015 ORNETTE COLEMAN AND POPULAR HARMOLODICS ... 60 4.0 HARMOLODICS ....................................................................................................... 88 4.1.1 Harmolodic Principle A: Metric Fluidity ............................................... 102 4.1.2 Harmolodic Principle B: Irregular, Non Pre-composed Harmony ...... 108 4.1.3 Harmolodic Principle C: Elimination of the Soloist/Rhythm Section Paradigm and Removal of Instrumental/Vocal Hierarchy .................................. 112 4.1.4 Harmolodic Principle D: Fluidic and Variable Tempi .......................... 115 vi 4.1.5 Harmolodic Principle E: Intonation as a Device of Emotional Expression ……………………………………………………………………………..117 4.1.6 Harmolodic Principle F: Free Choice of Register .................................. 119 4.1.7 Harmolodic Principle G: An Orchestral Approach to Sound .............. 120 4.2 HARMOLODICS APPLIED AS MUSICAL PHILOSOPHY .................... 122 4.2.1 Coleman’s Musical Theories as Expressed in the Music of Prime Time (1985-1995) ................................................................................................................ 122 4.2.1 Coleman’s Music After 1995 .................................................................... 143 4.2.2 A More Comprehensive Discussion of Compositional Taxonomy ....... 148 4.2.3 Coleman’s Compositions as Jazz Standards .......................................... 172 5.0 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 181 APPENDIX A: DISCOGRAPHY ............................................................................................ 193 APPENDIX B: UNANNOTATED TRANSCRIPTIONS (FOR FURTHER STUDY OR PERFORMANCE) .................................................................................................................... 197 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 211 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Wilson’s revised classification system. ............................................................................ 9 Table 2: Jost/Wilson Classification System. ............................................................................... 150 Table 3: Revised Classification of Coleman Compositions ....................................................... 151 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Families of Augmented triads (top) and Diminished 7 chords (bottom). ..................... 90 Figure 2: A C major scale read by C, Eb and Bb instruments. (Eb line written 8va) ................... 94 Figure 3: The bebop derived theme of “Bird Food” (1960) transcribed from Change of the Century. ..................................................................................................................................................... 104 Figure 4: The opening statement of “Lonely Woman” (1959) ................................................... 105 Figure 5: School Work (1971) .................................................................................................... 106 Figure 6: The introductory strophe from “All My Life” with Charlie Haden’s improvised bass accompaniment. .......................................................................................................................... 110 Figure 7: The instrumental strophe from “All My Life” with Haden’s implied chord changes. 111 Figure 8: Theme from a Symphony” (1973) ............................................................................... 114 Figure 9: “City Living” (1985) .................................................................................................. 123 Figure 10: Spectrogram image of the first eight riffs of “Theme from a Symphony” (1975) .... 125 Figure 11: The first eight repetitions of the main motive of “City Living” (1985) .................... 125 Figure 12: Average Delta (% change) values for Prime Time albums. ...................................... 127 Figure 13: Sections of clearly defined drones followed by heterophonic passages in “Midnight Sunrise,” (1975) performed by Coleman with the Master Musicians of Jajouka. ...................... 130 Figure 14: Sections of droning guitar effects followed by heterophonic passages of guitar and saxophone on “Voice Poetry” (1977) ......................................................................................... 131 Figure 15: Ellerbee’s riff patterns and rhythmic vamp on “Voice Poetry” ................................ 132 ix Figure 16: “The Art of Love is Happiness” (1987) or (“Police People” (1985)) with distinct riffs and their variations marked as A or B. ....................................................................................... 133 Figure 17: Completed jigsaw puzzle enclosed with the first edition release of Tone Dialing. .. 139 Figure 18: Main theme of “European Echoes” ..........................................................................

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