Harmolodics: 2B ORNETTE 2B
A little interior design today, folks, courtesy of Ornette Coleman.
LET’S REARRANGE SOME FURNITURE. Here are just the fellas to help us do a little heavy lifting.
THE SCENE:
Key — Skeleton
ALTO SAX — Regular Text
GUITAR – (Text in Parenthesis)
SOUND IN PROGRESS:
“…If I enjoy a sofa …I will …the so-fa…(the sofa yes)… I will that sofa to allow me to enjoy it …(I ) will — (yes) don’t be surprised to find that sofa in portraiture on the wall behind the sofa…(I won’t be) …so –fa-so-fa, so-FA we…(most of us purchase art that matches the sofa)…Beige… We live on the sofa…we live (for the sofa)…We (Oui…the universe is beige)… the sofa… (the sofa)… You mean like couch potato…(Who you callin’ a potato?)…I mean, where (In the living… room)…On the sofa (a mean potato?)…(I will it so –la-ti—fa…So fa—la–ti– doh) I have become from the thought of just sitting… It is my ar…so fa ti la ti do…(You mean you’re the potato)… I’m a mean couch…potato? (Poh…tah…to you — I say)… I said it first!…(Po—ta-toh …You say)…I have constructed a sofa from a potato…(that’s how you couch it.)… let’s call the whole thing…(Off).
STOP SCENE:
5th WALL NARRATIVE:
How did we get here? While most music listeners would be asking WHERE EXACTLY IS HERE? Most harmologicians will answer that musical question with “through the kitchen, take 5 steps backwards, then crawl over the end table onto the sofa”. Why, specifically, choose an ALTO SAX for this demonstration, and not some other brass or plastic iNstrument? Because legend has it when Ornette Coleman got beat up early on in his career someone stole his tenor sax, so he started playing alto sax. The alto sax (even though he went on to play violin and trumpet, too) tells this tale best because it’s about Ornette Coleman and his take on sound. Sometimes it’s the little things — like harmolodics — that end up changing the course of music.
[READERS: Yeah, I know what you mean…wait…what?]
BACK TO THE SCENE:
DRUMS:
Harmolodic —sah! With a g-g-g—g-IN and tonic — sah! Maybe not a penta tonic — sah! Cause you can’t convert it – sah! Cah-c-c-c-ah-can’t invert it –sah! Okay…. 1231234….12345678…rrrrroll. SNAP! Everyone — GET ON THE SOFA!
Alto Sax/ Guitar:
…Ha-ha-have a seat on your sofa (sofa la-ti-do)…which is by virtue a seat for many … (so many )…SOOO many…(in faaaaaaaaaaa-so-la-ti-do —ON’T)…forget a pillow cause you’re gonna be sittin’ low… (Really low)…Do Re-ME-SO LOW…(So Low)…mi SO LOW…(ME SOLO)… SO LA TI DOO-OH…(ME — SOLO)
GUITAR STOPS.
Shreee, shreeeeeeeeeee.
(What the hell you doin’ still playin’, man? I said me “SOLO” — ME.)
Shahhhhhhhhonk.
(HEY! STOP FOR A SECOND! I SAID S-T-O-P. F__k the harmolodics,‘kay? Let’s talk with our mouths.) [Puts down guitar]
Sorry. I thought you meant “SO LOW”… you know… like close to the ground.
(DAGGONE IT, GET OFF THE DAMN SOFA and GET ON the GROUND, man!
(But, that ain’t HARMOLODICS, man.)
DRUMS: You know, …those…french fries…in the beginning of the movie, you know? The ones marchin’ in back of that…uh… hot dog. Or… maybe it was in front…I’d like to have me some of those right ‘bout now.
BACK TO THE 5th WALL:
So —what’s wrong here? And, who’s right? What exactly is HARMOLODICS? It certainly doesn’t sound as harmonious as the name implies. And, speaking of names…who is Ornette Coleman?
Anyone familiar with modern jazz post B-Bop knows Ornette, maybe not well, because he leaves a lot to the imagination. It’s takes a little assimilashun with the harmony and melody to get Ornette…a little modulation derelicshun in diction and intoNATION excavation. Pap
a “Free Jazz” Ornette. Yeah. The stuff that sends the Top 40 folks runnin’ with their index fingers in their ears after payin’ a whopping minimum drink tab/table rental at the Blue Note.
a “Free Jazz” Ornette. Yeah. The stuff that sends the Top 40 folks runnin’ with their index fingers in their ears after payin’ a whopping minimum drink tab/table rental at the Blue Note.
A little foreground: Ornette Coleman is a mostly self-taught revolutionary jazz hero. His roots were in R & B, but from there he made a livin’ large leap across musical constructs. He built the Tower of Babeljazz out of harmony, tone, rhythm, tempo and melody, and then strung a tightrope — backwards — over to the Edifice of Conventional Jazz Wisdom, and then, like Philippe Petit, walked that wire. Of course, then the jazz police tried to take him down for trespassing — BUT — he’s still up there — and now people pay big bucks to see his soul takin’ a stroll on the ropes — and they like it.
There’s no such thing as a harmolodic, did I hear you say? Don’t be so sure. Sure, some musicians just call it BS. Some say that, and all of the sudden they see Hiroshima for a split atomic second. Then it disappears until the next harmolodic moment comes and wacks them upside the head. Is it a mirage? Can one feel a mirage as one strolls through its mist(ical) origins? Ornette wears hip boots made for wadin’ through Jazz Fusion — R & R — Avante Garden Terra INfirma. INtuition. INsight. INside out. INnovative. INfinite IN YOUR HEAD INTERIOR D-sign, 1 less meter at a time.
If John Zorn covers you, you’re either a cartoon, or — Ornette Coleman. They ARE mutually exclusive creations, though some might argue it. How many jazz artists have shared a stage with Patti Smith and Yoko Ono? Played with Jerry Garcia? Recorded with Lou Reed? That’s a rhetorical question, BTW. Zappa, Pappa Ornette taught a thang or 2. (Oh, there’s structure. Don’t think there ain’t no structure… it’s just liquid — like oxygen — and, it was just as volatile.) Leonard Bersnstein knew a musical R. Buckminster Fuller when he heard one. He gave Ornette a big geodesic hug. After the hoopla, jazz folks started wonderin’ if maybe they themselves weren’t the ones who just couldn’t hang.
Is Ornette for real? There is proof of his existence. In 1994 he was awarded the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant. In 2007, he won the Pulitzer Prize for music for SOUND GRAMMAR (the only Jazz album to ever win it), and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award that same year. In 2009 — The Miles Davis Award. He is the proud recipient of the American Music Center Letter of Distinction. He exists in the creativity repositories of musicians everywhere. Wanna bend it like Ornette? Best be prepared to take it.
PAPA ORNETTE: “Music is not a style. Music is ideas. In any normal style, you have to play certain notes in certain places. You play in that style only and try to make people believe that style is more important than other styles. Which removes you from the idea. With harmolodics you go directly to the idea.”
Harmolodics … sound…. grammar…frequencies… possibilities… that which an instrument translates from the mind of the oddist communicating via a chosen tool. Ornette built a grammatical homage to a one and only hymn, democratic communication through tonality — compositional improvisation. But, Ornette, or not — Harmolodics already exist in every language. It is language. BTW — The 40 minute “conversation” on Ornette’s 1960’s FREE JAZZ was the longest ever recorded continuous jazz performance. Speakeasys would have been tongue tied back in the day if Ornette Coleman ever came their way. Gin and juice…. Shiiiiiiiiit. Gimme some tongue twistin’ babble on the Towers Babylon, Baby! Wit ORNETTE, IT’S NO NET! AND WE’RE WAXIN’ POETICA FLYIN’ INTO THE SUN!
BACK TO THE SCENE:
GIVE ME A BREAK.
(Man, WORN BRAKE PADS! Fantastic tone idea. Outstanding.)
NO! I mean I QUIT THIS! This harmolodics sh_t is crazy, man.
(Hey, then don’t sit out the melody, if you don’t believe, man. Nobody’s forcing you to trade stories on the sofa. That’s what harmolodics is all about. Sharing your INnermost thoughts through frequency and sound, your own tempo. Mouth. Words…relationship to your brain and your environment. Sound is to people what the sun is to light. So sez Ornette. I don’t think he’s changed his tune…just his tone, man. Okay, so counterpoint is the closest thing to a synonym encompassing harmolodics. Re-assign yourself to it and you got a universal groove, melody, and harmony wrapped in an enigma floating from any and every instrument and tool from which you can “psychometric-size” a story… Harmolodics is like Navajo speak. Only a few know it fluently, and it ain’t on the written page. It’s earthy, man. It’s human. It’s your heart. Blood. Code red read.)
(So, how does this relate to the Lydian scale?)
The Lydian scale is the drawers – harmolodics is the content of those drawers.
[silence]
(Just what kind of drawers are we talkin’ ‘bout here …briefs?)
And so it stands. The great Jazz divide.
Press #1 for REAL BOOK .
Press #2 for HARMOLODICS.