The alto saxophonist and composer was one of the most powerful and contentious innovators in the history of jazz. Coleman spent the last few years of his life suffering from dementia and the present sheet was penned for a friend who used to sit with him and verbally engage him with him in his later years. It is a remarkable testament, via musical notation, of his philosophies.
Stephen Rush, author of the definitive Free Jazz, Harmolodics and Ornette Coleman (Routledge, 2016) describes the present manuscript as follows:
"Roughly speaking - an Eb on an alto is a C and a D on a Bb trumpet is a C and a C on a bass is a C - so are they all C’s? Ornette says, “Yes, but they are all C for a different REASON.”…...the 1st line…diatonically E to C, then Diatonically C to A. 6 notes each time. Ornette would then say something (wild) like …”So an E is an A.” This is interesting…because he was often including to talk about the relationship between C and Eb (being an alto player, that was a big thing for him, and late in life he would sit at the piano and improvise IN E-FLAT for hours, on the piano). The he would point out that the relationship between C and A (going down) is the same distance/or the same relationship to C (what others would call an inversion). Taken one step further the Eb then becomes the EQUIVALENT of the A. two explanations of that: If your uncle has two kids (the uncle being ONE DEFINED RELATIONSHIP to you), then the offspring, in turn, are ALSO in relationship to you, just a bit different. Either way, we call both of those offspring KIN or COUSIN. (nice!). OR If God or something created you and me - and we both want to book a hotel, use a toilet or a water fountain, then we SHOULD because we both come from the same “cause and purpose” (yes, all of this stuff was a metaphor, for Ornette) for race and equality. ....like a lot of Ornette’s theorizing, is a nice synopsis for the human race.…... The second line from the bottom is interesting…demonstrating on “white notes” E to E diatonically (if you are in Phrygian mode) the contents of an octave, e to e. This is nice because it shows the “contents” of an octave, instead of just looking at an “E Octave”… Sort of like the harmonic series or overtone series, but in a slightly different way. Of course traditional Western Music Theory would imply that an E MAJOR scale would be hidden in an E octave. Ornette shows something completely different - the Phrygian mode…"
The alto saxophonist and composer was one of the most powerful and contentious innovators in the history of jazz. Coleman spent the last few years of his life suffering from dementia and the present sheet was penned for a friend who used to sit with him and verbally engage him with him in his later years. It is a remarkable testament, via musical notation, of his philosophies.
Stephen Rush, author of the definitive Free Jazz, Harmolodics and Ornette Coleman (Routledge, 2016) describes the present manuscript as follows:
"Roughly speaking - an Eb on an alto is a C and a D on a Bb trumpet is a C and a C on a bass is a C - so are they all C’s? Ornette says, “Yes, but they are all C for a different REASON.”…...the 1st line…diatonically E to C, then Diatonically C to A. 6 notes each time. Ornette would then say something (wild) like …”So an E is an A.” This is interesting…because he was often including to talk about the relationship between C and Eb (being an alto player, that was a big thing for him, and late in life he would sit at the piano and improvise IN E-FLAT for hours, on the piano). The he would point out that the relationship between C and A (going down) is the same distance/or the same relationship to C (what others would call an inversion). Taken one step further the Eb then becomes the EQUIVALENT of the A. two explanations of that: If your uncle has two kids (the uncle being ONE DEFINED RELATIONSHIP to you), then the offspring, in turn, are ALSO in relationship to you, just a bit different. Either way, we call both of those offspring KIN or COUSIN. (nice!). OR If God or something created you and me - and we both want to book a hotel, use a toilet or a water fountain, then we SHOULD because we both come from the same “cause and purpose” (yes, all of this stuff was a metaphor, for Ornette) for race and equality. ....like a lot of Ornette’s theorizing, is a nice synopsis for the human race.…... The second line from the bottom is interesting…demonstrating on “white notes” E to E diatonically (if you are in Phrygian mode) the contents of an octave, e to e. This is nice because it shows the “contents” of an octave, instead of just looking at an “E Octave”… Sort of like the harmonic series or overtone series, but in a slightly different way. Of course traditional Western Music Theory would imply that an E MAJOR scale would be hidden in an E octave. Ornette shows something completely different - the Phrygian mode…"