Paul Desmond on Ornette...

Paul Desmond (1965)

It wouldn't be easy to find two more opposed alto saxophonists in the history of jazz than Paul Desmond and Ornette Coleman. Besides playing the same instrument and having American passports, the rest couldn't be more different. For fans, it seems that today it is more politically correct saying that we like Ornette better than Desmond, but the fact is that Desmond is probably the more popular of the two. Never mind that, anyway, both deserve your listening time for very different reasons, trust me.

In a quite funny collection of Desmond's aphorisms, or "desmondisms", there's a quote of his talking about Ornette's music. No source is mentioned, and it goes like this:

It's like living in a house where everything's painted red.

Following Eric Dolphy

For all the lack of audience and shaky economic prospects, your average jazz musician is someone who works very hard to master their instrument and knows music theory inside out. Even if it doesn't permeate all of it, there is, within jazz, an honourable tradition of art for art's sake, of the fight against oneself and the infinite choices offered by music and sound. In more detail, the profile of a jazz musician as a young person today would be someone who got started early in music, has gone through “classical” studies of some sort, is a versatile virtuoso with their instrument, and will have to go through New York City at some point of their lives as some sort of validation.

Just like Eric Dolphy.

Eric Dolphy by Naiel Ibarrola

Dolphy, together with Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane (he worked with both), was the most influential “reedman” to come up in the early 1960s. Be it on flute or, especially, on alto sax and bass clarinet, he established a way of playing that still sounds contemporary. By what can be heard today, I suspect that Dolphy has at least a comparable following among musicians, even though Coleman and Coltrane are more visible figures in the canon. But posterity is fickle.

Video alert: Birdland (TV, 1992)

Birdland was a TV show aired in 1992, produced in the UK by BBC Lionheart, and also aired in the US on Bravo. The shows are about 30-minutes long and the music is interspersed with interviews carried out, off-camera, by well-known British critic John Fordham. In at least some of the shows, US and UK were paired and sometimes played together. This is not only quite a snapshot from over 20 years ago, but a nice chance to see some young, fresh faces.

Five of those shows have cropped up on YouTube in the last few days. The shows are, in no particular order,

• Herbie Hancock (w/ Ira Coleman-b, Tony Williams-d)
  Wayne Shorter (Jason Rebello-kb, Tracy Wormworth-b, Terri Lynne Carrington-d)
  (link)

• Branford Marsalis (w/Kenny Kirkland-p, Bob Hurst-b, Jeff 'Tain' Watts-d)
  Julian Joseph (w/Alec Dankworth-b, Mark Mondesir-d)
  (link)

• Steve Coleman Five Elements (w/David Gilmore-g, James Weidman-kb, Reggie Washington-b, Tommy Campbell-d) /
  Steve Williamson (w/Tony Remy-g, Joe Bashorun-kb, Gary Crosby-b, Steve Washington-d)
  (link)

• Ornette Coleman & Prime Time (Ken Wessell-g, Chris Rosenberg-g, Dave Bryant-kb, Al McDowell-b, Denardo Coleman-d, Badal Roy-tabla)
  Cassandra Wilson-Cleveland Watkiss (w/Rod Williams-p, Kevin Bruce Harris-b, Mark Johnson-d)
  (link)

• Don Cherry & Multikulti (w/ Peter Apfelbaum-fl-ts-p, Bo Freeman-b, Hamid Drake-d-perc)
  (link)