Ornette Coleman: For His Birthday, Memories from Jim Eigo (+Bonus)

(Paying Subscribers, at the bottom you’ll find the earliest audio interview with Ornette, from March 1960—it’s very short, but fun to hear.)

From Lewis: Jim Eigo has been in the record business in New York all his life. I used to order hard-to-get import LPs from him in the early 1980s. Since 2006, he has been a leading jazz publicist. He also runs an LP shop in Warwick, New York. Jim has had many experiences through the years with jazz artists. He previously shared his memories of Sun Ra.

MEMORIES OF ORNETTE by Jim Eigo

Lew’s Ornette memories reminded me of when I was running the jazz department for Happy Tunes Records on Eighth Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan.

Ornette came in to drop off a poster for the opening night for Artist House, his loft at 131 Prince Street that he was turning into a concert space and art gallery.

[Lew adds: Dr. Brent Edwards of Columbia University has done some terrific research on Coleman’s loft which you can see here, with many photos.]

Of course I went. It was Saturday, May 22, 1971, at 9pm. Blood Ulmer's group played. Ornette was wearing what looked like a pilot's jump suit and a miner’s helmet with a light. He was walking around filming the proceedings.

After the concert, there was an informal party. Ornette invited whoever was there to go upstairs to the loft of Emmanuel Ghent. (He was a pioneering composer of electronic music and a psychiatric practitioner, researcher, and teacher.) A picture of him was on the poster, as you’ll see. Ornette jammed to Mr. Ghent's pre-recorded electronic music. If I recall correctly, he was still playing the white plastic saxophone.

It was pretty amazing, to say the least.

The poster is pretty rare. I kept mine, and right before Ornette passed, I contacted Denardo and asked him if Ornette had the poster in his archives.

He didn't. So I had it reproduced, framed and sent to Ornette:

Denardo told me that Ornette saw it, which made me very happy.

Now, talk about “six degrees of separation”: Years later when I was doing publicity for the Cornelia Street Café in the Village, Valerie Ghent (an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and recording engineer from New York City) was hosting a monthly singer-songwriter showcase at the Café.

I asked her if she was related to Emmanuel Ghent. She said he was her father! I told her my Artist House story and mentioned the poster. She had never seen it, so I made her a copy.

To conclude, here are Ornette and a jet-lagged Jim Eigo at The Grammys, Los Angeles, February 11, 2007:

Jim Eigo

[THANK YOU JIM!

All the best,
Lewis]

P.S. Paying Subscribers, keep scrolling down for your bonus, an early 3-minute interview with Ornette!