Ornette Coleman: Rare Print Interview with John Litweiler, 2 of 2

Last time we read the first part of this interview of Ornette Coleman by John Litweiler, a jazz journalist based in Chicago. In addition to hundreds of articles and reviews in periodicals such as DownBeat, Litweiler is the author of three books. While preparing his best-known book, a survey of “free jazz” called The Freedom Principle, he interviewed Ornette at length. Jazz researcher and discographer David Wild—who is also one of my coauthors on the John Coltrane Reference book—transcribed the interview and published most of it in his own journal, disc’ribe (sic). Since the journal only ran for three issues, and few people ever saw this interview, I am happy to present it here as it appeared in disc’ribe 3, Fall 1982. I thank both John and David for giving permission.

This second and last part of the interview begins with a discussion of Ornette’s “classical” music for string quartets, orchestras and so on. Ornette discusses using different colored pencils in a score. He also mentions his wish to have an international orchestra, which leads Litweiler to bring up the musicians of Jajouka (aka Joujouka), Morocco, with whom Coleman had jammed and recorded. This is discussed at length. The last part of the interview is about how Coleman leads his bands and chooses instruments. Here goes:

Very interesting! See you again soon.

All the best,

Lewis