I have two questions after reading this fascinating interview. One, where is all this music that Ornette says he is written? is there an archive somewhere? The second is a little more delicate. There's not a lot of Ornette's classical music that I've heard that I thought was very effective except Skies of America. Is there anybody who really disagrees with me? I was friends with the people at Bang on a Can who played one of his later chamber pieces. I believe it was a commission. As I recall, it was pretty much just a head chart where they were mostly asked to improvise. If there's an orchestra piece out there, it would seem to me somebody would be interested enough to have a good look at it and see if it could be performed. Like Gunther did with Mingus. Lewis you need to put one of your grad students on this! :)
All good questions! Off the top of my head: Many of Ornette's "classical" pieces were sketches, not really possible to perform without him there to tell you what to do. Denardo has chosen to hold onto all of Ornette's things, so there is no public archive, to my knowledge. I did have a grad student work on Skies of America and he came up with a score that was created by someone working with Ornette. As for the other big piece that Ornette mentions here, The Oldest Language, that was an idea that I don't think ever happened. In fact I believe that it became transformed into the two-CD project that he called In All Languages, featuring his acoustic and electric bands together. Believe it or not, I had a hand in commissioning part of that, as I'll explain in my next Ornette memory piece. Finally, as for the quality of his chamber pieces, since I loved Ornette I'd rather not critique them here. But they are a mixed bag, for sure. However at least Ornette listened to contemporary classical music. I am astounded at how many jazz musicians have accepted commissions to write "classical" pieces without doing even one hour's worth of listening to existing classical pieces to get a sense of some of the possibilities. I will name names when you and I talk, but not here. THANK YOU JOEL
Very interesting. This sentence "I am astounded at how many jazz musicians have accepted commissions to write "classical" pieces without doing even one hour's worth of listening to existing classical pieces to get a sense of some of the possibilities."
That resonates with me. Quite often when I see so-called classical pieces written by jazz players they're all too mediocre. For exactly the reasons you've mentioned. They haven't done the work learning how to handle long stretches of time without improvisation. Often they are commissioned simply by their reputation as improvisers. And as much as we would like to think composing and improvising is the same, it is most definitely not. I can say this because I've studied classical music quite deeply and at this point I'm capable of writing long form pieces. But it took a lot of work to get there. I agree with you. It's great that Coleman listened to so many different types of music, and it certainly was part of the fabric of his genius improvising.
Absolutely. I've always loved classical music and even won a classical blindfold test in grad school over 29 other grad students. I've written two sax concertos, one for Liebman and one for classical virtuoso Paul Cohen (you can see them online and there are links at Lewisporter.com too). It's no joke to write long pieces. I can tell you a number of stories about cats who did not do their homework, some time when we are speaking. THANK YOU JOEL
I have two questions after reading this fascinating interview. One, where is all this music that Ornette says he is written? is there an archive somewhere? The second is a little more delicate. There's not a lot of Ornette's classical music that I've heard that I thought was very effective except Skies of America. Is there anybody who really disagrees with me? I was friends with the people at Bang on a Can who played one of his later chamber pieces. I believe it was a commission. As I recall, it was pretty much just a head chart where they were mostly asked to improvise. If there's an orchestra piece out there, it would seem to me somebody would be interested enough to have a good look at it and see if it could be performed. Like Gunther did with Mingus. Lewis you need to put one of your grad students on this! :)
All good questions! Off the top of my head: Many of Ornette's "classical" pieces were sketches, not really possible to perform without him there to tell you what to do. Denardo has chosen to hold onto all of Ornette's things, so there is no public archive, to my knowledge. I did have a grad student work on Skies of America and he came up with a score that was created by someone working with Ornette. As for the other big piece that Ornette mentions here, The Oldest Language, that was an idea that I don't think ever happened. In fact I believe that it became transformed into the two-CD project that he called In All Languages, featuring his acoustic and electric bands together. Believe it or not, I had a hand in commissioning part of that, as I'll explain in my next Ornette memory piece. Finally, as for the quality of his chamber pieces, since I loved Ornette I'd rather not critique them here. But they are a mixed bag, for sure. However at least Ornette listened to contemporary classical music. I am astounded at how many jazz musicians have accepted commissions to write "classical" pieces without doing even one hour's worth of listening to existing classical pieces to get a sense of some of the possibilities. I will name names when you and I talk, but not here. THANK YOU JOEL
Very interesting. This sentence "I am astounded at how many jazz musicians have accepted commissions to write "classical" pieces without doing even one hour's worth of listening to existing classical pieces to get a sense of some of the possibilities."
That resonates with me. Quite often when I see so-called classical pieces written by jazz players they're all too mediocre. For exactly the reasons you've mentioned. They haven't done the work learning how to handle long stretches of time without improvisation. Often they are commissioned simply by their reputation as improvisers. And as much as we would like to think composing and improvising is the same, it is most definitely not. I can say this because I've studied classical music quite deeply and at this point I'm capable of writing long form pieces. But it took a lot of work to get there. I agree with you. It's great that Coleman listened to so many different types of music, and it certainly was part of the fabric of his genius improvising.
Absolutely. I've always loved classical music and even won a classical blindfold test in grad school over 29 other grad students. I've written two sax concertos, one for Liebman and one for classical virtuoso Paul Cohen (you can see them online and there are links at Lewisporter.com too). It's no joke to write long pieces. I can tell you a number of stories about cats who did not do their homework, some time when we are speaking. THANK YOU JOEL
I would love to hear the piece for Liebman
https://www.lewisporter.com/larger-compositions
THANKS JOEL!