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Ornette
Coleman Live review
by Adam Horovitz
Cheltenham Jazz Festival,
Town Hall
Sunday, May 1,
2005
Bringing Ornette Coleman, the great innovator of
free jazz, to celebrate both his 75th birthday and the 10th anniversary of
the Cheltenham Jazz Festival was an inspired decision.
Known for some spectacularly difficult albums in the 1960s, Coleman
delivered an exquisite, delirious set of stunning abstract lyricism and
rhythms jittery as a thousand trains passing that soared through the
voluminous rafters of Cheltenham Town Hall and kept the capacity audience
spellbound for an hour and a half.
Coleman's son on drums and two double bassists were the only backing the
great man needed. He took possession of the night, shooting lightning
bolts of sax over a rolling, thunderous rhythm on "Lonely Woman" and picking
up both trumpet and violin throughout the concert to astonishing and
compelling effect.
Coleman's music is very much about one man blurting ideas out through
brass over the chattering, neurotic rhythms of ordinary life. He has such
a command of the space around his music that one cannot fail to be
absorbed into his frame of mind, subsumed by the sound of such sweet
thunder.
Ornette was the epitome of self-deprecating cool throughout; though
obviously tired, he remained remarkably suave in his shiny mauve suit
whilst both bassists were constantly daubing off sweat. Even after a
standing ovation he kept cool, earnestly telling the crowd "When we're
here again, it'll get better!"
It couldn't have got better than this extraordinary gig.
© Adam
Horovitz
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