Ornette Coleman, freedom, Biafra

(Ornette Coleman: ... freedom)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

TODAY is the 89th birthday of Ornette Coleman (born 9 March 1930, Fort Worth, Texas, US):  alto saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, composer, one of the very top inventive jazz artists of all time – leading exponent of the avant-garde/free jazz movement, beginning late 1950s/early 1960s when his varying working quartets (personnel: Coleman, alto saxophone [tenor saxophone on Ornette on Tenor only], Don Cherry, cornet/trumpet/pocket trumpet; Charlie Haden/Scott LaFaro/Red Mitchell/Percy Heath/Jimmy Garrison/Don Payne, bass; Billy Higgins/Ed Blackwell/Shelly Manne, drums) and quintet (Something Else!!!! only with Walter Norris on piano) record seven classic albums:

1. Something Else!!!!, 1958

2. Tomorrow is the Question, 1959

3. The Shape of Jazz to Come, 1959

4. Change of the Century, 1959

5. This is our Music, 1960

6. Ornette!, 1961

7. Ornette on Tenor, 1961

and an eighth, this time recorded by an octet:

8. Free Jazz, 1960

(personnel: Coleman, alto saxophone; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; Charlie Haden, bass; Scott LaFaro, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums; Billy Higgins, drums)

Biafra

IN this revolutionary epoch in which stretches of peoples and nations across the globe but especially in the African World have risen against centuries of pan-European conquest, occupation and subjugation and also pointedly in these past 53 years, the Igbo resistance to the bludgeoning genocide being waged on their people in Biafra by the Africa-based Fulani islamist/jihadist-led Nigeria client state and its suzerain Britain, Coleman’s music has consistently offered an infectiously gripping optimism for freedom. 

Igbo people have demonstrated extraordinary resilience in the resistance and will surely overcome this Anglo-Nigeria haematophagous monster as the strikingly innovative and irrepressible Biafra freedom movement triumphs.

TWO compositions from the Coleman repertoire couldn’t be more appropriate to capture the immense transformational possibilities that success in Biafra will have for constituent peoples in southwestcentral Africa region and elsewhere in Africa: “Turnaround” (February 1959) and “Change of the century” (October 1959).

(Ornette Coleman Quartet, “Turnaround” [personnel: Coleman, alto saxophone; Don Cherry, trumpet; Red Mitchell, bass; Shelly Manne, drums; recorded: Contemporary’s Studio, Los Angeles, US, 23 February 1959])

(Ornette Coleman Quartet, “Change of the century” [personnel: Coleman, alto saxophone; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet; Charlie Haden, bass; Billy Higgins, drums; recorded: Radio Recorders in Hollywood, California, US, 8 October 1959])

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is author of the recently published The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019)  (https://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.com/2019/01/published-longest-genocide-since-29-may.html)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe