Ornette Coleman…

I just found out today Ornette Coleman died three days ago, my condolences go out to his family and anyone here on my FB that my have been close to him: Ira Sullivan, Liebs, Frank Tusa, Richie, Richard, Tony, Fred, Chris… I’m not sure who of you may have either worked or hung with him in the early years, so if any of you did, I am sorry for your loss, and for the loss to the rest of the planet. This man was one of the very few of his kind, and history will remember him in that way without a doubt…John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Sam Rivers, Ornette, these men took Jazz to places Jazz didn’t even see coming..

The piece Id like to post is close to my heart. It deals with his writing; his Idea. We all know him as the revolutionary giant of a saxophone player that he was, but I hear his pencil set to paper giving birth to ides that were both beautiful, abstract, and always passionate…”Dedication To Poets & Writers” was just that, a dedication to poets & writers…God has one amazing saxophone section in His band now…Peace.

Ornette Coleman – Dedication To Poets & Writers
Ornette Coleman – Alto Saxophone
David Izenzon – Bass
Charles Moffett – Drums
Selwart Clarke – Violin
Nathan Goldstein – Violin
Julien Barber – Viola
Kermit Moore – Cello

Art: Yes to the gold and the mud

I have been in the arts most all my life…I don’t know of one artists worth their salt that hasn’t had to view this world with painful honesty as to both what they saw outside themselves, and from within…Naturally all great Musicians, Writers, and Poets take this infliction and make their choice as to what to do with these painful, and or joyful perspectives: weather to then turn around and paint a picture that resonates the beauty that has been magnified by this very pain, (and or joyful view), or paint a picture of the pain itself in it’s harsh actuality . The outcome of these decisions could be what makes a  Kahlil Gibran, or a Franz Kafka. The ONE THING for me is that the artist always be honest whether he or she offends or uplifts, brings joy or sadness, anger or tranquility to his or her audience…That, and to be authentic in nature…Hermann Hesse says it quite well…Hesse cuts right to the bone here, and the artist is the recipient of the slice in my view, he is directing this to himself as well…The Artists has to walk into the storm if he or she are to be effective and true to their own nature as Artists…

Hermann Hesse

“There is no escape. You can’t be a vagabond and an artist and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man. You want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover. You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing. Don’t try to lie to yourself. You are not a solid citizen. You are not a Greek. You are not harmonious, or the master of yourself. You are a bird in the storm. Let it storm! Let it drive you! How much have you lied! A thousand times, even in your poems and books, you have played the harmonious man, the wise man, the happy, the enlightened man. In the same way, men attacking in war have played heroes, while their bowels twitched. My God, what a poor ape, what a fencer in the mirror man is- particularly the artist- particularly myself!”
Hermann Hesse