Free Jazz, Harmolodics and Ornette Coleman
by Stephen Rush (Music 781.65 Coleman)
Ornette Coleman is widely regarded
as a key figure in modern jazz music, and his work laid the foundation for generations
of players who moved toward forms of improvisation that don’t stay tightly
linked to a harmonic foundation, often called “free jazz” or “free
improvisation.” All was not completely free in Ornette’s world, however: his
work generally exemplified his own “Harmolodic Theory,” or “harmolodics,” in
which harmony, melody, and rhythm take on unique moment-to-moment relationships
approaching a unique kind of conceptual unity. Ornette used harmolodics
compositionally, and lacking any kind of formal text (a book was planned in the
1970s but never completed), he and his band’s adventurous improvisations serve
as both the textbook and the application of the idea.
Lots of music made by Ornette and
his circle over the last 50 years employs harmolodic concepts, but lacking much
written explanation, the idea remains misunderstood by many musicians and much
of the listening public.
Enter Stephen Rush, whose recent Free Jazz, Harmolodics and Ornette Coleman makes
great strides toward representing and clarifying the underlying concepts in
this approach to music. Rush, a music professor at the University of Michigan,
has taught a class on harmolodics for thirty years, and composes and improvises
fluently within a harmolodic framework with his own bands. Using detailed
analysis of music samples, and through extensive conversations with Ornette
Coleman himself, Rush has written an essential book that addresses technical,
philosophical, and social implications of harmolodics.
Although the book is formatted into
three parts, it’s less formally divided into two main parts, with the
“official” part 1 serving as more of a brief historical introduction. The first
half of the book focuses on a series of interviews Rush conducted with Coleman
in 2011, which explore harmolodics from multiple perspectives as the
conversations flow into different subject areas. The range of topics covered is
wide, from philosophy to aural semiotics to civil rights. When read through the
historical context provided in the introduction, it becomes clear that
Ornette’s feelings about unity between harmonic and melodic contexts in music
are inspired by and contribute to the stages of the civil rights movement.
The second half of the book is more
technical in nature, offering transcriptions and detailed analysis of ten
representative Ornette recordings throughout his career. If you’re a practicing
musician with an understanding of conventional jazz harmony, this section will
be especially illuminating, as Rush digs deep and breaks down the sophisticated
(but very much present) harmonic shifts that happen in Ornette’s music, both
melodically and among band members. But even if you’re not a musician, I’d recommend
reading through this section, too — you might not understand some of the theory
talk, but I think you will come away with a fundamental understanding of how
harmolodics seems to work best through the deployment and manipulation of
relatively short, memorable musical phrases. This music is “free jazz” relative
to the melodic/harmonic lockstep music the preceded it, but it’s also
fundamentally a socially-focused music, and the conversations that happen
within melodies and around the bandstand ultimately turn phrases into
transcendent narratives.
If you’re into Ornette, or you feel
like you’re close to “getting” his music but not quite there, this is the book
for you. Come on up to the Polley Music Library and check it out!
[If
you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Experiencing Ornette Coleman : A Listener’s Companion by
Michael Stephans, Ornette Coleman: The Territory and the Adventure by Maria
Golia or This is Our Music: Free Jazz, the Sixties, and American Culture,
by Iain Anderson.]
[
publisher’s official Free Jazz book page ] | [ official Stephen J. Rush
web site ]
Recommended
by Scott S.
Polley Music Library
Have you read or listened to
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Check out this, and all the other great music resources, at the Polley Music Library,
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