Ornette Coleman grew up during the Great Depression.
Ornette Coleman (1930-….) is a saxophonist, composer and bandleader. He spent his childhood in Fort Worth, Texas during the Great Depression, a time when Americans suffered the worst financial crisis in history. These were difficult years and Ornette's father and mother had to work several jobs to provide for the family. Texas had a hot jazz scene at this time. Bluesy saxophone and boogie woogie piano were popular styles. Music was a part of Ornette's life. His greatest influences were big band swing and church music.

Ornette began learning alto saxophone during his early teens.
Without formal training on the horn, Ornette struggled to learn on his own. Mostly self-taught, he learned to read music and began to play alto saxophone in his high school band. At first, he learned incorrectly, and this accidentally helped him discover his own style.

Early in Ornette's career, he received little praise for his music.
Even as a teenager, Ornette liked to experiment with new styles of playing. It was said he was kicked out of his high school band for blending swing with marching music. Later on, Ornette began working as a musician. He played the tenor sax for rhythm and blues gigs around the south-- but wanted to experiment with new sounds.

Audiences rejected Ornette's progressive style.
Ornette tried different approaches to harmony (an arrangement of simultaneous sounds). During his improvisations, he would move beyond the set pattern of the music and play more freely. During a gig in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, audience members became angry when Ornette's solo made the people stop dancing at the club and they attacked him on the stage. On other occasions, fellow band members packed up their instruments during his solos. Ornette faced a lot of opposition in the early days of his career.

In the 1950's, Ornette formed a quartet in Los Angeles.
Ornette's experimental playing eventually took him to Los Angeles, where he found other like-minded musicians and formed a quartet. Ornette wanted to express his feelings and ideas through his music without restricting himself to harmonic patterns. His playing was based on the melody, not the chords. To pay his bills, he worked as an elevator operator in a hotel. After winning an audition with Contemporary Records, he made his first recording entitled, "Something Else!!!", an appropriate title for Ornette's bluesy, highly improvised playing that became part of the free jazz movement.

Ornette became a leading musician the free jazz movement.
Gradually, people began to appreciate Ornette's skillful style. He has made many recordings since 1960, and his style is called free jazz, but it isn't entirely free. He always knows the structure of the song he is playing. He taught himself the trumpet and the violin and composed music. As an artist, he has been highly criticized and highly praised.

Courtesy of Don Schlitten