# The free soul of Ornette Coleman: Videos, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2018/03/24/the-free-soul-of-ornette-coleman-videos-photos/
- Published: 2018-03-24T10:15:35+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Abstraction came late to jazz. New York’s abstract expressionism art movement 
emerged in the late 1940s and flourished throughout the 1950s. **

Architecture and sculpture were inventing new design rules as well. By contrast,
free jazz didn’t coalesce as a genre until the late 1950s, though there were inklings
of the style in the music of Lee Konitz, Lennie Tristano, Teddy Charles, George 
Russell, Jim Hall and Jimmy Giuffre throughout the decade. Not until alto saxophonist
Ornette Coleman and his followers did free jazz become a robust jazz approach starting
in 1959. While the music can be difficult to grasp for listeners accustomed to structure
and familiar songs, it is breathtaking once you re-calibrate your aesthetic sensitivity
and open your mind to a new set of rules of expression.

[⌊Bbbbbbbbb⌉⌊Bbbbbbbbb⌉[
 To help you along, here’s a two-part documentary on free
jazz and Ornette Coleman, who was born 88 years ago on March 9. He died in 2015:

![Ornette-web](http://marcmyers.typepad.com/.a/6a00e008dca1f0883401b7c9560bab970b-
500wi)

**Part 1…**

**Part 2…**

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