Biography

In the late 1950s, saxophonist Ornette Coleman threw out the rule book (and the piano) and blew apart all received notions of jazz, most notably with his quartet featuring Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins. Coleman's seemingly alien brand of "free" music was revolting to some and a revelation to others; either way, it established him as a founding father of the avant garde that ignited much of the 1960s jazz scene. Since the '70s, Coleman has concentrated largely on his band Prime Time, a fertile laboratory for his ongoing project of musical evolution.

Top Tracks

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• Africa Is The Mirror Of All Colors

• Airborne

• Beauty Is A Rare Thing

• Bird Food

• Blues Connotation

• Broadway Blues

• Broken Shadows

• Change Of The Century

• Check Up

• Compassion

• Congeniality

• Cross Breeding

• Dawn

• Dedication To Poets And Writers

• Desert Players

• Doughnut

• Embraceable You

• Enfant

• Eos

• Faces And Places

• Feet Music

• Focus On Sanity

• Forgotten Songs

• Free

• Free Jazz

• Freeway Express

• Friends And Neighbors

• Good Old Days

• Happy Hour

• Holiday For Heroes

• House Of Stained Glass

• In All Languages

• Jayne

• Joy Of A Toy

• Lonely Woman

• Long Time No See

• Love Call

• Macho Woman

• Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

• Midnight Sunrise

• Monk And The Nun

• Moon Inhabitants

• Mugwumps

• Naked Lunch

• Night Plans

• Old Gospel

• Peace

• Peace Warriors

• Ramblin'

• Round Trip

• Science Fiction

• Skies Of America

• Soap Suds

• Street Woman

• Sunday In America

• Tears Inside

• The Alchemy Of Scott Lafaro

• The Black Meat

• The Blessing

• The Circle With A Hole In The Middle

• The Fifth Of Beethoven

• The Good Life

• Theme From A Symphony

• Three Ways To One

• Tomorrow Is The Question!

• Una Muy Bonita

• Virgin Beauty

• Voice Poetry

• W.r.u.

• When Will The Blues Leave?

• Word For Bird

Discography

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• The Lenox Jazz School Concert: August 29, 1959

  FreeFactory

  2009

• Colors: Live from Leipzig

  Harmolodic Records / Harmolodic/Verve / Universal Division Jazz / Verve

  1996

• Of Human Feelings

  Antilles

  1979

• Soapsuds, Soapsuds

  Harmolodic Records / Verve

  1977

• Body Meta

  Harmolodic Records / Verve

  1976

• Skies of America

  Columbia / Columbia/Legacy

  1972

• Ornette at 12

  Impulse!

  1969

• Crisis

  Impulse!

  1969

• Saints and Soldiers

  RCA

  1967

• The Great London Concert

  Freedom

  1965

• An Evening with Ornette Coleman

  1965

• Town Hall Concert

  Blue Note

  1962

• The Art of the Improvisers

  Water Music Records

  1961