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I heard this man play last night. It was some of the most amazing music I've ever heard. Incredibly complex, loose, locked in, sentimental, soulful, scattered, subtle, and melodic.
We had a leisurely walk with a big j, went to the wrong theatre, and had to sprint to the right one, making it to our seats in enough time to feel extremely spaced in before it all started. The festival tried to award him with some idol trophy in the likeness of Miles Davis, but Ornette wouldn't touch it – I took it as a symbol of reverence. Instead, he said some amazing words about the luck of being alive, striving for the eternal, the eternal being sound and love, and love being about giving and believing. Sometimes people say the perfect things.
He played with a quartet, his son on drums, an upright bassist, and an electric bassist that I could've sworn kept switching to guitar when I wasn't looking. Turns out he was just really really good, in a Victor Wooten kind of way, but without the need for showmanship, slap, or any sort of bombast. At certain moments, Denardo Coleman sounded like a terrible drummer, and the rest of the time played with incredible feel and speed. It lent a slightly skewed aspect to their sound that in whole frame worked extremely well. The upright bassist was expert, playing incredible things with lightness and ease, and in excellent communication with his counterpart. Ornette filled the room with a humble and reverent aura, frail and delicate at 79 years, he played to his history and age, not trying to reproduce his honey wails on that white gold sax, but playing gently, merely suggesting his most memorable melodies. He played for sound rather than notes, and for subtlety and space rather than a spot at center stage. The compositions were free but scripted, the pacing flawless, melodies amazingly touching, the soft sentiment indelible, and all of it at once disheveled and synchronous. The band was so good as to command attention, but it was sent well over the top that Ornette Coleman was playing within it. And it was balanced and even.
The Quartet was honoured with three encores, the middle of which was the baddest version of "Beat It" ever played.
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