An Interview with Ornette Coleman
One musician I’ve been thinking about, and listening to, a lot is Ornette Coleman, who died last week. That generation that formed bebop and then what I called the heroic decade of modern jazz, the decade of avantgardism roughly 1955-65, are passing – the only major figures left are Sonny Rollins and Lee Konitz (Cecil Taylor isn’t playing any more). Most revolutions also show a continuity with what went before (even, maybe October 1917, in continuing an authoritarian traditio
