| Ornette: Made in America | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Shirley Clarke |
| Produced by | Kathelin Hoffman |
| Starring | Ornette Coleman |
| Cinematography | Edward Lachman |
| Edited by | Shirley Clarke |
| Music by | Ornette Coleman |
| Distributed by | Milestone Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 77 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Ornette: Made in America is a 1985 American documentary film directed and edited by Shirley Clarke that studies saxophonist and free jazz innovator Ornette Coleman.
The film does not chronicle the life of Coleman but rather emulates his freeform style by mixing together excerpts from performances, interviews, experimental music videos and reenactments of Coleman's childhood. Included are interviews with and original footage of William S. Burroughs, Buckminster Fuller, Ed Blackwell, Robert Palmer, George Russell, John Rockwell, Don Cherry and Denardo Coleman. [1]
The film intercuts interviews, archive footage and psychedelic sequences around Coleman's performance of Skies of America with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra at the city's Convention Center. The opening of the now-defunct Caravan of Dreams nightclub serves as a catalyst for the film's production, but Shirley Clarke had actually been working on the film for a span of over 20 years. The 1968 footage with Ornette, his young son, Denardo, and frequent collaborator Charlie Haden was filmed by Clarke for a separate film that never came to fruition. [2]
Ornette was Shirley Clarke's last film and reintroduced her to the independent film and jazz music circuits that she had influenced during the 1960s. Clarke's intrusive, fast cutting editing style and Kit Fitzgerald's avant-garde music video work won the film praise. [3]
In late 2012, Milestone Films rereleased Ornette in select theaters and distributed the restored film on DVD and Blu-ray. This is part of a greater effort on behalf of Milestone to rerelease all of Clarke's old films. [4]
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He was best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. His pioneering works often abandoned the harmony-based composition, tonality, chord changes, and fixed rhythm found in earlier jazz idioms. Instead, Coleman emphasized an experimental approach to improvisation, rooted in ensemble playing and blues phrasing. AllMusic called him "one of the most beloved and polarizing figures in jazz history," noting that while "now celebrated as a fearless innovator and a genius, he was initially regarded by peers and critics as rebellious, disruptive, and even a fraud."
Charles Edward Haden was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. Building on the work of predecessors such as Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden helped to revolutionize the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz, evolving a style that sometimes complemented the soloist, and other times moved independently, liberating bassists from a strictly accompanying role, to allow more direct participation in group improvisation.
Jayne Cortez was an African-American poet, activist, small press publisher and spoken-word performance artist whose voice is celebrated for its political, surrealistic and dynamic innovations in lyricism and visceral sound. Her writing is part of the canon of the Black Arts Movement. She was married to jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman from 1954 to 1964, and their son is jazz drummer Denardo Coleman. In 1975, Cortez married painter, sculptor, and printmaker Melvin Edwards, and they lived in Dakar, Senegal, and New York City.
Shirley Clarke was an American filmmaker.
In All Languages is a 1987 double album by Ornette Coleman. Coleman and the other members of his 1950s quartet, trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Billy Higgins, performed on one of the two records, while his electrified ensemble, Prime Time, performed on the other. Many of the songs on In All Languages had two renditions, one by each group.
Sound Grammar is a live album by jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, recorded live in Ludwigshafen, Germany, on 14 October 2005. The album was produced by Coleman and Michaela Deiss, and released on Coleman's new Sound Grammar label. It was his first new album in almost a decade, since the end of his relationship with Verve in the 1990s. It features a mix of new and old originals.
Song X is a collaborative studio album by American jazz guitarist Pat Metheny and saxophonist Ornette Coleman. It is a free jazz record that was produced in a three-day recording session in 1985. The album was released in 1985 by Geffen Records.
Imagine the Sound is a 1981 Canadian documentary film about the once-controversial genre of free jazz, directed by Ron Mann. It serves as Mann's feature film directorial debut.
Denardo Ornette Coleman is an American jazz drummer. He is the son of Ornette Coleman and Jayne Cortez.
Spy vs Spy: The Music of Ornette Coleman is a 1989 album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn, featuring the compositions of Ornette Coleman performed in the brief, intense style of Zorn's hardcore miniatures.
Of Human Feelings is an album by American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Ornette Coleman. It was recorded on April 25, 1979, at CBS Studios in New York City with his band Prime Time, which featured guitarists Charlie Ellerbee and Bern Nix, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and drummers Calvin Weston and Coleman's son Denardo. It followed the saxophonist's failed attempt to record a direct-to-disc session earlier in March of the same year and was the first jazz album to be recorded digitally in the United States.
Archie Shepp – Bill Dixon Quartet is the debut album by saxophonist Archie Shepp and trumpeter Bill Dixon released on the Savoy label in 1962. The album features three performances by Shepp & Dixon with Don Moore and Paul Cohen and a version of Ornette Coleman's composition "Peace" with Reggie Workman and Howard McRae. The album was also rereleased in 1970 as Peace on the French BYG label, flipping the running order on side two, and on CD in 2010 as a "unauthorized European" edition on the Free Factory label, using the Savoy title but the BYG running order.
The Empty Foxhole is an album by the American jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman that was released on the Blue Note label in 1966. The album features Coleman's untutored violin and trumpet as well as performing on his usual instrument, the alto saxophone, and marks the recording debut of his drummer son Denardo Coleman, who was ten years of age at the time. The album cover features Coleman's own artwork.
Crisis is a live album by the American jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman recorded at New York University in 1969 and released on the Impulse! label.
Prime Design/Time Design is a live album written by the American jazz composer Ornette Coleman and recorded by a string quartet, with Ornette's son Denardo Coleman on drums, at the Caravan of Dreams in 1985 and released on the Caravan of Dreams label. The composition is dedicated to Coleman's "best hero," Buckminster Fuller, and is an interpretation of Fuller's "vision of the birth of the universe, the fusion of chaos and harmony".
Tone Dialing is an album recorded in 1995 by the American jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman and his Prime Time ensemble. It was released in September 1995 by Coleman's Harmolodic record label, in partnership with Verve/PolyGram. It was the Harmolodic label's first release, and "the first disc fully devoted to Coleman's music in eight years."
Sound Museum: Hidden Man is an album by the American jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman recorded in 1996 and released on the Harmolodic/Verve label. It is dedicated to Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell.
Skyscraper is a 1959 documentary film by Shirley Clarke about the construction of the 666 Fifth Avenue skyscraper.
Prime Time was a band formed by Ornette Coleman in 1975 featuring two electric guitarists, two drummers, and occasionally two electric bassists alongside Coleman's saxophone. The band utilized Harmolodics to create their music. Founding members included guitarist Bern Nix, guitarist Charles Ellerbee, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, drummer Denardo Coleman and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. Later members including bassist Albert MacDowell and drummer Sabir Kamal.
Jazzbühne Berlin '88 is a live album by Ornette Coleman and his band Prime Time. It was recorded on June 5, 1988, at the Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin, and was released in 1990 by Repertoire Records as Volume 5 of their Jazz Bühne Berlin / Rundfunk der DDR series.