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| Jazz Legend Ornette Coleman Dies At Age 85 Ornette Coleman, one of the most influential and innovative figures in jazz history, has died at the age of 85, the New York Times reports. He suffered a cardiac arrest, according to his family, and died in Manhattan, where he lived. Coleman's greatest breakthrough came in 1959 with his album The Shape of Jazz to Come, a break from the bebop style that had been so influential in the genre, and a landmark in avant-garde jazz. His music polarised jazz fans, with reports of people walking out of shows, or arguing at his gigs with fellow audience members. In 2007, Coleman told the Guardian why he had adopted his approach to the saxophone. "They were playing changes, " he said of the bebop players, "they weren't playing movements. I was trying to play ideas, changes, movements and non-transposed notes." Coleman, indeed, brought a new vocabulary to jazz, in the widest terms: melody, instrumentation and technique were all taken in new directions in his music. He received the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2007 for his album Sound Grammar. write your comments about the article :: © 2015 Jazz News :: home page |