The Sunday Poem:“Ornette Coleman (2)=Walt Whitman (2)+Allen Ginsberg (2)” by Miho Kinnas and E. Ethelbert Miller
Our poems are triangles.
Isosceles triangles disguised as odes.
Our sonnets too square for Ornette Coleman.
August 1st, 2026
ornette coleman
From the Interview Archive: Ornette Coleman biographer Maria Golia
In this April, 2020 interview, Ms. Golia discusses her book and the artist whose philosophy and the astounding, adventurous music he created served to continually challenge the skeptical status quo, and made him a guiding light of the artistic avant-garde throughout a career spanning seven decades.
...August 28th, 2025
Interview with Jonathon Grasse: author of Jazz Revolutionary: The Life and Music of Eric Dolphy
Eric Dolphy was one of jazz music’s first true multi-instrumentalists, and a pioneer of avant-garde technique. His life cut short in 1964 at the age of 36, his brilliant career touched fellow musical artists, critics, and fans of jazz music through his innovative work as a composer and bandleader. Jonathon Grasse’s Jazz Revolutionary effectively inspires readers to experience a deep and personal exploration of this unique artist’s historic recorded works, reminding us of the complexity of his biography along the way. He discusses his book – the first full biography of Eric Dolphy – in a December, 2024 interview.
...December 28th, 2024
The Blues, Classical, Jazz, Soul and Rock — in five poems
In five separate poems, poets write of Robert Johnson, Beethoven, Ornette Coleman, Duke Fakir and The Band
...October 10th, 2022
Three poems…by Michael L. Newell
Cool, cool, ineffably cool,
his trumpet grieves with
a restraint barely able to be
embraced by listeners, his music
is pain on ice, whiskey frozen
September 13th, 2022
Playlist: Compositions of Ornette Coleman
Contributing writer Bob Hecht’s 40-song playlist features 20 compositions by Ornette Coleman that alternates a cover version of an Ornette composition – often by a pianist or other harmonically-based instrument – followed by Ornette’s original version. It provides a nice perspective on the beauty of his music, even for those who may not particularly be fans.
...September 15th, 2021
Interview with Alyn Shipton, author of The Art of Jazz
An interview with The Art of Jazz author Alyn Shipton, whose book is an exploration of how jazz influenced sheet music art, album art, posters, photography, and individual works of fine art.
...April 25th, 2021
Interview with Maria Golia, author of Ornette Coleman: The Territory And The Adventure
Ms. Golia discusses her book and the artists whose philosophy and the astounding, adventurous music he created served to continually challenge the skeptical status quo, and made him a guiding light of the artistic avant-garde throughout a career spanning seven decades.
...May 30th, 2020
“Charles Ingham’s Jazz Narratives” — Vol. 7
Charles Ingham’s “Jazz Narratives” connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history. This edition’s narratives are “Torn from Its Moorings”, “Watching the Sea” and “Plantations”
...May 16th, 2020
“An Interview with Lee Konitz” — by Bob Hecht and Grover Sales
Bob Hecht hosts a previously unpublished 1985 interview with the late, great jazz saxophonist Lee Konitz, featuring photography and music
...April 22nd, 2020
Book Excerpt — Ornette Coleman: Territory and Adventure, by Maria Golia
In the introduction to Maria Golia’s Ornette Coleman: The Territory and the Adventure – excerpted here in its entirety – the author takes the reader through the four phases of the brilliant musician’s career her book focuses on.
...April 9th, 2020
“Pressed for All Time,” Vol. 2 — producer John Snyder on Ornette Coleman
In this edition, Michael Jarrett interviews producer John Snyder about the experience of working with Ornette Coleman at the time of his 1977 album Dancing in Your Head for Horizon Records — a division of A & M Records (under Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss)
...July 26th, 2019
Two poems by John Jack Jackie (Edward) Cooper
. . . . Trajet Introspeculative — to Sun Ra, Saturday night: on one (actually, Sun Da morning) — terrible swift disin- clination to forgive the equally terrible tyranny of time signa- ture, attesting to what can, which must not — that, that ken abundant wherever choi- ces be told: rs, joints, and drums, … Continue reading “Two poems by John Jack Jackie (Edward) Cooper”
...May 7th, 2019
Jazz History Quiz #111
This bassist played in Ornette Coleman’s early bands before eventually leading the Liberation Music Orchestra, where he became known as one of free jazz’s founding fathers. Who is he?
Jaco Pastorius
Charlie Haden
Stanley Clarke
Dave Holland
Ron Carter
Jimmy Garrison
Steve Swallow
Go to the next page for the answer!
...
April 18th, 2018
“Ornette’s Permanent Revolution” — a 1985 essay by Francis Davis
While hunting around the Internet for tributes of Ornette Coleman (a collection of which I will attempt to point readers toward tomorrow), I was reminded of the critic Francis Davis’s essay titled “Ornette’s Permanent Revolution.” Originally published in the September, 1985 edition of The Atlantic, Davis, now the jazz critic for the Village Voice, writes eloquently about the complexities of the great saxophonist’s “clean break from convention.” It is a worthy and timely read…
_____
All hell broke loose when the alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman made his East Coast nightclub debut, at the Five Spot Cafe, in Greenwich Village on November 17, 1959—twenty-five years ago last fall.
The twenty-nine-year-old Coleman arrived in New York having already won the approval of some of the most influential jazz opinion makers of the period. “Ornette Coleman is doing the only really new thing in jazz since the innovations in the mid-forties of
...June 17th, 2015
Memorable Quotes — Ornette Coleman
“Making music is like a form of religion for me, because it soothes your heart and increases the pleasure of your brain. Most of all, it’s very enjoyable to express something that you can only hear and not see, which is not bad.”
– Ornette Coleman
1930 – 2015
...June 11th, 2015
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In this Issue
The Sunday Poem
The Sunday Poem: “Improvisations on a May-December Romance,” by Daniel Klawitter
The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work...
Daniel Klawitter reads his poem at its conclusion.
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