Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fight them, without becoming them!

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Accountability, motherfuckers.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

You are here: Home / Music / Ornette Coleman RIP

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20Comments

  3. 3.

    Brachiator

    “Una Muy Bonita,” great choice.

    Ornette, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass, Billy Higgins on drums

    Learned a lot from Haden talking about playing with Coleman:

    “Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry & Billy Higgins and I were lucky enough to have met at the same time as we were feeling the same way about music and that feeling was to play music as if we were hearing it for the first time and creating a new chord structure as we improvised…playing with Ornette was a learning experience, definitely. I had to really listen to everything that he played because he was always modulating from one key to another and I was the only chordal instrument in the band. There was no piano or guitar playing chords and so I had to play chords in my basslines and learn how to create new chord structures. It was a great band.”

  4. 4.

    J

    One of the greatest of them all, and an artist who followed his own completely distinctive muse. He will be missed.

  5. 5.

    burnspbesq

    One of the greats. His music could be difficult to get into (I’d venture to guess that more people have heard Pat Metheny’s version of “Lonely Woman” than any of Ornette’s recordings), but the effort was richly rewarded.

  6. 6.

    Howlin Wolfe

    I was in the subway in NYC in 1980, and Ornette came walking my way. I immediately recognized him from the album covers I have in my collection of LPs. Without thinking, just said out loud, as if he were a friend of mine, “Ornette!”. He looked me like “who the hell is this?”, so I just said I really like his playing and shook his hand. He said “thank you” in that high-pitched voice of his, and went on his way. Later that week (I was there for the Kool Jazz Festival, which say Ornette and Miles Davis come out of multi-year retirements to play there), I heard Ornette’s quartet with Jamaladeed Takumah on bass, and Denardo Coleman on drums.

    He and I also share a birthday, March 9. RIP, fellow Pisces. Wish I could play saxophone as well as you did, Ornette.

  7. 7.

    Ajabu

    I know this is not an Open Thread but this is appropriate:
    Craig Herndon, drummer in my first band in College (Berklee-Boston) died Monday of Prostate Cancer.
    I knew Craig for 52 years. He was an extraordinary musician but, more importantly, he was the most gentle soul I’ve ever known. And always interested in everyone else’s issues. When my wife’s mother died in 1999 Craig spent hours on the phone with her stabilizing her trauma. And at that point, he barely knew her. That was just his personality. In over a half century of friendship I never heard him raise his voice in anger, Never once. An incredible person.He’d always reason with adversaries and win them over.
    He never became famous (in spite of his skill) because he was just about the music.
    I’m so glad I knew him and wanted you all to know him, too.
    I’ll go find some 40+ year old tape and post up some music soon.
    He wasn’t into Invisible Sky Fairies so all the recognition of his passing will be friends. There were many.
    Listent to some 60s Jazz and raise a glass to Craig Herndon, Human being extraodinaire!

  8. 8.

    bystander

    When I read that both Ron Moody and Christopher Lee had passed away, I of course thought of The Rule of Three.

  12. 12.

    Gin & Tonic

    As I remarked in an earlier thread, when Coleman put out an album entitled “The Shape of Jazz to Come”, he had the chops to make that title sound not like hubris, but like a matter of fact.

  18. 18.

    Arclite

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    I’m sad about Christopher Lee, but he had outlived most of his closest friends, so I may be more sad than he may have been.

    He may have been sadder. For what is life without friends?

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    @Ajabu: Beautiful tribute to your friend, a fine soul. RIP Craig Herndon.

    I will raise a glass to him tonight but — goddamn! — too many to raise a glass to tonight. Haven’t seen Christopher Lee’s more recent star turns, but he was good in the Hammer films, and seems not to have taken himself too seriously.

    Ornette Coleman: too soon, after BBKing in recent weeks.

    Rest and godspeed, gentlemen.

  20. 20.

    Elizabelle

    @Howlin Wolfe: Like your story. How cool to have met him.

    Remind us on March 9th and we will raise a glass to you and Ornette. (Balloon Juice. Some of us still like to drink! And a toast with a glass of ginger ale or soda is still a glass raised.)

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