Jazz

7 COLEMAN, Ornette. Harmolodics – an autograph musical manuscript. New York: c.1980 ornette outlines harmolodics A remarkable piece; we can trace no other Ornette Coleman musical manuscript ever having appeared on the market. Written in brown felt-tip, the sheet is inscribed lower right in black ink: “To Anthony Thanks For Everything Ornette Coleman”. Harmolodics was the name that Coleman gave to his unique musical philosophy and compositional/ improvisational method, which he enigmatically defined as “the use of the physical and the mental of one’s own logic made into an expression of sound to bring about the musical sensation of unison executed by a single person or with a group”. Applied specifically to music, it means that “harmony, melody, speed, rhythm, time and phrases all have equal position in the results that come from the placing and spacing of ideas” (Coleman, pp. 54–5). It has been suggested that Coleman drew on Boulez’s concept of aleatory music for harmolodics, while early Coleman advocate Gunther Schuller suggested that it is based in the superimposition of the same or similar phrases, thus developing polytonality and heterophony. Coleman was apparently working on an expository text on harmolodics from the 70s, but this has never appeared, and the only extended explanation is contained in the article quoted above. He also used the name “Harmolodic” for his record label. Ornette Coleman (1930–2015) was one of the most powerful and contentious innovators in the history of jazz; his work was publicly dismissed by many of the previous generation of iconoclasts, such as Monk and Miles, but actively promoted by the impeccably restrained John Lewis. Probably the best summation of the paradoxical paradigm that was Ornette Coleman comes from Mingus who said: “Now aside from the fact that I doubt he can even play a C scale in whole notes – tied whole notes, a couple of bars apiece – in tune, the fact remains that his notes and lines are so fresh. So when Symphony Sid played his record, it made everything else he was playing, even my own record that he played, sound terrible” (Mingus). This piece is from the collection of Anthony Murrell. Introduced to Ornette Coleman by Don Cherry, with whom he shared a loft on Christy St in Fremont, California, Murrell assisted Coleman in sorting and archiving materials when he bought the former Public School #4, at 203 Rivington Street at Pitt on the Lower East Side in 1981, and was in the process of moving into a top-floor classroom. Coleman extracted the

trane’s down beat award for soprano sax

Provenance: by descent from the family; then through auction, being lot 345 at Guernsey’s landmark Jazz at Lincoln Center sale of 20 February 2005. Medium-stain wooden “shield-shaped” plaque, slot on verso for hanging, similarly shaped brass panel mounted to front and secured with slotted button-head screws, foliate frame in black, the engraving reading: “John Coltrane, Miscellaneous Instrument, Jazz Critics Poll, Down Beat, 1963”. A few light abrasions and minor scratches otherwise very good and bright; together with the relevant issue of Down Beat magazine (18 Jul. 1963). ¶ David N. Baker, The Jazz Style of John Coltrane: A Musical and Historical Perspective, 1980; Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, ninth edition, 2008; Leonard Feather, Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties , 1966. £15,000 [147632]

sheet from the material that they were working through, and inscribed it for Murrell. Folio, single leaf of musical score paper extracted from original comb-bound volume, printed staves, titled and with eight lines of musical notation in brown felt-tip. Housed in a black quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. A little browned, some light soiling, “sneaker” print (?) verso, top corners creased and small piece of cellophane tape top right, but overall very good. ¶ Ornette Coleman, “Prime Time for Harmolodics”, Down Beat, Jul. 1983; Charles Mingus, “The Blindfold Test”, Down Beat, 28 Apr. 1960. £10,000 [103666] 8 COLTRANE, John. Down Beat Award for Miscellaneous Instrument, 1963. Chicago: Down Beat, 1963

Wonderful memento from the last years of the great tenorist’s career. Coltrane’s poll win in the inevitably rather prosaic-sounding “Miscellaneous Instrument” category was, in fact, for his pioneering work with the soprano sax, added to his repertoire in 1960. His most famous outing on the straight horn remains that year’s “remarkable, unsettling performance” of “My Favorite Things” (Cook & Morton). David Baker, in his study of Coltrane’s art, remarks, “Coltrane, virtually singlehandedly, brought the soprano sax to unprecedented popularity”. Not since Bechet had the instrument been employed to such potent and startling effect. Leonard Feather described Trane’s sound on soprano as “sinuous and serpentine”, employing a “pinched high pitched near- human cry of anguish that is most effective”.

JAZZ

All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk

Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online