The Skies Of America

Even though I would never consider myself a jazz musician, perhaps the most inspiring and liberating musician I have ever encountered is Ornette Coleman.
Ornette Coleman is a true American iconoclast who has always stood apart from any trend or mainstream, yet his influence has been felt for many years in American and world jazz. Listening and being influenced by Coleman taught me the art of improvisation and a new way to play and compose music.

Coleman has developed his personal music esthetic which he calls "harmolodics", in which there is no key, no fixed scale. Almost anything can and does happen, yet the music creates its own structure and logic. His modulations have a fresh sometimes abrupt sound to them which seem to be the result of subordinating the chordal underpinning on which most music is based to the movement of melody. A certain melodic interval thus suggests a number of different chord changes, any one of which is "correct".

Ornette played in the 50's and 60's on the West Coast, gradually developing his concepts. I first started to listen to him in the early 1970's with his release, Dancing In Your Head, with his band, Prime Time. Side one of the record was the composition, Dancing In Your Head and the other side was Coleman playing with Morrocan tribal musicians, using his harmolodic technique to create spontaneous music with them.

In 1970, Ornette recorded his symphonic composition called, The Skies Of America. For me it was a powerful and moving experience to listen to. I felt he had created a sound scape in which I could sense the movement of the skies above the land. He had created a kinetic soundscape of geographical dimensions. It was quite by chance that I decided to see if there was any visual record of this music and, Voila!