October 10–17, 1996

critical mass|music

Harmolodic Product

Ornette Coleman's finest work may be his son, Denardo.

By a.d. amorosi

Composer/saxophonist Ornette Coleman is one of the most revered, influential musicians of the past 50 years. Like Pollock, Coltrane or Fellini, his movement into abstract art has caused controversy at every twist and turn.

In his early years, he created the masterpieces Change of the Century and Shape of Jazz to Come along with Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell and Don Cherry. Later on, his scientific theory of shared group composition/interplay/improvisation known as Harmolodics, produced music that defies gravity.

"Harmolodics, in a philosophical sense, says there's many different ways and devices to approach something," explains Ornette's son, Denardo, on the group's creative process. "The musical side does not necessarily throw out the past or its styles. There's freedom without randomness. It's the personal revelation that everyone can create their own language while at the same time communicate with those speaking a different language."

This language has recently been expanded by the simultaneous release of two different albums, Hidden Man and Three Women, that contain different takes of the same pieces. Both albums come under the heading Sound Museum. The music takes Coleman back 32 years to the sweetly dissonant quartet driven by the piano of Geri Allen. Recorded at Coleman's own studio in Harlem, these records have a woody ambience designed by Denardo to capture each delicate movement and relate a sense of timelessness.

The idea for the Museum sessions began in 1994. After Rhino records released Ornette's Atlantic catalog in box form, he was inspired to work again in a quartet setting with his original members. When business and health problems made that impossible, happenstance brought together the Colemans, Geri Allen and bassist Charnett Moffett. Moffett's father Charles not only worked with Ornette on legendary Blue Note Stockholm sessions, but named his son after a combination of Charles and Ornette.

What does the final outcome sound like?

"We're playing in crossing paths," says the 40-year-old Denardo, calling from Harmolodic's New York offices. "None of us approach our instruments in traditional ways. There's a lot of freedom of movement, a lot of unexpected situations," explains the drummer. The best example of the dynamic interplay within Sound Museum is Denardo's out of sequence drum march on "Mob Job."

"That's the most physically demanding of all our pieces. Ornette wanted the fall to have the shape of a military beat, to push the odd swing of my drumming up front; to set it off from the melody. It's a nuance that goes its own way."

Denardo makes both discs swing with a raging pulse. Bringing Geri Allen's intuitive tilt-a-whirl piano back into the mix is an act of divine genius.

"She's leading the charge," says Denardo. "We're all leading the charge. Ornette wasn't writing with pianos in mind. He was interested in the piano because he had Geri in mind. He wrote with her in his head. In terms of entering the rhythm section, she inspires us. She's sensitive. Her approach is pushed, rhythmic."

As well as producing and writing music, Denardo is also a guide and curator. These roles expanded with the sessions that turned into the Sound Museum albums.

"My father likes to write and record a lot of music. After we heard the entire sessions, we found that different interpretations of each song held separate meaning, said different things."

Along with these new CDs comes the re-release of 1976's Body Meta and 1977's Soapsuds;Soapsuds, both screechy and seminal works that paved the way for much of the no-wave school of rock. Coleman's independent spirit has always been his guiding star whether he's playing plastic saxophones, forming his own musical language, running his own independent label or working with other renegades like Jerry Garcia or the Masters of Joujouka.

But Ornette may have created the ultimate "harmolodic" work with his former wife, post-beat, post-bop poet Jayne Cortez, when the two combined to make Denardo.

"I grew up just like any other normal kid would, normal music on the radio, normal friends," he recalls. "I never had any one weird thing pushed down my throat to the disregard of everything else." The only thing different for this kid — who got his first drum kit at age six and recorded his first album at age 10 — were the times "forever hanging out at rehearsal or having a house full of musicians."

As drummer, composer, businessman and producer, Denardo is an energetic personality responsible for almost every aspect of the business of Ornette Coleman. His instincts were honed by his father who began to take him into sessions at age 10, around the time of the Empty Foxhole recording.

"I guess even then I had the capacity to get things done," he recalls. "I developed a musical outlook with Ornette, through him. My production and drumming chops came innately, I guess."

When you listen to the sharp-edged, often angular music that stems from '70s albums like Body Meta, you hear a sound alive with nervous jittery energy that came from the collaboration of father and son; an energy still palpable in newer stuff.

"When I listen to older material I can still hear the essence of how I play today, which is good. A strong current was there. In fact, I probably played better then because I had less stuff to filter through. I have more command now and control of the palate. Maybe you give up freedom for control."

But the Colemans never gave up freedom or control with the Harmolodic venture — a business also based on the elder Coleman's theory of group interaction.

"To really create something significant, you must be able to protect it and project it. Being that I was already in the spiritual and artistic side, the business side was a piece of cake," says Denardo, the label's guiding light. While the business of music has always been hard, the business of the brilliant, yet financially struggling Coleman family must be even harder.

"All musicians get ripped off. Everyone always says there's no money in the jazz world. There's plenty of money there, it just never trickles down to the artist. My father has been so busy trying to create that [while] the business end was left often to those without the same spirit. Nobody knew — as recently as 30 years ago — the many ways of generating income or exploiting the music without making a fool of the musician."

As long as we're talking about the Coleman family tree, we should also look at Denardo's work with his mother, the powerful poetess Jayne Cortez whose Taking the Blues Back Home is a brilliant representation of her investigative cultural prose.

"She's as powerful with words as he is with music. She approaches language on every level, new levels, and takes it apart to find new in-between meanings."

Like his mother and father, the wise and amiable Denardo takes on the legends of sound, time and poetry, deconstructs them and makes them swing.