" Jody, You have humanized, what it is to play saxophone. I didn't know this level of spontaneity and accuracy was possible before I played your mouthpiece. You have excited me about playing. I feel like there's nothing in my mouth. Knowledge, Heart and Creativity have gone into making this mouthpiece. Every person who plays this mouthpiece will want one"

Early on in his career, alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, recorded
an album entitled, 'The Shape of Jazz To Come.' It might have seemed
like an expression of youthful arrogance - Coleman was 29 at the time -
but actually, the title was prophetic. Coleman is the creator of a
concept of music called "harmolodic," a musical form which is equally
applicable as a life philosophy. The richness of harmolodics derives
from the unique interaction between the players. Breaking out of the
prison bars of rigid meters and conventional harmonic or structural
expectations, harmolodic musicians improvise equally together in
what Coleman calls compositional improvisation, while always keeping
deeply in tune with the flow, direction and needs of their fellow
players. In this process, harmony becomes melody becomes harmony.
Ornette describes it as "Removing the caste system from sound." On a
broader level, harmolodics equates with the freedom to be as you
please, as long as you listen to others and work with them to develop
your own individual harmony.

For his essential vision and innovation, Coleman has been rewarded
by many accolades, including the MacArthur "Genius" Award, and an
induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letter. an honorary
doctorate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, the American
Music Center Letter of Distinction, and the New York State Governor
Arts Award.

But the path to his present universal acclaim has not always been
smooth.

Born in a largely segregated Fort Worth, Texas on March 9, 1930,
Coleman's father died when he was seven. His seamstress mother worked
hard to buy Coleman his first saxophone when he was 14 years old.
Teaching himself sight-reading from a how-to piano book, Coleman
absorbed the instrument and began playing with local rhythm and blues
bands.

In his search for a sound that expressed reality as he perceived it,
Coleman knew he was not alone. The competitive cutting sessions that
denoted 'bebop' were all about self-expression in the highest
form. "I could play and sound like Charlie Parker note-for-note,
but I was only playing it from method. So I tried to figure out
where to go from there," Coleman said.

Los Angeles proved to be the laboratory for what came to be called
free jazz. There began to gather around Ornette a core of players who
would figure largely in his life: a lanky teenage trumpeter, Don Cherry
and a cherubic double bass player with a pensive, muscular style named
Charlie Haden, drummers Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins also joined
the intense exploratory rehearsals in which Coleman was honing his
vocabulary on a plastic sax, despite the lack of live gigs..

But simply by persisting, Coleman's creativity attracted champions.
Bebop bassist, Red Mitchell (an old associate of Cherry's) brought the
saxophone player's to Contemporary Records' Lester Koenig, originally
intending to sell him some of his compositions. After realizing the
difficulty musicians were having in playing the music Koenig asked
Coleman if he could play the tunes himself. The meeting led to the
Coleman’s debut 1958 album, 'Something Else,'.

The energy and electricity that had been building around Ornette and
his players exploded during a now legendary season that Coleman played
at the Five Spot jazz club in New York in November,
1959. Intrigued by rumors of the unorthodox young Texan's
approach, buzz preceded the shows and as the initial two weeks extended
to a six-week run, the revolutionary Coleman quartet became the
must-see event of the season.

And yet, as writer and long-time Coleman associate, Robert Palmer,
observes in his notes to the 'Beauty Is A Rare Thing' box set of
the Atlantic years (Rhino/Atlantic), "The present day listener will
most likely hear these pieces as well conceived and superbly
realized works on their own terms and will again wonder what all the
controversy could have been about."

Coleman soon began to study of the trumpet and violin expanding the
scope of his always prolific composition to include string quartets,
woodwind quintets and symphonic works. Coleman used a Guggenheim
Foundation grant to write a symphony, 'Skies of America,'

Coleman went on a journey to Morocco in 1973, to work with the
Master Musicians of Jajouka in their mountain villages. Following he
also visited villages in Nigeria. Soon upon his return Coleman created
with a new sound that was a full frontal harmolodic attack, a double
whammy of drums and electric bass, dubbed Prime Time.

In 1982, Coleman was commissioned to re-do Skies of America for the Fort Worth Symphony and to write a chamber piece, all part of the opening of Caravan of Dreams in September, 1983. His first albums from those events, Live at the Caravan, and Prime Time/Prime Design (for Buckminster Fuller) were released in 1984. The film Ornette: Made In America, centered around his return to Fort Worth, was released in 1985, as well as In All Languages.
Coleman’s collaboration with jazz-rock guitarist Pat Metheny began towards the end of 1985, leading to 'Song X', a tour and a new audience. Ornette moved into the
broader public consciousness in the late 80s by performing and
recording with the Grateful Dead and their hippy virtuoso guitarist,
Jerry Garcia. The affection and respect which Coleman and the late
Garcia had for one another was captured in the sessions for 1988's
'Virgin Beauty' (CBS/Portrait).

The new autonomy heralded a season in which Coleman began to reap
consistent accolades for his continued adventures in music. He formed
the Harmolodic Label and began an association with Polygram
France. Over the course of the decade Harmolodic released a number
of works beginning with 'Tone Dialing,' on which a Bach prelude is
rendered harmolodically.
Lincoln Center provided the backdrop for Civilization 1997. A
4-night event at Avery Fisher Hall. It began with two nights of Kurt
Masur conducting the New York Philharmonic together with Prime Time.
Perhaps the most eagerly awaited aspect of all four nights was the
first New York appearance in two decades of the Original Quartet,
performing all new material. Hearing the familiar, still stimulating
blend of Coleman, Haden and Higgins was an emotional experience for
many listeners, who found in the depth of the players' empathy a
yardstick of their own lives and the fulfillment of dreams they had
when they first heard the Quartet shatter conceptions of music.
One of the ultimate American accolades, the MacArthur Foundation
"genius" grant, was awarded to Coleman in 1994 and in 2004 he was the
recipient of the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize one of the
largest awards in the arts. In general, rather than simple
concerts, Coleman's performances had by now become big multimedia
events that both reflected and impacted on the host town's community,
lasting for several nights at a significant location.
In 2007, Mr. Coleman received one of the 2007 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Along with this fantastic acknowledgement, Sound Grammar was nominated for a Grammy for “Best Jazz Instrumental Album by an Individual or Group” . In addition, in early 2007 he received several other disctintions, such as the Living Legend Award in Washington, the Texas Medal of the Arts and, most recently, has been awarded with the Pulitzer Prize in Music for Sound Grammar.
A metaphysician, philosopher and eternal student, Coleman continues
to confound categorization. His Harmolodic world continues to expand
along with the concepts of an artist beyond boundaries. "Most
people think of me only as a saxophonist and as a jazz artist," he once
stated, "but I want to be considered as a composer who could cross over
all the borders."

*This Biography is from www.ornettecoleman.com