Jeffrey Morgan

MUS 690
11/5/2018
Coleman Reception Essay

“A genius, or is he just a nut?”1 This sensational quote is the leading statement of one

review of Coleman’s second album, Tomorrow is the Question!, and it describes the most

general reaction to his music by both the listening public and by his peers in the jazz scene as

well. From the beginning of the decade to the end, Coleman began and remained a

controversial figure even as his commercial popularity waxed and waned.

Even before Free Jazz, Coleman had already achieved notoriety in the New York jazz

scene. A New Yorker interview with the young musician is quicked to place him as one of the

new greats of the sixties, introducing him as “the cause of [an] impressive disturbance, which

has been equalled in jazz only by the Louis Armstrong eruption in the early twenties…” and

continues to liken him to practically every revolutionary artist from each previous decade.2 The

interview presents Coleman as a new phenomenon in jazz but carefully side-steps his critical

reception, focusing instead on his musical innovation. The article mentions that many of the jazz

greats have gone to see him play at the Five Spot, but does not elaborate on whether or not

they liked what they heard.

“Controversial” seems to describe most critics’ and musicians’ opinions of him. Even

though Free Jazz was a relatively successful album commercially, reactions to Coleman’s music

were rarely ambivalent - “[Free Jazz] might be called chaos by some, or ecstacy by Coleman

fans.”3

1 Tony Hall, “Ornette Coleman: A Genius, Or Is He Just a ‘Nut’?” Disc, Feb. 18, 1961, 14.
2 “The True Essence,” New Yorker, June 4, 1960, 33.
3 “Spotlight Album of the Week,” Billboard Music Week, October 2, 1961, 66.
 A 1962 double review of Free Jazz encapsulates the polarizing nature of Coleman’s

music. The first reviewer praises the album, describing it as largely successful and “a forceful,

impassioned work… the ultimate manifesto of the new wave of young jazz expressionists.”4 The

review also praises the sincerity of the album and the ideas presented within stating “there is

nothing of smugness or complacency about [the album].”5

The second reviewer finds Free Jazz insufferable. Rather than an “ultimate manifesto,”

Free Jazz is an indulgent piece of nihilistic “eight-man emotional regurgitation... the logical end

product of a bankrupt philosophy of ultraindividualism[sic] in music.”6 The reviewer gives the

double quartett “top marks” for the “[attempt] to destroy the music that gave them birth.”7

At the beginning of his career, Coleman’s sincerity was often doubted, with a “cosmopolitan

decrying ‘They’ve gone too far!” at one of his performances.8 This dismayed him; the “bitterness

of the debate”9 shocked him, and he largely withdrew from the jazz scene in the middle of sixties

to find more commercial success in Europe, and to teach himself violin and trumpet. When he

returned in the late sixties, his jazz credentials were no longer questioned, although his musical

style remained as idiosyncratic as it was at the beginning of the decade.

Bibliography

Hall, Tony. “Ornette Coleman: A Genius, Or Is He Just a ‘Nut’?” Disc, February 18, 1961.

Hentoff, Nat. “Cosmo Listens to Records,” Cosmopolitan, July 1966

4 Pete Welding, “Double View of a Double Quartet,” Downbeat Magazine, January 18, 1962. Review 1.
5 ibid.
6 John A. Tynan, “Double View of a Double Quartet,” Downbeat Magazine, January 18, 1962. Review 2.
7 ibid.
8 Nat Hentoff, “Cosmo Listens to Records: THE BIG THREE!” Cosmopolitan, August 1967, 12.
9 Nat Hentoff, “Cosmo Listens to Records,” Cosmopolitan, July 1966, 16.
Hentoff, Nat. “Cosmo Listens to Records: THE BIG THREE!” Cosmopolitan, August 1967.

“Spotlight Album of the Week,” Billboard Music Week, October 2, 1961.

“The True Essence,” New Yorker, June 4, 1960.

Tynan, John A. “Double View of a Double Quartet,” Downbeat Magazine, January 18, 1962.
Review 2.

Welding, Pete. “Double View of a Double Quartet,” Downbeat Magazine, January 18, 1962.
Review 1.