Ornette Coleman

In 1958-59, producer Lester Loenig recorded the first two Ornette Coleman albums for his Contemporary label: "Something Else: The Music of Ornette Coleman" and "Tomorrow Is the Question." A few months later, Coleman attended the Lenox School of Jazz. Many famous musicians were teaching there: Milt Jackson, Max Roach, Bill Russo, Guther Schuller, John Lewis ... Yet, after a few days of the summer courses, the unknown student" Ornette Coleman had attracted more attention than all the famous teachers.
Right away, John Lewis decided that "Ornette Coleman was doing the only really new thing in jazz since the innovations of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker in the forties and since Thelonious Monk. "The leader of the Modern Jazz Quartet described the way Coleman played on his plastic alto with his friend Don Cherry, who used a miniature trumpet, as follows: "They're almost like twins ... I can't imagine how they manage to start together. Never before have I heard that kind of ensemble playing."
Although Coleman was not at all trying to bring about a musical revolution - he always only wanted to make his own music, and otherwise be left alone - there was suddenly the feeling in the jazz world of 1959 that this was a turning point, that a new style was beginning with Ornette Coleman - "He was the new Bird!"
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