Ornette: Made in America (1985)'s comments

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RonJensen

https://noodlemagazine.com/watch/22608990_161559436
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3 years 7 months ago

I don't have enough of an ear for jazz to appreciate Ornette Coleman's music, which is probably why Shirley Clarke's Ornette: Made in America left me a little cold. I won't dispute that Coleman is an interesting artist and rightly celebrated. His connection to space science as much as visionary ways of making music make him an unusual futurist. But while the documentary enamored of him specifically, it didn't really manage to make me enjoy his work. Like his detractors, I find it cacophonous, just every instrument overlapping into a mess. Clarke attempts to "free jazz" the film as well. It jumps around Coleman's life, the editing at times frenetic and jagged, just like the music. It even made me think it would take a sharp turn into speculative fiction at some point, in the reenactment portion of the piece, but it didn't really. Intrigued by it all, but I just don't have the background to properly enjoy it.

3 years 4 months ago