Ornette's remarks after getting his lifetime achievement grammy

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From a blog called The Jazz Clinic:, here's the speech that Ornette Coleman gave after receiving a lifetime achievement award, part of the un-telecast Grammy festivities. (I'd not heard about this anywhere until my friend Fabio emailed it the other day -- reposting here, OK.)

Ornette Coleman's Lifetime Achievement Acceptance Speech (starting with Charlie Haden’s comments)

CH: Tonight NARAS is presenting an award that goes to the deepest and most beautiful part of music--deep and beautiful like Bach, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and Ornette Coleman.

Ornette opened up a whole new world of musical discovery and exploration. That journey of music being born for the first time, continues today in his compositions and improvisation.

Over the years we’ve played many concerts and many, many recordings together and even now, when I play music with him it’s the most exciting and rewarding musical experience of my life. I am honored to present this Lifetime A A to the great Ornette Coleman.

OC: It is really very, very real to be here tonight, in relationship to life and death and I’m sure they both love each other.

I really don’t have any present thoughts about why I’m standing here other than trying to figure out something to say that could be useful to someone that believes.

One of the things I am experiencing is very important and that is: You don’t have to die to kill and you don’t have to kill to die. And above all, nothing exists that is not in the form of life because life is eternal with or without people so we are grateful for life to be here at this very moment.

For myself, I’d rather be human than to be dead. And I would also die to be human. So you can’t die, you can’t die to be neither one, regardless of what you say or think so that’s why I believe that music itself is eternal in relationship to sound, meaning, intelligence…all the things that have to have something to do with being alive because you were born and because someone else made it possible for you to be here, which we call our parents etc. etc.

For me, the most eternal thing is that I would like to live until I learn what it is and what it isn’t…that is, how do we kill death since it kills everything?

And it’s hard to realize that being in the human form is not as easy as wondering what is going to happen to you even if you do know what it is and it doesn’t depend on if you know what is going to happen to you.

No one can know anything that life creates since no one is life itself. And it’s obvious, at least I believe, it’s obvious the one reason why we as human beings get there and do things that seem to be valuable to us in relationship to intelligence… uh, what is it called…creativity and love and all the things that have to do with waking up every morning believing it’s going to be a better day today or tomorrow and yet at the same time death, life, sadness, anger, fear, all of those things are present at the same time as we are living and breathing.

It is really, really eternal, this that we are constantly being created as human beings to know that exists and it’s really, really unbelievable to know that nothing that’s alive can die unless it’s been killed. So what we should try to realize is to remove that part of what it is so that whatever we are, life is all there is and I thank you very much.

― Mike McGooney-gal, Saturday, 17 March 2007 21:48 (nineteen years ago)

this just blew my mind.

― jonathan - stl, Saturday, 17 March 2007 21:53 (nineteen years ago)

thanks for that, Mike.

I need to sit down now.

― sleeve, Saturday, 17 March 2007 21:59 (nineteen years ago)

An interview with Ornette Coleman is the greatest test your average portable tape recorder (not to mention the cassette in it) will ever undergo, because you the journalist will spend hours running the tape back saying, "Did he just say what now?" and double-and triple-checking your transcriptions, and once you're done with all that, the real ordeal begins, which is attempting to yank a concise quote out of a five- or ten-minute answer. Plus, of course, re-reading what he said over and over again and only finally understanding it on every level on which he meant it (and probably a few unconscious resonances that just slipped in there unbidden) after the seventh or eighth time through. I am decidedly not one of those people who believes black musicians are innately in touch with some kind of great spirit of universal love and music-making or whatever, but talking to Ornette Coleman made me question my skepticism. I can't imagine how musicians can even steel themselves internally to get up and play with the guy. As open and generous as he is, it still must be terrifying to take that challenge as a player.

― unperson, Saturday, 17 March 2007 22:03 (nineteen years ago)

Great stuff. Ornette truly is the jazz Dylan (or, chronologically, Dylan is the folk-rock Ornette). They should get him in to do a Theme Time Hour or three sooner rather than later...after all the man is 77...

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 19 March 2007 08:46 (nineteen years ago)

i wonder what books he reads, is this a unique Ornette philosophy?

― rizzx, Monday, 19 March 2007 09:15 (nineteen years ago)

personally I'll take Ornette's theories on killing and death and humanity over Notorious B.I.G's

― m coleman, Monday, 19 March 2007 10:24 (nineteen years ago)

Indeed.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 19 March 2007 10:48 (nineteen years ago)

Free Speech

― Hurting 2, Monday, 19 March 2007 13:06 (nineteen years ago)

i have a feeling he reads a lot of mystics and physicists. and mystical physicists and physicist mystics. i met some sisters who are nuns that talked exactly like this. so awesome.

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 13:19 (nineteen years ago)

This reminds me of a panel discussion with Cecil Taylor that I read. Equally cosmic.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 19 March 2007 13:28 (nineteen years ago)

He's not a Scientologist, is he?

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Monday, 19 March 2007 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

No, he's a Harmolodist.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 19 March 2007 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

It's a bit Sun Ra too

― Tom D., Monday, 19 March 2007 13:32 (nineteen years ago)

check out this recent radio interview w/Cecil Taylor dropping some cosmic myth-science. there's a classic bit where the host sorta asks "wtf ru on abt" and CT calmly replies "we're talking about music..."

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/episodes/2007/03/06

― m coleman, Monday, 19 March 2007 13:38 (nineteen years ago)

haha awesome.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 19 March 2007 13:45 (nineteen years ago)

personally I'll take Ornette's theories on killing and death and humanity over Notorious B.I.G's

m coleman on Monday, 19 March 2007 10:24 (3 hours ago)

not to ruin the vibe here, but this isn't a fair comparison. if biggie were alive 50 years from now maybe he'd be all wise and shit when he got his lifetime achievement award.

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 13:58 (nineteen years ago)

But he won't be, and life isn't fair, so deal with it.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 19 March 2007 14:59 (nineteen years ago)

oh yeah i forgot life isn't fair. nevermind say whatever bullshit you want about dead people in that case.

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 15:00 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's kind of patronizing to talk about how "great" disjointed comments like Ornette Coleman's are. I mean, it's funny to a point, but I don't find it profound. I find it nonsensical.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 19 March 2007 15:19 (nineteen years ago)

yeah so is the tao te ching

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 15:29 (nineteen years ago)

profound + nonsensical

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 15:30 (nineteen years ago)

you mu st not understand everything is par tof the unfolding

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 15:31 (nineteen years ago)

thats ok though because that is also part of the unfolding

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 15:31 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's kind of patronising for people to dismiss Ornette's comments as nonsensical.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 19 March 2007 15:32 (nineteen years ago)

Life may not be fair Marcello but surely we ourselves can try to be!

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 19 March 2007 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

"Life isn't fair, I'm not fair, you're both sacked"
(CJ)

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 19 March 2007 15:52 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's kind of patronising for people to dismiss Ornette's comments as nonsensical.

Life isn't fair.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:29 (nineteen years ago)

the dude talks like he solos!

― tylerw, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:29 (nineteen years ago)

Exactly.

Anyone prepared to dismiss it as nonsensical should maybe stick to Michael Bolton CDs for the rest of their "lives."

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:32 (nineteen years ago)

nonsensical works as short hand for that type of thing just fine i think though i realize it has bad connotations

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:36 (nineteen years ago)

Alan Alda's had a colourful life.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:47 (nineteen years ago)

Howbout "elliptical"? That's a fairly open-ended non-judgemental term.

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:53 (nineteen years ago)

yes that works for me

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:54 (nineteen years ago)

yoko ono and ornette coleman had sex

― tornup_andhurt, Monday, 19 March 2007 16:55 (nineteen years ago)

u mad because i'm stylin on radical will

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 19 March 2007 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

can we just have a comfortable middle-ground? like maybe he's not crazy or on drugs, maybe he's not unlocking the keys of the universe, maybe he's just riffing on life and death and playing language games with phrases he picked up from reading philosophy

FWIW i think it's not particularly opaque, actually it's sort of your standard hip-pseud blend of zen + hegel and the last paragraph in particular is very straightforward if you read it as "we are constantly being created as human beings to know what exists"

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 19 March 2007 17:08 (nineteen years ago)

what

xpost

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 19 March 2007 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

xxpost i guess

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 19 March 2007 17:10 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's particularly opaque. But I don't read a lot of Continental philosophy **** either. Maybe some day I will and the scales will fall from my eyes.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 19 March 2007 17:27 (nineteen years ago)

Killing and dying aren't the same thing. I know that, and I'm grateful to be alive. After all, life exists with our without me. While our lives are finite, life itself goes on forever and encompasses everything.

Of course, I'd rather be human than dead. But I'd die to be human. That's funny, right? Problem is, you can't die to be human. That's why music must be eternal in the same sense that life itself is. It embodies intelligence, creativity, soul: all the things that make life continuous.

I want to live until I understand how to defeat death. But actually being human isn't as easy as wondering about life and death, even if you think you have all the answers. Since we're merely "of life", we can't really know life. In fact, we do what we do largely because we don't understand, because the parts of life we can accept are always held in check by those we can't.

The cycle is eternal: life makes life to know life, to know death, and to make more life. If we could only remove the part of the equation that isn't life, then we could be as eternal as the process of life itself.

― Pye Poudre, Monday, 19 March 2007 17:56 (nineteen years ago)

[an attempt to explain Ornette's remarks to myself]

― Pye Poudre, Monday, 19 March 2007 17:57 (nineteen years ago)

i think you left out the bit about how the process of struggling to understand life is what life is but yeah that's about the long + short of it

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 19 March 2007 18:01 (nineteen years ago)

yeah theres nothing especially crazy or groundbreaking about what he said. i just thought it was cool. i like people like that.

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

hegel and continential philosophy dont have a monopoly on this shit btw

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

well those 19th century german guys were all into reading buddhism, right?

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 19 March 2007 18:11 (nineteen years ago)

i've only read excerpts from hegel (thank god). my phil department is very anti-continental, but yeah i'm sur ethey were into buddhism and hinduism and stuff just like the transcedentalists.

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 18:12 (nineteen years ago)

i am into this holsim stuff and read a lot of old organic farming texts and its all the same shit.

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 18:14 (nineteen years ago)

i say shit too much

― artdamages, Monday, 19 March 2007 18:22 (nineteen years ago)

Anyway, I already posted his comments on some other thread a while ago. (Hahahaha.)

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 19 March 2007 18:41 (nineteen years ago)

actually his comments remind me of how when i was a kid i was obsessed with madeline l'engels "wind in the door" and there's a whole bit in there about how we have to name things or they'll disappear and how everything that's unnameable is the opposite of life, and then i was reading lacan this weekend and POW there's this whole bit about death being the unnameable thing. i think it was in phantom tollbooth too.

maybe i will listen to "golden circle stockholm" tonight in honor of thread

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 19 March 2007 18:50 (nineteen years ago)

Ornette truly is the jazz Dylan

more like the jazz Jean-Claude van Damme..

― poortheatre, Thursday, 22 March 2007 16:33 (nineteen years ago)

qualify

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 22 March 2007 16:47 (nineteen years ago)

"Le meilleur conseil que je puisse donner à quelqu'un pour réussir dans le monde du cinéma, c'est de ne pas écouter les bruits du monde, mais écouter le silence de l'âme. Tous les gens te diront dans la vie : c'est impossible, t'es trop loin, c'est pas faisable, c'est trop dur. Ça, c'est les bruits du monde ! Mais les gens n'écoutent jamais le silence, qui est un son de l'âme. C'est-à-dire se remettre sur soi-même, à l'intérieur de soi-même et de demander à soi-même ce que l'on veut réaliser dans la vie... "

"The best advice i can give to someone to succeed in the world of cinema: don't listen to the sounds of the world, but to listen to the silence of the soul. Everyone will tell you this: it's impossible, you're too far, you can't do it, it's too hard. These-- these are the sounds of the world. But the people never listen to the silence, which is a sound of the soul. That is to say, put yourself back on yourself, to the interior of yourself and ask yourself what you want to achieve in life..."

(rough, quick translation)

"Il faut que tu soit AWARE" etc

― poortheatre, Friday, 23 March 2007 02:18 (nineteen years ago)

wow that's a mind-blowing speech. i love how relaxed and riff-y it is, but at the same time it is so heavy and follows it's own kind of lucidity.

― tricky, Friday, 23 March 2007 04:55 (nineteen years ago)

Come to think of it, Tricky's about the closest we've ever come to a pop Ornette.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 23 March 2007 08:31 (nineteen years ago)

whah? tricky?

― Mike McGooney-gal, Saturday, 24 March 2007 07:23 (nineteen years ago)

I never really understood why there was so much ink spilled over Tricky. I like his work with Massive Attack lots, but his solo material never really moved me; Brits seem to rhapsodize over the guy though.

Can anyone help me get this?

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 24 March 2007 16:55 (nineteen years ago)

Answer: weed.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 24 March 2007 16:57 (nineteen years ago)

wow, i just looked him up and tricky had an album out in 2003. who knew? and he covered the lovecats? like, wow.

― scott seward, Saturday, 24 March 2007 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

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