Ornette Coleman: The Territory and the Adventure [Paperback]

With striking photographs and personal insight, a compelling biography of the great American saxophonist and free jazz innovator Ornette Coleman.

Ornette Coleman’s career encompassed the glory years of jazz and the American avant-garde. Born in segregated Fort Worth, Texas, during the Great Depression, the African-American composer and musician was zeitgeist incarnate. Steeped in the Texas blues tradition, he and jazz grew up together, as the brassy blare of big band swing gave way to bebop—a faster music for a faster, postwar world. At the luminous dawn of the Space Age and New York’s 1960s counterculture, Coleman gave voice to the moment. Lauded by some, maligned by many, he forged a breakaway art sometimes called “the new thing” or “free jazz.” Featuring previously unpublished photographs of Coleman and his contemporaries, this book tells the compelling story of one of America’s most adventurous musicians and the sound of a changing world.Maria Goliamanaged one of America’s premier progressive music venues, the Caravan of Dreams Performing Arts Center, in Fort Worth, Texas, Ornette Coleman’s hometown. Her previous books includeCairo: City of Sand,Photography and Egypt, andMeteorite: Nature and Culture, all also published by Reaktion Books.