Ornette Coleman - North Sea Jazz Festival 1987

Poster Ornette Coleman. North Sea Jazz Festival 1987. 118 x 80 cm. Ornette Coleman (Fort Worth, 1930 – New York, 2015) was an American jazz musician and composer who was considered one of the founders of free jazz from the 1950s and 1960s. He mainly played alto sax, but also tenor saxophone, violin and trumpet.
Coleman's musical views could be called unorthodox. He was less interested in playing structured harmony and chord progression and more in dissonant solo playing. Former band leaders sometimes did not understand Coleman's views and he was therefore continually fired. He struggled to find like-minded musicians, but did work for a short period with pianist Paul Bley. He formed the Ornette Coleman Quartet with Don Cherry (trumpet), Billy Higgins (drums) and Charlie Haden (bass), and recorded his first album, Something Else!!!!, in 1958. Coleman's improvised albums without predetermined key and melody provoked much discussion, and he developed into both the leading and most criticized free jazz musician during this period. His style influenced artists such as John Coltrane and Albert Ayler. In his later career he started to focus on electric instruments. He formed the group Prime Time in 1976, in which he combined avant-garde jazz with funk. In 2007, Coleman was awarded a Grammy for lifetime achievement. His album Sound Grammar won a Pulitzer Prize for music that same year. The poster is slightly wrinkled along the edge.