This Is His Music

Ornette was looking over his shoulder more than usual at Lincoln Center on Saturday night. Though I’ve got nothing against his comparatively newer tunes (most all the ditties from In All Languages forward seem worthy of the saxophonist’s freebop canon), there are certain jewels that generate chills, right? When he looped through “The Sphinx” during the Rose Hall set, and then peppered the program with the relaxed head of “Peace,” there was a unspoken statement being made and it came in the form of a query: how about a little retrospective, y’all? A properly agitated “Blues Connotation” had already breezed by, and to the best of my knowledge, that’s the most Atlantic and Contemporary tunes he’s played in one set in a long time (the usual nods to the late ‘50s and early ‘60s material come in the form of “Turnaround” and “Lonely Woman,” which were also essayed – the latter in a disturbingly gorgeous encore – on Saturday).

The band – Tony Falanga, Al McDowell, and Denardo, natch – were the tightest and most playful I’ve ever seen them, their interaction gleeful, their attention to dynamics acute. At the 2008 Town Hall show with the same band, OC seemed a tad strained in the phraseology department, relying too much on a handful of bedrock licks, and stacking his lines in ways that became frustratingly similar as the set developed. But the band was feeding him all sorts of zingers at Rose Hall (I particularly like the cowboy lope during “Theme From a Symphony”), with McDowell’s electric bass echoing Don Cherry’s cornet scree, and Falanga’s acoustic bass creating a groove that opened the door for the drummer to decorate the tunes as well as drive them. That gave Ornette’s wails – be they short bursts or extended cries – a chance to be rendered in a variety of ways. He sounded very thoughtful about the tilt of his lines. Time to record, OC.

There was something creamy about the band’s blend, too, maybe the wonderful acoustics of the room. It sounded a tad like the atmosphere of Virgin Beauty, the 1988 Prime Time opus that sounded a bit toothless at first, but proved itself to be an exquisite example of everyone working together.

My date for the show, a wise gent, deemed the maestro’s attire to be “Marsaliswear” – the dark suit and tie was the straightest we’ve seen the bandleader onstage in a long time. No luminescent magenta, no neon plaid. But the idiosyncrasies of his literally marvelous art were all in place, and that glance over the shoulder was surely appreciated by those who’ve followed him since he rattled the cages down on St Mark’s Place a half-century ago.

Maybe someone can whisper to OC regarding a set that sticks to nothing but the deep-cut classiques. I’d love to sit through a show that features “When Will The Blues Leave?, “Focus On Sanity,” “Joy Of A Toy,” “European Echoes,” “Humpty Dumpty,” “Just For You,” “Check Out Time,” and “Law Years.”

Which tune would you especially like to hear the foursome blow through?

Here’s a chat with OC where he reminds us that he’s “never lost any interest in knowing what a note is.”