Ornette: Made in America

You fellows just better

get on out of here.

We're having a big celebration.

You gonna give us

our money back?

You just get back

on over yonder.

Yonder. Get on out of town.

Oh, no.

We're not gonna drop our guns.

We're not even...

Ladies and gentlemen,

Legends of the West welcomes you

to Caravan of Dreams.

I want to read this proclamation

for you, Ornetle,

and then I've got a little gift for you.

All right,

'Whereas Ornette Coleman,

born and reared in the city

of Fort Worth,

has enriched the lives of individuals

of every race, color and creed

as a composer, performer,

and renowned jazz musician,

and whereas Ornette Coleman,

a widely acclaimed figure

in the jazz world

has traveled throughout the United States,

Europe, Japan and Africa

and fashioned for himself

an unchallenged right

to historical prominence;

Whereas Ornette Coleman

has demonstrated

that individual initiative

and the free enterprise system

continue to be

the American way of life

and that success is possible

for all who take advantage

of the opportunities

in our country;

Now, therefore, I, Bob Bolen,

Mayor of the City

of Fort Worth, Texas,

do hereby proclaim

September 29, 1983,

as Ornette Coleman Day

in the city of Fort Worth. "

Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

Although you're

a citizen of Fort Worth,

we want you to have a key

to the city of Fort Worth.

Now, this is a tie clip.

You haven't got a tie on today.

You will later.

But the original of this

was taken to the moon

by Alan Bean,

another Fort Worth native.

Yeah, that's the key to the city.

Where's the moon?

It's a key to the city, right?

He was with the mayor

this afternoon.

Where are the pieces

of the moon?

Yeah, he said it went to the moon.

The key went to the moon?

Why did this key go to the moon?

I don't know, man, you know,

how the mayor recited

the whole document

before he gave it to him, right?

And then he accepted the key.

And it was really nice.

Did you cry?

Did you cry?

No, I didn't cry, man.

It wasn't that sentimental.

It was nice receiving

a key to the city, man.

You know, it's not every day

that something like that happens.

It must be a tie pin.

It says "Fort Worth".

I know, but that's not the key, is it?

Yeah, it looks like a key.

Don't you see it?

Man, the key went to the moon.

It's like when they take objects

to the moon

and stuff like that.

Why would they take that

to the moon?

Just for, you know,

just for the experience.

It's like this has been

to the moon.

Like somebody gives you

a shirt, and it's from Paris.

See that trumpet case

over there...

the mouthpiece?

Looks good.

Cowtown USA.

The mouthpiece...

Now remember, I'm gonna let out

all the dogs.

What is it that you do

that is different

from other drummers

in relationship to playing

without having to have

something to go by'?

It's obvious you don't have

anything to go by,

but yet you're playing

as if you did,

and that is a very modern way

of playing.

I'm just trying to find out

what method do you use

to be correct or be right.

I mean, you're more right

than you are wrong, you know.

I don't know.

I just don't have

any particular method.

So when you do it

it's just a spontaneous thing

that's happening,

and how you're hearing the music

when you do do it.

Yeah.

Are you planning

to become a drummer

as far as growing up

to be a man?

What they call being an artist

and all that,

does that ever occur to you?

Yeah, but I'm not sure.

Let's fly it again.

On the reeds; On the rhythms.

Charlie, you play the changes

this time, all right?

Yeah, that was...

that was really there.

That was really there that time;

I mean the idea of the whole piece.

That house was standing like that

when I was a little kid.

I remember playing

in the streets here one day,

and my mother told me,

"Don't you leave this yard".

I said, "Yes, ma'am".

And as soon as she went to town

I ran downstairs

and started playing football,

and I looked up and saw

her and my sister coming.

I peed in my pants and I was

running back down here

because she told me,

"If you leave this yard,

I'm going to spank you. "

And I said, "Oh, my mothers

gonna beat me.

I better run. "

But she caught me, and she did.

She beat me to death.

You remember that.

Yeah, I remember it

very well.

But you know, I was listening

to the tape the other night.

And the thing

that really amazed me,

what really makes me

want to play music

is when I really hear

an individual thought pattern

placed in an environment to make

something actually come about

that is not an obvious thing

that everyone is doing,

and actually it comes...

You do more-

I'll tell you the truth,

I think you do it

much better than I do.

That's what I'm trying to say.

Because I remember having

an elder musician telling me,

"Oh, your kid, your kid," this here.

I remember being in California

when I read a review

of a drummer

saying that, oh, you know,

I should get

some other kind of drummer

because I shouldn't have you

because you were my-

we were related.

But really it was just-

now that I look back at it,

it was really insecurity

and jealousy.

The train really comes

through your backyard.

Oh, yeah.

That train liked to wake me up

every morning.

I was living really close

to the track there.

Hey. W-

You make your mother

to answer that door,

or I'll lock you up.

Oh!

Junior!

Junior, where you going?

Outside.

No, you're not.

You're slaying here.

Thank you.

Brion was saying

this is almost the exact day

ten years later you were

together in Jajouka.

I'm gonna find that video I have

of Burroughs and you and I

in the tent.

Yeah, really,

a great event that occurred

in the mountains of Morocco.

We don't have any of the music

from Jajouka

to go on the soundtrack, do you?

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

How did you guys get together

at that point in time?

Well, Bob Palmer

had a good deal to do with it

because he'd played and been

up there several times.

Ornette, you know,

one thing I've always

wondered about-

You remember when I came back

when Gysin took me up to Jajouka

and I played with the musicians

up there

and I brought back those tapes,

and you listened to them.

And to my incredible surprise,

you said,

"Let's go, let's get

an organization together

and go up and make a record

with those guys. "

And we went and did it.

What did you hear in those tapes

that made you want to do that?

Well, I was telling

someone the other day

when I was in New Orleans,

I was playing

in a Sanctified Church,

and you know, in most churches

the pianos are so out of tune

that they be playing in the key

of Z... K... P... T...

I mean, H.

And I took my horn

in this Sanctified Church,

and I played the same way

I'm playing now.

When I heard those tapes,

I heard that same quality,

only on a much more high level

than religion.

It was more on a creative level.

Because most religion

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