Ornette: Made in America Page #2

is on an emotional level.

This was on a creative level,

and that's what really turned me on.

I said I got to go and play

with these guys,

because I could see

that for once

I would be able to play whatever

passed through my heart and head

without ever having to worry

about was it right or wrong.

We had something like

15 double reed horns

and 15 drummers,

and Ornette and me and hundreds

of hill tribesmen

all camped out in tents

around this little village

on the top of this mountain,

and the place was just shaking.

Bob was playing,

and I keep telling him,

and I have this tape,

where he started playing,

and all of a sudden

through some instinct

the whole sound of everything

that was going on

passed through his horn.

It was like intense flame.

I mean, his clarinet sounded

like it was just some kind

of bolt of fire.

I mean, it was

the most incredible sound

I ever heard any musician play,

including myself.

That would be

a pertinent question.

An impertinent question.

An impertinent question

works even better sometimes.

Can you think

of an impertinent question?

Pertinent or impertinent.

A question.

Immortality to the people.

Every man a god.

How do you get to be a god?

Well, to put it

apple pie country simple,

by doing your job and doing it well.

So you may become a god

of jugglers and acrobats;

A god of the long chance-

the horse that comes from

last to win in the stretch;

The punch-drunk fighter

who comes up from the floor

to win by a knockout

a god of future space travelers

who are ready to leave

the whole human context behind

and take a step into the unknown.

Well, every man a god

if you can qualify.

You can't be a god of anything

unless you can do it,

for Christ's sakes.

Happiness is a by-product

of function,

and those who seek happiness

for itself

seek victory without war,

and that is a flaw in all utopias,

and of course a paradise

is really a terminal utopia.

One thing

that's always mystified we

that I feel was magic

about your band

with Don Cherry and Blackwell

and Charlie, and that is-

and I think a lot

of other people, too-

you never counted off

your pieces.

I mean, just everybody would

instinctively or intuitively

come in with the instruments

at the same time,

and you didn't nod your head.

Yeah, I didn't nod my head.

We're gonna start when we start.

HOW did that work?

Insane, instinctive

insight.

See, that's one reason

I think that the West

doesn't really understand

about music,

because the West thinks of music

as entertainment, you know,

and in the same way this feeling

that persisted in jazz for years

that, well, black musicians

came along

and were kind of geniuses.

What they don't understand

is that the heart

is probably the highest kind

of intelligence.

This intuitive intelligence

that we have

in the Third World countries

is really Third World technology,

so, I mean,

the answer lies in music.

I asked Buckminster Fuller,

I said,

"Don't you think it's

a scientist's responsibility

to relate his discipline

not only to that science

but to everything?"

His answer was,

'Well, you have a dome.

Why don't you use if?"

OK, well...

actually I met

Buckminster Fuller in 1954

at Hollywood High

in Hollywood, California,

and I listened to his lecture,

and I was just inspired.

In fact, I once studied

architecture.

I thought I was going to be

an architect,

then I thought I was going to be

a brain specialist,

then I thought I was gonna...

I wanted to be so many things.

So I finally realized

I didn't have enough money

to support any of these ideas,

so I decided I would pursue

my career imitating music.

So I got a horn

and I started playing

whatever I heard on the radio,

and the one thing that really

just blew me away

was his demonstration

of his own domes,

and when he demonstrated the way

his domes are put together

and how geometric

they were done,

it just blew me away

because I said this is how

I've been writing music.

This is the way I write music.

I was in Rome,

and I was on my way to Florence

to play a concert,

and I'd heard

that he had passed,

and so I dedicated

my program to him.

To me he surpassed

all of the entities

that have to do with surviving

because of abilities or skills,

and to me he became one of my-

he's probably my best hero.

In the short time

that I'll have with you

I'll spontaneously select out

what I think most relevant

of all things we can talk about

about humans in the universe,

which is the only subject

I really care about,

and about what I assess

to be our position

in evolutionary history right now.

When I was born,

reality was everything you could

see, smell, touch and hear.

Very important to remind you

and everybody else

that no human being has ever

seen outside himself.

We see entirely in our television set

inside the brain.

We have this thing called

imagination; Imagination.

As Bucky says,

you can't see outside yourself,

but we do have imagination.

The expression of all

individual imagination

is what I call harmolodics,

and each being's imagination

is their own unison,

and there are as many unisons

as there are stars in the sky.

Yeah, them were

the days, man,

when all the kids went to one

school, all the colored...

Yeah, that's right;

L.M. Terrell.

If you wasn't black,

you couldn't go there.

No, you couldn't go there.

And busing's not new,

because kids were bused...

Busing is outdated

compared to this.

That was all there was

was busing then.

I remember when you used to

play upstairs over here,

and we weren't old enough to go

up there.

That's right.

We used to

sneak up the steps,

and William Richland's daddy

was the doorman,

and we'd all have bricks

in our pockets

just in case something

broke out up there

and we had to get out

in a hurry.

I remember Charlie Rouse

used to get all of us:

"Let's go upstairs. "

"The Bucket Of Blood,"

that's what we used to call it.

And you know what?

When I got to New York City,

King Curtis was driving

a Rolls-Royce.

Yeah.

King Curtis was probably

the most successful musician

that left Fort Worth.

He had his own porter car,

train car.

He was opening for the Beatles.

Well, I'll be dogged.

I'll be dogged.

King Curtis.

King Curtis made heavy money.

I know it.

King Curtis,

when I got to New York City,

he came and picked me up

in his Rolls-Royce,

and you know

I was making peanuts

compared to what he was making.

He was making big money,

you know,

and playing really beautiful.

Yeah, I know.

Charlie sent me the clipping.

There's a building

in New York City

that looks exactly like this building-

the Flatiron Building

in New York.

General Worth, the guy that

Fen Worth was named after,

was buried there

on 23rd and Fifth Avenue,

across the street

from the Flatiron Building.

Thank you all so very much.

Once again a great hand

for the ladies and gentlemen

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes