Harmolodics is a musical philosophy and method of musical composition and improvisation developed by American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

saxophonist-composer Ornette Coleman. His work following this philosophy during the late 1970s and 1980s inspired a style of forward-thinking

jazz-funk Jazz-funk is a subgenre of jazz music characterized by a strong back beat ( groove), electrified sounds, and an early prevalence of analog synthesizers. The integration of funk, soul, and R&B music and styles into jazz resulted in the creat ...

known as harmolodic funk. It is associated with

avant-garde jazz Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Ori ...

and

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians duri ...

, although its implications extend beyond these limits. Coleman also used the name "Harmolodic" for both his first website and his record label.

Description

Coleman defined harmolodics as "the use of the physical and the mental of one's own logic made into an expression of sound to bring about the musical sensation of

unison In music, unison is two or more musical parts that sound either the same pitch or pitches separated by intervals of one or more octaves, usually at the same time. ''Rhythmic unison'' is another term for homorhythm. Definition Unison or per ...

executed by a single person or with a group". Applied to the particulars of music, this means that "harmony, melody, speed, rhythm, time and phrases all have equal position in the results that come from the placing and spacing of ideas". (see:

aspects of music Music can be analysed by considering a variety of its elements, or parts (aspects, characteristics, features), individually or together. A commonly used list of the main elements includes pitch, timbre, texture, volume, duration, and form. The ...

) Harmolodics seeks to free musical compositions from any tonal center, allowing harmonic progression independent of traditional European notions of tension and release (see: atonality). Harmolodics may loosely be defined as an expression of music in which harmony, movement of sound, and melody all share the same value. The general effect is that music achieves an immediately open expression, without being constrained by tonal limitations, rhythmic pre-determination, or harmonic rules. Ronald Radano suggests that Coleman's concepts of harmonic unison and harmolodics were influenced by Pierre Boulez's theory of

aleatory Aleatoricism or aleatorism, the noun associated with the adjectival aleatory and aleatoric, is a term popularised by the musical composer Pierre Boulez, but also Witold Lutosławski and Franco Evangelisti, for compositions resulting from "actio ...

while

Gunther Schuller Gunther Alexander Schuller (November 22, 1925June 21, 2015) was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, educator, publisher, and jazz musician. Biography and works Early years Schuller was born in Queens, New York City ...

suggested that harmolodics is based on the superimposition of the same or similar

phrases In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...

, thus creating

polytonality Polytonality (also polyharmony) is the musical use of more than one key simultaneously. Bitonality is the use of only two different keys at the same time. Polyvalence or polyvalency is the use of more than one harmonic function, from the same key ...

and

heterophony In music, heterophony is a type of texture characterized by the simultaneous variation of a single melodic line. Such a texture can be regarded as a kind of complex monophony in which there is only one basic melody, but realized at the same time ...

. Coleman had been preparing a book called ''The Harmolodic Theory'' since at least the 1970s, but this remains unpublished. The only other known explanation of harmolodics that was written by Coleman is an article called "Prime Time for Harmolodics" (1983). Proponents include

James Blood Ulmer James "Blood" Ulmer (born February 8, 1940) is an American jazz, free funk and blues guitarist and singer. Ulmer plays a Gibson Byrdland guitar. His guitar sound has been described as "jagged" and "stinging". His singing has been called "ragg ...

and

Jamaaladeen Tacuma Jamaaladeen Tacuma (born Rudy McDaniel; June 11, 1956) is an American free jazz bassist born in Hempstead, New York. He was a bandleader on the Gramavision label and worked with Ornette Coleman during the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in Coleman's P ...

.Gioia, Ted (1990). ''The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture'', p. 43. . Ulmer, who played and toured with Coleman during the 1970s, has adopted harmolodics and applied the theories to his approach to jazz and blues guitar (for example, '' Harmolodic Guitar with Strings'').

Record label

In 1995, Coleman and his son, Denardo, established the Harmolodic record label, which had a marketing and distribution arrangement with Verve/ PolyGram. The label released its first album, Coleman's ''

Tone Dialing Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) is a telecommunication signaling system using the voice-frequency band over telephone lines between telephone equipment and other communications devices and switching centers. DTMF was first developed ...

'', in September 1995. Harmolodic went on to release new albums by Coleman and

Jayne Cortez Jayne Cortez (May 10, 1934 – December 28, 2012) was an African-American poet, activist, small press publisher and spoken-word performance artist whose voice is celebrated for its political, surrealistic and dynamic innovations in lyricism and ...

, and also reissued some of Coleman's previous albums. The label was based in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

, New York.

Discography

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Jazz techniques Record labels established in 1995 Defunct record labels of the United States Verve Records labels

Description

Record label

Discography

See also

References

External links