Ornette: Made in America (1985)

This feature-length documentary is devoted to the life and art of famed jazz musician Ornette Coleman. Saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist--you name the musical instrument, and supreme stylist Coleman will make magic with it. At the time this film was made, Coleman had not turned out an album in years, though he was still active on the concert circuit. Filmmaker Shirley Clarke focuses on Coleman's appearance with the symphony orchestra in his home town of Fort Worth, Texas. Combining documentary footage, dramatized scenes, and some of the first music video-style segments ever made, ORNETTE chronicles his boyhood in segregated Texas and his subsequent emergence as an American cultural pioneer and world-class icon. Among those appearing in the film are William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Buckminster Fuller, Don Cherry, Yoko Ono, Charlie Haden, and Robert Palmer. Clarke’s film is essential for anyone hoping to understand the history of jazz and the fertile creative exchange that highlighted the 60s and 70s in America.