The Territory and the Adventure

Maria Golia

With striking photographs and personal insight, a compelling biography of the great American saxophonist and free jazz innovator Ornette Coleman.

Ornette Colemans career encompassed the glory years of jazz and the American avant-garde. Born in segregated Fort Worth, Texas, during the Great Depression, the African-American composer and musician was zeitgeist incarnate. Steeped in the Texas blues tradition, he and jazz grew up together, as the brassy blare of big band swing gave way to bebopa faster music for a faster, postwar world. At the luminous dawn of the Space Age and New Yorks 1960s counterculture, Coleman gave voice to the moment. Lauded by some, maligned by many, he forged a breakaway art sometimes called the new thing or free jazz. Featuring previously unpublished photographs of Coleman and his contemporaries, this book tells the compelling story of one of Americas most adventurous musicians and the sound of a changing world.
June 2022