On Thursday morning, jazz legend Ornette Coleman died.  He was 85.

My father loves jazz and I grew up listening to a soundtrack that included Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman.  Out of all of them, Coleman was his favorite.  As he would always say, no one else sounded like Ornette Coleman.

Ornette Coleman spent a lifetime reinventing both himself and jazz.  A tireless innovator and a fearless experimenter, Ornette Coleman returned jazz to its improvisational roots.  With his 1961 album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation, he not only popularized a new approach to jazz but gave it a name as well.  As Coleman himself once said, “For me, being an innovator doesn’t mean being more intelligent, more rich, it’s not a word, it’s an action.”

Rest in peace, good gentleman.