Ornette Coleman on WNYC's Meet the Composer in 1985

The American jazz composer Ornette Coleman died today at 85. Coleman was one of the founders of free jazz, a 1960s movement that played with dissonance and abrasive sounds. He released more than thirty records over the course of his life,ranging from Free Jazz and The Shape of Jazz to Come in 1959 and 1960 to his 1972 composition for jazz ensembles and orchestras, Skies of America. In 2007, he received a Pulitzer Prize for his album Sound Grammar.

Ornette Coleman spoke with WNYC’s Tim Page on Meet the Composer in 1985, above. In between selections from The Shape of Jazz to Come and Of Human Feelings, he discussed his mixing of musical styles, drew comparisons between Bach and Charlie Parker, and expressed his frustrations with ideas like keys, chords, and genres.

He described keys as “clichés” that steered people away from music. As for genres, he told Page, “To me, everyone in the Western world uses the same notes, they just use them in a different way, you know, to create what they call their style.”

Instead, he saw genres as interchangeable, and even skill as a matter of taste. All composers were essentially equal, Coleman argued—the only difference was whether or not you liked what they composed.

“Basically,” Coleman told Page at the end of the interview, “I think everyone has a potential of being a composer.” They just had to create, “something they haven’t heard that they want heard.”