Ornette Coleman: Lou Reed’s greatest influence
Lou Reed has never been able to be put into one singular category. From his days with the Velvet Underground up until his solo career, Reed was always keen to try any kind of genre imaginable as long as it meant getting his material across to the audience in a meaningful way. Although The Velvets might be known as the progenitors of alternative, punk, and other stripes of rock and roll, one of Reed’s biggest influences actually comes from the world of jazz.
When talking about his biggest influences growing up, Reed mentions Ornette Coleman as one of his biggest inspirations. Famously a jazz saxophonist, Coleman’s touch on the instrument was far more aggressive than most, almost sounding like he was attacking his instrument on some occasions. Some of his infamous first gigs got so bad that one of the crowds allegedly took his instrument and threw it off a cliff.
Over time, though, albums like The Shape of Jazz to Come became one of the biggest game-changers in modern jazz, making something that sounded much more forceful than what easy listening had to offer. Coleman also joined the ranks of his fellow luminaries like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, trying to expand on each project and making sounds that no one had ever heard before, be they jazz friends or not. By the time he hit his peak, not only jazz fans were listening to what he was playing.
Whereas most were hearing raw noise being blasted in their ears for minutes on end, Reed heard the future of music. Instead of looking at the instrument as a delicate thing that produces sound, Reed adopted the philosophy of using the instrument as an emotional translator, using it to communicate the feelings in his heart rather than notes on a page.
When Reed was getting together The Velvet Underground in New York in the late 1960s, he was always referring back to Coleman, saying (via Furious), “When I started out, I was inspired by people like Ornette Coleman. He has always been a great influence”. Across their debut album, it’s easy to spot the influence, with Reed’s no-frills attitude towards the song being inspired directly by what Coleman did.
Reed would later admit that his guitar solo on the final song ‘European Son’ was his attempt at trying to write something in the same vein as what Coleman would have done. That same adventurous approach would continue on albums like White Light/White Heat, with ‘Sister Ray’ becoming an off-kilter nightmare set to music.
Much like his inspiration, Reed’s advanced approach to music wouldn’t be accepted until years later. Though works like The Velvet Underground and Nico and Loaded are looked at as classics these days, they weren’t widely accepted at the time, being taken as a joke by the mainstream and often made fun of until the alternative revolution kicked into gear.
As Reed made his name as a solo star, he eventually got to work with Coleman on a number of projects, appearing with him onstage playing ‘Satellite of Love’ and Coleman guesting on his track, ‘Guilty’, which Reed would go on to call one of the greatest moments of his career. Reed may have admired Coleman from a distance for a long time, but there was always a lot of overlap in their musical frameworks. Their music might not have been the most pleasant to listen to from time to time, but underneath the surface were restless souls trying to find the music of the future.
