IAJE Friday

As usual, at this point in IAJE—or any other trade show/conference—what you have to show from the experience is a stack of business cards, a bagful of assorted freebies and literature, a hoarse voice from too many loud conversations, and the feeling that time has shifted into some kind of nether-zone.

Okay, so maybe that nether-zone is more the product of Greg Osby's loopy interview with Ornette Coleman. Coleman's responses to Osby's questions/comments dipped, twisted and curled back on themselves like one of his saxophone solos, and made about as much traditional sense as his violin scrapings or trumpet blats. There are enough seasoned hands around to know that Coleman can make perfect sense—granted, in a delightfully weird Ornette way—if you ask the right questions. Osby sounded like he'd followed Coleman down one too many rabbit holes of logic and couldn't find his way back to the surface. Very early on, Osby forgot one key thing: this was supposed to be enlightening, not just entertaining, and many in the audience of several hundred—and, this being IAJE, a fairly young and impressionable audience—left thinking that Coleman is a semi-literate eccentric rather than the highly original thinker that he is.