Opening musical blessings came from Pharaoh Sanders’ gentle, resilient saxophone solo. The service was studded with playing by people who understood Ornette’s harmolodic music as intimately as breathing, and personal reminiscences from the artists, musicians, poets and sculptors who were his friends. Among them was musician Karl Berger, a Swedish improviser who moved to America with his singer wife Ingrid at Ornette’s behest. He recalled Ornette saying, “’The less you think, the more your emotions will be fulfilled.” “He had a way with words like no-one I knew… it was just mindblowing,” stated Berger. “That was almost the point of it. He wanted you to go beyond simple logic when you talked to him. He would always push you beyond thinking to that same intuitive space where Ornette seemed to reside all the time.”

Those present saw footage, included here, taken from a documentary-in-progress: Ornette’s bold 2009 curation of the Meltdown Festival in London’s Royal Festival Hall. Ornette relaxes with Yoko and her son Sean, interviewees speak of the music, the man, the meaning; and the playing of Ornette, Denardo, Flea, Vernon Reid and others sparks as only harmolodics can.

And in the church, the outpourings were just as remarkable. Versifiers declaimed. Pianist Cecil Taylor spoke at the keyboards, elongating words like soaring solos. The one-time Young Lords member, poet Felipe Luciano, mused of his friend, “He is gonna ask sacred questions/leave you quiet and confused/you’re gonna get mad/you’re gonna get angry/but you will never be the same again.” Poet Steve Dalachinsky wove Ornette titles into a gift, and invoked activist poet Jayne Cortez, the wife of Ornette’s youth and Denardo’s mother, who died in 2012; her energy and spirit were very much present in the church, as most of those at the Memorial knew and loved her, too. Ornette’s fellow Texan, sculptor Melvin Edwards, who later married Jayne and also raised Denardo, explained, “Like many Texans of our generation, Ornette and I went West to go North. Texas was rough and we needed to get out of there to find places that were more hospitable to what we were trying to do.”

The self-made present that Yoko Ono, gave to the family as she spoke, made her words into performance art. “I knew Ornette for fifty short years and I wish there could have been another,” she said. “To have him sitting there just breathing would have helped the world.”

Periods of Ornette’s life sprang into vivid focus. The Amsterdam News’ Herb Boyd chuckled, remembering seeing Ornette in the very early days playing to a handful in a Detroit club and commenting, “It ain’t about quantity, it’s about quality.” “I became a disciple,” he smiled. Others evoked the laughter and jamming in Ornette’s alternative communities in “SoHo before it was SoHo!” as the loft jazz scene was forming. Speaking of “Harmolodocity,” Ornette’s nephew Tony Frere remembered what a fun uncle Ornette was, always gleefully expanding his horizons. Denardo’s childhood friend-who- became-family, Anton Wong, explained, “Following his example, we can all lead free-er lives. And that’s what Ornette would want for us.”

Playing for someone who has molded not just one’s music, but one’s whole worldview, taps into a profound level of creativity, straight from the wellspring of humanity and artistry that fed Ornette. Thus, the music we find on this recording is specially sacred. The unprecedented duo of drummer Jack DeJohnette and tapdancer Savion Glover spark an intricate, weaving pulse that unites everyone with its cross-rhythms. A benediction, the thoughtful “Sail,” was composed and played on bass flute by Henry Threadgill, with Jason Moran on piano.

As Phil Schaap explained, when John Coltrane died, one of the few he requested to play at his funeral was Ornette. So a circle remained unbroken when John’s son Ravi played saxophone with pianist Geri Allen on the gentle questioning of “Peace.”
What to choose, to close Ornette’s Memorial, from the man’s many great compositions? Generations of Ornette’s family, saxophonists Lovano and Murray,

bass players Moffett and MacDowell, unite with Denardo for an outpouring of soul in the key track, “Lonely Woman.” Then, Prime Time Band members from Ornette’s 1970s & 80s incarnations, reassemble: Dave Bryant on piano, bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, with multiple guitars from Charlie Ellerbe, Bern Nix, Ken Wessel and Chris Rosenberg. Thus, the Recessional rejoiced with the happy clangor of the Prime Time anthem, “Dancing In Your Head.”
As the congregation filed past, Phil Schaap’s closing words rang in their ears as they will in yours: “Ornette lives.”