... has died at 85, I read in the comic which always prints proper obituaries when a serious jazzman dies. Ornette was a radical hornman who played plastic saxes to everyone's surprise and quite often, horror. But actually he was very talented, played a sort of neo-bebop like a reborn Charlie Parker. As far as I know though he wasn't a serious drug user or junkie like Parker.
When he was in England in the seventies he stayed for a month or two in my late friend Hoppy's Queensway flat, but left before the notorious and disgraceful drug bust which saw Hoppy doing 9 months for a bit of weed which wasn't even in his room or possession. The old ruffian of a judge came down on him because he was the leaseholder and the oldest person in the flat (he was in his mid-twenties). Tabloid press was very hysterical about 'alternative lifestyles', trying to stop history in its tracks but revelling in the sordid details as usual. We were a backward country in those days.
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>> We were a backward country in those days.
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Still are, if you gauge it by the number of people sleeping in the street.
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>> in the seventies he stayed for a month or two in my late friend Hoppy's Queensway flat, but left before the notorious and disgraceful drug bust which saw Hoppy doing 9 months for a bit of weed which wasn't even in his room or possession. The old ruffian of a judge came down on him because he was the leaseholder and the oldest person in the flat (he was in his mid-twenties).
Duh... Really Hoppy was in his mid-thirties by then, as I was. We were both young for our age though probably.
Hoppy's bust was pretty evil, driven by a judge whose daughter I think passed through the Queensway pad as someone's g/f, not Hoppy's, a young white American I think. The judge mobilized some West End drug squad heavies, and they were evil cats I can tell you. The sort of people who can look you in the eye, utter something they know you know is a downright lie, and dare you to do something about it. The effrontery of it makes yr blood run cold.
I suppose the geezers who so horrified me are now in retirement with colossal pensions. I can only hope they have succumbed to gambling or heavyweight 'product' and are now suffering the tortures of the damned.
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Ornette Coleman - John Boy
