On April 14, 1979, Saturday Night Live had free-jazz legend Ornette Coleman as musical guest.
Yes, that’s Uncle Miltie introducing him, who was guest host that week.
Wild and chaotic sounding, Coleman was hardly suited to genteel TV audiences, who probably would’ve preferred something closer to Kenny G, who hadn’t been invented yet. His most famous recording, Lonely Woman, where the band steers drunkenly all over the road in a careening cacophony - at times sounding like a chorus of horny tomcats in an alley- set the tone for Sixties free jazz. But leave it to SNL music director Howard Shore to dare to broaden our musical horizons and give a US audience credit for being broad-minded.
I remember seeing this appearance as a kid and it changed how I viewed jazz forever.
Tonight’s SNL guest - exactly 32 years later - is would-be pop-punk icon Avril Lavign, so you can see that the progression of their suck-age is terminal.
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