The Pulitzer Prizes were announced on Monday. Following are the winners in Letters, Drama and Music.
MUSIC: ORNETTE COLEMAN
“Sound Grammar”
Mr. Coleman, the 77-year-old jazz saxophonist and composer, won for “Sound Grammar,” a live album by his most recent quartet, recorded in 2005.
Elastic and bracing, with two acoustic basses and much collective improvisation, the music harks back to the 1960s records that made him famous. “I’m tearing and I’m surprised and happy — and I’m glad I’m an American,” he said. “And I’m glad to be a human being who’s a part of making American qualities more eternal.”
By winning in the music category for a jazz composition titled "Sound Grammar," Ornette Coleman represented a departure from customary Pulitzer awards for classical works. Pulitzer Administrator Sig Gissler said the only other jazz figure to win a Pulitzer was Wynton Marsalis in 1997, but that was for a classical composition.
Ornette Coleman won the Pulitzer Prize for music on Monday for his 2006 album, "Sound Grammar," the first jazz work to be bestowed with the honor.
The alto saxophonist and visionary who led the free jazz movement in the 1950s and 1960s, won the Pulitzer at age 77 for his first live recording in 20 years. The only other jazz artist to win a Pulitzer is Wynton Marsalis, who won in 1997 for "Blood on the Fields," a three-hour oratorio on slavery.
The Pulitzer Prize for music, an award founded in 1943, has always focused on classical music. Legendary jazz composers Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk were honored only with posthumous citations in 1999 and 2006, respectively. In 1965, a Pulitizer jury had recommended Ellington for a competitive music prize, only to be overruled by the board. Ellington, then in his 60s, joked in response, "Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be famous too young."
In 2004, Pulitzer administrators decided to expand the criteria for the music prize, encouraging a broader range of music that included jazz, musical theater and movies.
Coleman, who grew up poor in a largely segregated Fort Worth, Texas, didn't first believe his cousin when he told Coleman that he had won the Pulitzer. He spoke by phone to The Associated Press from his New York City home minutes after hearing the news, and reflected on his long, unlikely journey.
"I'm grateful to know that America is really a fantastic country," said the jazz legend, recalling when he first asked his mother for a saxophone. "And here I am."
What began for Coleman as a fascination for the bebop of Charlie Parker, led him on a path to discover — through music — what he calls "the culture of life and intelligence."
On "Sound Grammar," which was recorded at a 2005 concert in Ludwigshafen, Germany, Coleman also plays trumpet and violin. He was awarded a Grammy lifetime achievement award in February.
"Of all the languages that human beings are speaking on the planet, it's some form of grammar," Coleman said of his album. "For me, playing music is analyzing grammar."
Though Coleman can speak of large, heady ideas in a way not dissimilar from his often conceptual music, he said he has never wanted to be inaccessible.
"I've been doing what I think I'm trying to achieve ever since I was teenager and I was only doing it because of the quality of human beings," Coleman said. "I've never really thought about being smart; I've only really thought about being good."
Some members of the Pulitzer board such as Jay Harris, a professor at the University of Southern California, have said the Pulitzers have "effectively excluded some of the best of American music" by concentrating fully on classical works. Coleman's win suggests that may be changing.
When asked whether he hopes more jazz musicians will follow him in winning Pulitzers, Coleman replied, "I would like to help them if I could."
FINALISTS “Grendel” by Elliot Goldenthal; “Astral Canticle” by Augusta Read Thomas.
- Review (December 24, 2006)
- Listening With Ornette Coleman (September 22, 2006)
SPECIAL CITATIONS: Ray Bradbury and John Coltrane
By Matthew Westphal
16 Apr 2007
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| Ornette Coleman (top) and his 2006 recording Sound Grammar, which has won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Music. |
Sound Grammar, a recording by jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman and his band released in September 2006, has won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Music, which carries a $10,000 cash award. The disc, the first in a decade by the legendary free jazz pioneer, was recorded live at a 2005 concert in Italy.
The other two finalists for the music prize were Eliot Goldenthal's Grendel, which premiered at Los Angeles Opera on June 8, 2006, and Augusta Reid Thomas's orchestral work Astral Canticle, whose first performance was given by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under conductor Daniel Barenboim on June 1, 2006.
Another jazz legend, John Coltrane, won a posthumous special citation from the Pulitzer committee for "his masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz."
In addition, Los Angeles Times classical music critic Mark Swed was a finalist for the criticism Pulitzer, which was won by L.A. Weekly restaurant critic Jonathan Gold.
This is the first time ever that a jazz composition has won the Pulitzer Prize, one of the most prestigious in the U.S. (Wynton Marsalis, best known asa jazz musician, received the Pulitzer in 1997 for Blood on the Fields, which is a classical work.) Duke Ellington was given a posthumous citation for his lifetime's work from the Pulitzer board in 1998; Thelonious Monk received a similar citation last year.
The awards to Coleman and Coltrane, two of the giants of 20th-century American music in any genre, reflect a conscious effort by the Pulitzer board to widen the scope of material considered for the prize. "Going back more than a decade," board member Jay Harris, a professor at the University of Southern California, told The Associated Press, "there has been a concern on the Pulitzer board that this unwritten definition [that only classical music be considered] effectively excluded some of the best of American music," including jazz, musical theater, and film scores. This concern extended to many members of the music community, some of whom argued that the Pulitzer was no longer relevant.
To address that situation, the board three years ago made several changes in eligibility guidelines for the music Pulitzer: compositions whose premieres were on recording rather than in performance can now be considered, and entrants may submit a recording in addition to or in lieu of a score. In addition, the makeup of the jury, which had previously been four composers and a (classical) music critic, was changed to three composers and two other music experts (such as conductors or performers).
The choice of music jurors for 2007 reflects this change in orientation; the members were:
- Yehudi Wyner, a composer and professor of music at Brandeis University (as well as the winner of last year's Pulitzer Prize for Music),
- John Schaefer, host of the programs New Sounds and Soundcheck on WNYC New York Public Radio,
- Ingrid Monson, the Quincy Jones Professor of African-American Music at Harvard University,
- David Baker, chair of the jazz department at the Indiana University School of Music, and
- John Rockwell, who recently retired from The New York Times after many years as a critic of rock music, classical music and dance.
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