MANY HAPPY RETURNS

Many happy returns to Ornette Coleman, who reaches the big seven-six today. He must be one of the very few major-league jazz pioneers who is still alive - Sonny Rollins is the only other that I can immediately think of.

I went to see him at the Barbican last year, and he was stunning. I figured beforehand that his particular brand of screeching dissonance might get boring if I was sober, so I had three quick red wines at the bar before the gig started (though, since it was at the Barbican, I suppose it was a concert rather than a gig) and two more at the interval. This strategy worked a treat - it was literally one of the most exhilerating concerts I have ever been to. Ornette was dressed all in white, wore a white porkpie hat, played a white toy saxophone, and occasionally switched to a white violin. He had two - count them - double bassists, one plucked, one bowed, and his son Denardo on drums.

I don't think I consciously recognised many of the songs, but that is hardly the point with Ornette Coleman's music. A lot of it was virtually white noise, though Joe Zawinul's description of Ornette's music - where "nobody solos and everybody solos" - defines it better.

I also bumped into a 75 year old relative during the interval - now you wouldn't get that at an Arctic Monkeys gig.

So, your task for this week is to try out Ornette Coleman - you won't go far wrong with his first few CDs from the late 50s and 60s (The Shape of Jazz To Come, for example, or This is our Music), though I am also a big fan of his most recent album, Tone Dialling, from 1995.

Today is also Sir Ian Blair's birthday. He is 53. Another day closer to death, Ian...