“My Best Hero:” Ornette Coleman and the Oddity of Buckminster Fuller

by Georgia Dillane

Ornette Coleman once thought he would be an architect. One could make an argument about the ambiguity of the title of architect, in a field as conceptual as it is concrete in our built environment. However, in the traditional sense of the word Architect, Coleman never achieved that dream. That’s not to say he was not inspired by architects, one of Coleman’s lesser known projects from 1985 Prime Design / Time Design was dedicated to none other than architect Buckminster Fuller, a man Coleman referred to as his “best hero.”

Throughout his career, Fuller’s guiding principle was “doing more with less.” His early designs and concepts reacted to the American housing shortage in the 1940s. The well known “Dymaxion House” (dymaxion coming from the words “dynamic,” “maximum,” and “tension”) was based on the idea of maximum gain of advantage from minimal energy input. Notably, these houses were made of prefabricated materials, meaning they could seemingly be assembled at any place and at any time. We’ll return to these ideas later on. As an aside, we can extend our thanks to Fuller for the efficiency of the toilets on airplanes, the concept for which came from this project.

Perhaps his most well known works, and the ones that captured the interest of Coleman are his geodesic domes. Concerning the same ideas of dynamic construction with minimal material use, Fuller coined the term and expanded the use of these domes in the late 1940s during his time at Black Mountain College. The idea is quite simple: triangles are stronger than squares. In fact a triangle can hold twice the weight when constructed in this way, utilizing gravity instead of opposing it. These domes were erected around the US and in Canada at Expo 67. Readers may be familiar with his incredibly unpopular, though admirably adventurous, concept for putting a geodesic dome over the whole of Midtown Manhattan to regulate the weather and prevent air pollution. How novel.

Let’s return to Coleman. Why did he admire Fuller so much and why did Fuller’s work resonate with his music? In Shirley Clarke’s 1985 documentary Ornette: Made in America, Coleman points to Fuller’s domes not only as an inspiration for his own music, but in many ways, a coexistence of his own art, and his own construction, through music. Coleman, who met Fuller in 1982, was fascinated by Fuller’s geometric construction processes and the mathematics behind them. A recurring image in the film is that of a triangle within a circle. “This is how I’ve been writing my music,” said Coleman about Fuller’s design process. Fuller’s idea of dynamism, maximalism, and tension is arguably precisely what Coleman’s signature improvisational style does. While Coleman somewhat rejected the title of “Free Jazz,” as we know it now, free jazz, improvisation, or free improvisation operates with these same principles. It is as ambiguous as it is dynamic, free as it is tense, and minimal as much as it is maximal. These terms may seem in contrast with one another but free improvisation is inherently unclassifiable, as is Fuller’s work. His designs are meant to be versatile, placed anywhere, under any conditions, so is true for improvisation. In the liner notes of Coleman’s aforementioned album Prime Design / Time Design, he writes “he manipulated the model, turned it inside out, made it dance -- but the corners never touched. I said to myself “that’s just like my music!” And at that moment I was inspired to write a piece of music based on Fuller’s mathematics, dedicated to this man and his shining being, investigating the universe like an ancient child.” Featuring Gregory Gelman on 1st Violin, Larissa Blitz on 2nd Violin, Alex Deych on Viola, Matthew Meister on Cello and Denardo Coleman, Ornette Coleman’s son, on Percussion, this album is designed for five soloists, each musician playing a different time signature at different points in the piece. The piece was recorded at the Fullerian Desert Dome in Fort Worth Texas in 1985, footage of which can be found in Clark’s film.

I admittedly love to throw around the term “Architect” for myriad of seemingly unrelated disciplines, and while I’m at it I may as well give Coleman his title too. While the AIA may disagree for logistic and “legal” reasons, Coleman built the foundation for the improvisational genre we know today. His inventive and deeply methodical approach to composition certainly warrants the praise.

WKCR will celebrate the life and incredible work of Ornette Coleman on what would have been his 94th birthday, for 24 hours on Saturday, March 9th 2024.