Ornette Coleman to Recieve Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award

Saxophonist Ornette Coleman will receive The Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award at next year's Grammy Awards.

One of the most notable figures in jazz history, American jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman is considered one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the '60s. He has influenced virtually every saxophonist of a modern disposition and nearly every jazz musician of the following generation.

Coleman's timbre is one of the most easily recognized in jazz: his keening, crying sound draws heavily on the blues. From the beginning, his music and playing were unorthodox, and his sense of harmony and chord were not as rigid as most swing music or bebop performers and were easily changed and often implied. His growing reputation placed him at the forefront of jazz innovation, and free jazz was soon considered a new genre.

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