Harmolodics

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title: "Harmolodics" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["jazz-techniques", "record-labels-established-in-1995", "defunct-record-labels-of-the-united-states", "verve-records-labels"] description: "Musical philosophy" topic_path: "geography/united-states" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmolodics" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Musical philosophy ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox record label "]

Field	Value
name	Harmolodic Inc.
image_name	Harmolodic logo 1996.gif
founded
founder	Ornette Coleman, Denardo Coleman
distributor	Verve/PolyGram
genre	Jazz, spoken word
country	United States
location	Harlem, New York
url
::

Harmolodics is a musical philosophy and method of musical composition and improvisation developed by American jazz saxophonist-composer Ornette Coleman. His work following this philosophy during the late 1970s and 1980s inspired a style of forward-thinking jazz-funk known as harmolodic funk. It is associated with avant-garde jazz and free jazz, although its implications extend beyond these limits. Coleman also used the name "Harmolodic" for both his first website and his record label.

Description

Coleman defined harmolodics as "the use of the physical and the mental of one's own logic made into an expression of sound to bring about the musical sensation of unison executed by a single person or with a group". Applied to the particulars of music, this means that "harmony, melody, speed, rhythm, time and phrases all have equal position in the results that come from the placing and spacing of ideas". (see: aspects of music)

Harmolodics seeks to free musical compositions from any tonal center, allowing harmonic progression independent of traditional European notions of tension and release (see: atonality). Harmolodics may loosely be defined as an expression of music in which harmony, movement of sound, and melody all share the same value. The general effect is that music achieves an immediately open expression, without being constrained by tonal limitations, rhythmic pre-determination, or harmonic rules.

Ronald Radano suggests that Coleman's concepts of harmonic unison and harmolodics were influenced by Pierre Boulez's theory of aleatory while Gunther Schuller suggested that harmolodics is based on the superimposition of the same or similar phrases, thus creating polytonality and heterophony.

Coleman had been preparing a book called The Harmolodic Theory since at least the 1970s, but this remains unpublished. The only other known explanation of harmolodics that was written by Coleman is a DownBeat article called "Prime Time for Harmolodics" (1983).

Proponents include James Blood Ulmer and Jamaaladeen Tacuma. Ulmer, who played and toured with Coleman during the 1970s, has adopted harmolodics and applied the theories to his approach to jazz and blues guitar (for example, Harmolodic Guitar with Strings).

Record label

| name = Harmolodic Inc. | image_name = Harmolodic logo 1996.gif | image_size = | image_bg = | parent = | founded = | founder = Ornette Coleman, Denardo Coleman | status = | distributor = Verve/PolyGram | genre = Jazz, spoken word | country = United States | location = Harlem, New York | url = In 1995, Coleman and his son, Denardo, established the Harmolodic record label, which had a marketing and distribution arrangement with Verve/PolyGram. The label released its first album, Coleman's Tone Dialing, in September 1995. Harmolodic went on to release new albums by Coleman and Jayne Cortez, and also reissued some of Coleman's previous albums. The label was based in Harlem, New York.

Discography

::data[format=table title="Discography"]

Catalog number	Artist	Title	Year	5274832	5316572	5319142	5319162	5319172	5319182	5377892	5319152
and Prime Time	Tone Dialing	1995
	Sound Museum: Three Women	1996
	Sound Museum: Hidden Man	1996
	Body Meta (reissue)	1996
	Soapsuds, Soapsuds (reissue)	1996
	Taking the Blues Back Home	1996
and Joachim Kühn	Colors: Live from Leipzig	1997
	In All Languages (reissue)	1997
::

References

References

1. Vincent, Rickey. (2014). "Funk: The Music, The People, and The Rhythm of The One". [[St. Martin's Griffin]].
2. Coleman, Ornette. "Prime Time for Harmolodics". ''Down Beat'', July 1983, pp. 54–55. Quoted in Gioia (1990), p. 43.
3. Ronald M. Radano (1994). ''New Musical Figurations: Anthony Braxton's Cultural Critique'', pp. 109, 109–110n97. {{ISBN. 9780226701950.
4. Gioia, Ted (1990). ''The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture'', p. 43. {{ISBN. 9780195063288.
5. Macnie, Jim. (September 16, 1995). "Harmolodic Label Is Pure Coleman". BPI Communications.
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