ornette wins pulitzer

from the AP:

Ornette Coleman won the Pulitzer Prize for music on Monday for his 2006 album, "Sound Grammar," the second jazz artist to receive the honor.

a small sign that something is right with the world, as i just wrote jessica who sent word of the news. surprising? well, it's one of those things, i think, kind of like when robert duncan won big awards for poetry in 1978 -- major artist releases first new work in ten years -- in duncan's case, the groundwork book. and likewise as duncan's work had circulated privately and in limited editions, so coleman had been touring with his two-bass quartet for a number of year. so anyone who was listening knew this was great music, tho i had no idea there was a CD in the works until it was released. and it as i wrote a while back, it is a pretty special recording.

what's more shocking is that coleman is only the second-ever jazz musician to win the pulitzer, and when wynton marsalis won it in 1997 it was for his three-hour oratorio on slavery. so this is the first time it's ever been won for a jazz work since it was first awarded in 1943!