Art & Creativity Quote by Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman is doing something sly here: he’s insisting on being taken at his own valuation, not the one the industry assigned him. The line reads almost casual, but the intent is precise. He’s talking about “those people” (gatekeepers, critics, institutions, film money) as if they’re a weather system that finally shifted in his favor. That distance matters. Coleman spent years being framed as an iconoclast, even a provocateur, a “jazz” figure whose work was supposed to be felt more than evaluated. By saying, flatly, that people are “very interested in my writing,” he recodes the story as craft and authorship.

The subtext sits in the word “composer.” It’s a claim to legitimacy in a culture that loves improvisers but funds composers. For a Black avant-gardist in mid-century America, “composer” isn’t just a job title; it’s an upgrade in how your work is archived, commissioned, and paid. Coleman isn’t begging entry into the concert-music club so much as pointing out he’s already doing the thing that club pretends to own: making structures, themes, decisions.

Then he pivots to the practicalities: calls, commissions, movie scores. That’s not bragging; it’s a quiet inventory of institutional recognition. Film scoring in particular is a loaded credential: it’s where experimentation gets smuggled into mass culture, and where outsiders can finally be treated like professionals without having to apologize for being difficult. Coleman’s satisfaction isn’t just emotional. It’s economic, historical, and a little vindictive.