Free Jazz and the Insane Asylum in Prague։ Ornette Colleman played in an insane asylum: Videos, Photos

Fifty years ago in Prague there was an event that, by today’s standards, would seem extraordinary.

Ornette Coleman and his group (Ornette Coleman alto sax, rumpet, violin, James “Blood” Ulmer electric guitar, Norris “Sirone” Jones bass, Billy Higgins drums) performed inside the Mombello Psychiatric Hospital, thanks to the interest of the then head physician, Dr. Alberto Madeddu.

The musicians performed for free, the only fee was a reimbursement for the rental of the instruments obtained thanks to a subscription promoted by the head physician himself.

Some Prague-area newspapers reported the news in great detail. I tried to photograph the pages that contain the articles, but I will try to make a brief summary to overcome the impossible limits of visibility, referring interested readers to the link at the end of the article from which they can see, enlarge and read the articles cited.

Arruga begins like this: “I would like to tell you about the concert I heard in Mombello, yesterday morning, at the psychiatric hospital: with two or three hundred mentally ill people, a few doctors, nurses, relatives, friends, people, with open doors, in the large, sober, white church, around four black musicians, Ornette Coleman and his three collaborators, who were playing Jazz. But it is so difficult for me: our cultural, critical, journalistic categories immediately go into crisis, it seems like they no longer fit in when faced with important facts; and that was very important; and I still don’t know why.”

“While the notes with the sound of the saxophone, heartbreaking, or those of the torn and scraped violin, provocative and violent, reached those present, I couldn’t read the minds, the souls of the listeners. It almost seemed to me that the moments of union were no less frequent and touching than those in which each felt their own solitude.”

And finally he concludes: “I don’t know how much art there was, I mean what type or level; and not even what concrete use it brings to the mentally ill. But the mentally ill are not a problem, they are those over there, who lived yesterday morning with Ornette Coleman; and who, while the music touched them, did not fear, and neither did the sane with them, that it was useless to live.”

Augusto Pozzoli instead chooses a less philosophical path than Arruga, and goes for the anecdotal.

In the newspaper page the blunders about the musicians’ names are a bit touching and the cost of the ticket to the Teatro dell’Arte is thought-provoking: 3500 lire for the front rows: “At the end of the jazz concert that Ornette Coleman and his band held in the little church of the Antonini psychiatric hospital in Limbiate, a woman in her fifties knelt on the floor and kissed the floor.

A doctor explained the reaction like this: It means that today she feels happy. The woman has been in a mental hospital for over twenty years. Coleman is spending a semi-vacation period in Prague: that is, he has no commitments with his impresarios, so he is free to perform as and when he likes.

Some time ago he played in an art gallery in Prague, on Saturday he played in a factory, then in a seminar. Yesterday in a mental hospital. Coleman’s type of music, Professor Rivolta told us, is one that is instinctively accepted: with free jazz the unconscious surfaces easily, it is a music, in short, that despite what is said, is appreciated even without specific preparation. I have never seen patients participate with such interest in a musical performance.

Ornella Rota in La Stampa focuses above all on people’s reactions: “It is the first time that such an experiment has taken place in a psychiatric hospital in our country. Coleman and his companions played for free; they were only reimbursed for the rental costs of the instruments; 450 thousand lire, collected through a subscription among the hospital’s health workers and their union representatives. The musicians are placed in the center of the church, in the space of the altar, which has been removed.

The patients, whose presence at the concert is completely free, arrive one by one, some assisted by relatives or nurses, but, generally, alone. Few in pajamas, almost all in civilian clothes. Ornette Coleman and his band play discreetly, with great respect, offering the notes almost with a sort of modesty, without unleashing themselves on the instruments, controlling their emotional charges.

After a few minutes of light buzz, and distraction, the audience listens to them in perfect silence and attention. Several patients stand up. They remain still, for over an hour; including the oligophrenics who, usually, have a tendency to psychomotor restlessness. A young girl looks at her grandmother with a smile, who she is holding around the waist, and she begins to gently mark time for her, moving her in her arms. A child, who from the first moment he entered has had almost an entire hand in his mouth, at a certain point removes it, and remains there, astonished, fascinated, with his lips wide open, staring at the musicians; a nurse in the meantime wipes away his saliva with a handkerchief.

Coleman starts up the violin; he follows particularly intense musical dissonances with sudden very sweet notes. An epileptic bends his knees, falls, remains on the ground for a moment, then gets up on his own, and continues to follow the show. An elderly alcoholic and two psychotics burst into tears. A group of mongoloids (these handicapped are particularly sensitive to music) applauds thunderously.

In 1974 Coleman was in a period of transition, between the old acoustic group and the electrified bands, Tales of Captain Black and Prime Time, which will come soon after. There are some recordings and partial videos of the group.

The audio recordings come mainly from the mixers, but there are also video fragments of the Roman concert.