Review: Ornette Coleman @ UNC

Ornette Coleman and his band played at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last week (11/13/08). Here's my take on the performance:

Likes:

• Ornette Coleman; I don't understand his dialect of improvising that well, but it seems he is fully committed to it. Whether on ballads or up-tempo tunes he plays from his heart - a big plus for me. He also has a plaintive tone on the alto which fits his compositions well.
  
• His electric bassist and to some degree, his acoustic bassist also, listen well to Coleman and complement him. Again, the dialect that they're playing is a barrier for me, but I can tell they are interacting.
• Well-rehearsed arrangements. This was the last concert in a tour so that helps in this regard.
  

Dislikes:

• I didn't understand how the drummer (his son, Denardo) was relating to the group. Most of the night he seemed to be playing grooves based on a metric division of what the rest of the group was playing. Doing this for part of songs (a la Miles' 2nd quintet) or maybe even a whole song might be OK but during every song in a 2 hour concert was distracting at best.
• Doctoring up Bach's 1st Cello Suite. First off, Bach's Cello Suites are written as solo pieces, with the cello accompanying itself, so expanding it to a group format needs to be carefully thought out and have a clear purpose. Second, I know bass players sometimes play the suites, but as any bass/player will tell you, bowing will show off any problems with intonation and there were plenty during that evening. Then there was the funk backbeat from the drums to drive the final nail in the coffin.
  
• While we're on the bass, too much thumb position bowing. The bass player favored the upper register most of the evening which, for me, becomes texturally annoying after an hour or so. If the bowing is part of the group sound, why not try a cello?

Question: What's the deal with Ornette playing the trumpet? He just picked it up for 8 measures here and there and played some random tones (I don't know what it's called musically - just moving your fingers a lot on the valves)? Is it a texture thing? A tribute to Don Cherry?