Went to Disney Hall last night for the first time. What brought me out of the apartment was Ornette Coleman playing in LA for a very rare performance. I thought it had been 30 years since he played, but I guess it has been more like 10. I went with Merkus, Kyoto, and Igor to San Francisco to see him in 2002 because it is really unlikely that Ornette would be here in town, but he made it! We got there early and saw a bit of the pre-performance lecture with Matt Harris, faculty of CSUN. He seemed like a nice guy and he tried, but he didn't know much about Ornette and even stated as such. A major turn-off when you are sitting there listening to an "authority". I wish they would get someone in who knows about the music they are talking about. There has to be somebody in LA that knows volumes of information about Ornette. I'm sure I know more about Ornette. At least I've listened to his music and read some books about him. Just before Ornettes group took the stage, I told my wife, "Watch to see how many people get up and leave during the performance.", and by the end, 1/3rd of the audience was gone. At the SF performance, I don't recall even one person getting up to leave. Go figure. Maybe American Idol was on or something. This two-bass quartet was a better performance than the SF trio. It consisted of Ornette on sax, trumpet, and violin, Deonardo on drums, and bassists Tony Falanga and Greg Cohen. They played really well together. I had problems hearing either of the bassists though. We were seated behind the band and they put up one of those plexi-glass barriers in front of the drums so we were getting a lot of drums reflected back at us. For the retards that left, they missed a truly great moment as Charlie Haden joined the group for an excellent performance of Ornette's "Lonely Woman" a quintet with 3(!) basses! Easily the most inspired performance of the night. Also, Charlie Haden's group played first. It was an ensemble of eight musicians, including Larry Koonse on guitar (one of my teachers at CalArts), saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, an excellent drummer (I wish I could remember his name, he was my favorite on stage) and three other horn players whose names I can't recall either. Their set was performed with a high level of musicianship, but not very exciting. I would have loved to hear the band as just a quartet sans horns. The rhythm section really shined on solos and accompaniment. All in all, a great way for me to inaugurate my Disney Hall experience.