The living legend pays tribute to the late jazz innovator.

In the wake of Ornette Coleman‘s death, many people have published tributes and articles honoring the free jazz pioneer. Today the Wire published a eulogy written by the Soft Machine-founder and experimental musician Robert Wyatt.

In the article, Wyatt shares about his affection for Coleman’s earliest recordings and reflects on the few occasions he met the man himself. Read an excerpt below and look for the full post over on The Wire.

But why do I love Ornette Coleman quite so much? Well, I’ll leave it to others to celebrate his significance to subsequent explorers of the freedom principle. What has always warmed my heart, in the end, has little to do with his influence on younger improvisors. It is the timeless vocal beauty of the actual sequences of notes and phrases he could come up with, and the feeling of pure living joy of playing they can communicate.