Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Ornette Coleman, who also won a Pulitzer Award for Music was featured at the 2007 Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee. 

I was there. The day was sizzling, and hundreds dozed on the grasses, beneath the few shade trees. The water supply was limited, and the once bouyant 500 acres, on which the mammoth music fest is held one weekend a year, was now coarse, dry, and getting dustier in the blindstinging heat by the moment.

I and my friend creeped out of the music tent we normally would have sauntered out of in cooler conditions, and plopped on the hard dirt field that had foot long golden grasses already trampled down offering little comfort. We would have panted in that foray, were we able to part our cracked lips. 

I searched for dollars, hoping that my friend would buy me some water. I went to the event broke, hoping to reap anything that I could from the rich sounding environment that was afforded by my $1000 dollar VIP camping ticket.

Blaaaiiir Bleep frazoodle doo dee blab blab blee....forget the heat. Let's get back in the tent. Ornette Coleman wails and doowolly wep wap wow affronted our love, confronted our fears, and spanked our ears. We loved it.  With full throttle he stuck his stick of dynamite down our ear shafts into our guts. Inward we went....frashizzle doo whomp actzoobop, and made our way back to the front.

If anyone heard about that show, you would know that he then tipped right over. The Father of Free Jazz yawned, and sat on his stool, head bowed he yawned again, rather largely, and then he tipped right over to the ground. He slumped face first, and as he was dropping towards the stage, music lovers jumped up, stage hands lunged forward and somehow he was caught. Out Cold.

By his underarms he was parlayed, and eventually down on the stage, was he. The band had begun to hesitate and then stopped. The Bassman stood holding his Bass. I wondered when he would put it down, or if it was 'his' tech that was assisting Ornette.

The Audience yelled out 'Get him some water.', 'Take off his Jacket, he has too much polyester on for this Heat!', and 'Someone get an Ambulance!'. Camera's flashed. We looked among each other for answers. I left the tent. It was smoldering, and I would be next to collapse, surely if I did not heed my instincts.

Down to the grass I conceded again, and preceeded to call my parents to tell them news of this day. As lovers of jazz, I thought that they should know. Ornette recovered from his heat shock later in the day.

His web page recites:

Fifty years after he astonished the musical world with his initial recorded forays into free jazz, Ornette Coleman remains astounding. Sound Grammar introduces his so-called two-bass band, a quartet featuring son Denardo on percussion and Tony Falanga and Greg Cohen on acoustic bass. The unusual combination works spectacularly well, as displayed on this fervent live album. Now in his 70s, Coleman has lost little in terms of instrumental prowess on his customary alto saxophone (his occasional trumpet and violin remain as attractively flinty as ever); his utterly distinctive writing still stands heads above both his peers and even the most inventive of jazz's younger generations