There've been several biographies of Ornette Coleman and a lot of analysis of his music including criticism and reviews, and if that's what you're looking for, you might be better off looking at books by AB Spellman, John Litweiler, Gary Giddins, Howard Mandell, and others. David Lee does include a brief bio and some discussion of how Coleman's early music operates, but this is primarily a cultural study of audience and peer reception of Coleman's music at the time of his first New York gigs.

Lee, a Canadian improvisor and author, uses sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's framework of fields, cultural capital, etc in his consideration of these pivotal events fifty-five years ago. Developed from Lee's master's thesis, this book may be more academic than some others about jazz figures, but I found the analytical form made made the book interestingly useful in a different way than many other writings about jazz I've seen. ( )