The Rex Foundation established the Ralph J. Gleason Award in 1986 for outstanding contributions to culture. The award is named in memory of the pioneering jazz and pop music journalist Ralph J. Gleason (1917-1975) who was a major figure in the advancement of creative music in America. As a critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and Down Beat, and a founding editor of Rolling Stone, Gleason displayed an openness to new music and new ideas that transcended differences between generations and styles. The Rex Foundation hopes to keep his legacy alive by presenting the award bearing his name to those who exemplify the qualities of talent, vision and innovation that Ralph so tirelessly supported.

Perhaps no artist in this century has changed the way we think about music more radically than Ornette Coleman. From the first bracing, shockingly new salvos in the Free Jazz insurgence of the late 1950s to his most recent performances with the exciting young Prime Time band and his New Quartet, Ornette has challenged us to challenge ourselves, to listen with new ears, to expand our perceptions of what music is, and what it can be.

Ornette is living proof of the ancient Chinese maxim, "perseverance furthers." He has endured much resistance to his music and ideas since he left his Fort Worth, Texas, home to blaze his own singular trail. But he was able to find kindred musical spirits, including the men who would make up his seminal quartet: Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins (succeeded by the late, great Ed Blackwell). Ornette began to establish himself as a unique voice, first in Los Angeles, then in New York, where his 1959 debut engagement at the Five Spot caused a commotion in the music world. The jazz community divided into hostile camps over this startling new music. "Where's the melody?" was the battle cry of the reactionary wing (a delicious irony, really: Ornette's music is chock full of melodies -- more, it turns out, than many people can handle at one time).

Today, some 35 years after the Five Spot, Ornette's perseverance and devotion to his art is at last reaping the recognition it deserves. In 1994 he was awarded the coveted MacArthur Foundation fellowship, known as the "Genius Grant" (seldom was that overused word -- genius -- so aptly applied.).

1996 finds Coleman's genius and creative light burning bright as ever, as evidenced on the two-volume "Sound Museum," his first recordings featuring his New Quartet, released recently on his own Harmolodic label (distributed by Verve). Ornette, ever the restless spirit experimenting in new collaborative contexts, is devoted to the transcendent task of building what Ralph Waldo Emerson called "God's architecture." May he continue to build well into the next millennium.