McClintic Sphere explained
McClintic Sphere is a fictional character in the novel V. by Thomas Pynchon.
Sphere is an innovative saxophone player modeled on Ornette Coleman,[1] [2] [3] though Sphere is also Thelonious Monk's middle name.
V. contains a description of a gig in Greenwich Village, possibly at the Five Spot, based on the Ornette Coleman Quartet with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins around 1960.
Notes and References
- Web site: Ornette's Permanent Revolution . . September 1985 . May 11, 2020 . Davis, Francis . In Thomas Pynchon's novel V. there is a character named McClintic Sphere, who plays an alto saxophone of hand-carved ivory (Coleman's was made of white plastic) at a club called the V Note..
- Web site: The Art of the Improviser . . April 26, 2007 . May 11, 2020 . Yaffe, David . Of all the ink spilled on Coleman's impact, perhaps the most memorable came from Thomas Pynchon's 1963 debut novel, V., in which the character McClintic Sphere (with a last name nodding to Thelonious Monk's middle name) sets the jazz world on end at a club called the V-Note..
- Seeing Ornette Coleman . . June 12, 2015 . May 11, 2020 . Bynum, Taylor Ho . In Thomas Pynchon's 1963 novel 'V.', a thinly veiled character named McClintic Sphere appears, playing a 'white ivory' saxophone at the 'V Spot.' Pynchon's wonderfully terse parody of the portentous debate around Coleman's music is as follows: 'He plays all the notes Bird missed,' somebody whispered in front of Fu. Fu went silently through the motions of breaking a beer bottle on the edge of the table, jamming it into the speaker's back and twisting..