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.

References

  1. ^ Davis, Francis (September 1985). "Ornette's Permanent Revolution". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 11, 2020. 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.
  2. ^ Yaffe, David (April 26, 2007). "The Art of the Improviser". The Nation. Retrieved May 11, 2020. 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.
  3. ^ Bynum, Taylor Ho (June 12, 2015). "Seeing Ornette Coleman". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 11, 2020. 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.


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