Passage: Ornette Coleman and Christopher Lee
It happened this past week ... the passing of two very different men of talent.
Jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman died Thursday in New York of cardiac arrest.
Coleman pioneered a style he called "harmolodics" -- improvising off the melody, rather than the chord changes.
In a 1966 documentary, Coleman credited his independent ways to the poverty of his childhood:
"I grew up hungry, so I can be hungry now, you know?" he said. "It's not gonna make any difference, you know? That's when I started trying to not worry about whether what I was doing had any value, or whether it was good or bad, but to do it."
He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award.
Ornette Coleman was 85.
Play excerpts from Coleman's 1959 album, "The Shape of Jazz to Come"
"The Shape of Jazz to Come" Excerpt 1
"The Shape of Jazz to Come" Excerpt 2
- Video: Mourning jazz legend Ornette Coleman ("CBS This Morning," 06/13/15)
And we learned of the death in London of film actor Christopher Lee.
Standing more than six feet tall, Lee was often cast as the villain. He played the monster in the 1957 film, "The Curse of Frankenstein," and also played Count Dracula no fewer than ten times.
More recently, Lee played the evil wizard Saruman in the "Lord of the Rings" and "Hobbit" films.
A veteran of roughly 250 film and TV roles, he was knighted in 2009.
To play an excerpt from "The Lords of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," in which Saruman reveals his true colors to Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellan), click on the video player below.