These three PDFs, available for free download, comprise a celebratory history of Fort Worth’s Caravan of Dreams Performing Arts Center, on the occasion of Ornette Coleman Day, the 40th Anniversary of the Caravan, 9-29-23.
Review:
Forty years ago, a most unusual performance and arts space opened its doors in downtown Fort Worth. A two-story brick building on Houston Street built in the 1880s was repurposed into a music venue featuring jazz and blues, a record label and production company, a theater with its own touring ensemble, dance studio, art gallery, and a restaurant, topped by a rooftop cactus garden, grotto bar, and a geodesic dome.
The Caravan of Dreams was avant-garde, experimental, quirky, exotic, or the work of a cult, depending who you asked, and quite the anomaly—as if Parliament-Funkadelic’s Mothership had landed in the heart of Cowtown.
•Read the rest of Joe Nick Patoski’s review of Caravan from Dreamland in Texas Highways magazine.
From the Author
“The Blue Note Central Heartbeat of Music, Theater and Creativity.” That’s how one musician described Fort Worth’s Caravan of Dreams Performing Arts Center. How this Caravan found a home in Fort Worth, and all the magic that happened there, is an epic odyssey, an embodiment of the best of the spirit of the 60s, with all the bold, creative vision that implies.
I believe that the triumphant, synergetic energy that successfully brought this Caravan to life shines through this montage of photos, quotes and fragments of recorded conversations, a scrapbook of memories and reflections.
To everyone who supported this effort to shine a spotlight on the creative vision that brought this Caravan from Dreamland to Fort Worth, I extend my heartfelt gratitude.
William Williams
MetroMusicProject.com is a non-commercial, educational, research project. Every effort has been made to accurately and responsibly credit all material. Our sincere apologies for any failures or inaccuracies in that regard – and our sincere gratitude for those who have generously shared material and memories, in the interest of historical documentation, for the 40th-anniversary celebration of the Caravan of Dreams.