Ornette Coleman links musical phrases together in every possible way in the space of a piece. He might play in C for a bit really hugging as the tonic but then suddenly he starts playing C as the 3rd of Ab. Then he'll switch to C as the 5th of F. Then he might play a type of line that only Ornette uses--I've never heard anyone else do it unless they were disciples of his--but he plays a line that has no meaning, no key, no center, no message. Its only purpose is to make the listener (and the fellow musicians) forget what he just played so you can't get too settled in. Since he left off on in the key of F and the way it related to C as the 5th, now he'll start toying around with F and finding all kinds of different ways to relate it to every note in existence and even with notes that don't exist but which Ornette plays nonetheless.

But you never know how he's going to relate, what tonal center he might jump to or when he's going to erase it all and start with something else that you also can't predict. It's a new way of writing, playing and of listening to music.