Veteran saxophonist and free jazz innovator Ornette Coleman collapsed while performing at Tennessee's Bonnaroo Festival on Sunday and was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Jazz artist Ornette Coleman, shown in his New York apartment in April after winning a Pulitzer Prize in music, collapsed onstage at a Tennessee festival and was taken to hospital.
(Peter Morgan/Associated Press)

The 77-year-old legend had been performing in the jazz tent on the final day of the Manchester, Tenn., music festival when, midway through a song, he collapsed on stage.

Coleman was rushed to Coffey County Hospital Sunday and treated for heat-related dehydration, according to publicist Ken Weinstein, who added that the saxophonist was released later Sunday night.

Coleman, a veteran of the music business for nearly five decades, is credited with pioneering the improvisational subgenre eventually dubbed free jazz in the 1960s and helping to inspire later avant-garde jazz musicians.

In February, Coleman was honoured with a lifetime achievement Grammy Award and, two months later, won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for music for his album Sound Grammar.

Other artists who took the Bonnaroo stage during the four-day festival included the Police, the White Stripes, Wilco, the Flaming Lips, Ziggy Marley and Ben Harper.

About 80,000 tickets were sold to the annual event, which, as of Sunday morning, counted one death, of a 25-year-old concertgoer. Authorities are investigating, but said they are looking into drugs and the high heat as possible causes of his death.

With files from the Associated Press