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john coltrane


desdemona

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One thing about John Coltrane's music....if you're a top 40 fan only it's going to take some time for you to actually understand what you're hearing. Chances are it will repel you at first, but if you are wise enough to hang with it and grow, the rewards are many. His wife Alice is no musical slouch either...

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  • 2 months later...

BBC 1 tomorrow night

10:35 pm

Imagine...

Saint John Coltrane: On the 40th anniversary of John Coltrane's most famous record, A Love Supreme, Alan Yentob examines the life and work of the legendary jazz saxophonist.

Somebody remind me to watch it

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some 'older' guy (hahaha, he was 21) turned me onto coltrane's 'a love supreme' and i flipped...since then i've turned many onto him. i love that album best prolly for sentimental reasons.

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  • 2 weeks later...

TRIBUTE TO TRANETrane, the restless spirit - taken from Music Maker - September 1967

by Clifford White

"I don't know what I'm looking for ... something that hasn't been played before. I don't know what it is. I know I'll have that feeling when I get it."

Those were the words of John Coltrane in 1964 after he finished recording "Crescent", an album which contains some of the finest jazz of this or any era, music or a quality and permanence which few musiciansever equal in a lifetime. But this was typical of Coltrane, whose sudden death in a New York hospital on July 17 stunned the entire world of jazz. He was only 40, and a few days before he was admitted to hospital suffering from a liver ailment he had been discussing plans for his next recording with producer Bob Thiele, the man who presided over teh great saxist's latter albums.

The history of jazz is spattered with the names of musicians who died young. Bix Beiderbecke, Clifford Brown, the great Charlie Parnter ... but with men like Parker, shocking though the fact of his death was, it was well known that hte chaotic manner of his life would inevitably lead to an early grave. Coltrane's personal life,o n the contrary, contained non of the self-destrution whic hwas so obvjous with Bird. Trane was a deeply religious man. Two of his albums -- "A Love Supreme" and "Mediations" -- were inspired by his concern with religion. In the sleeve not he wrote for "A Love Supreme", he said: "During the year 1957 I experienced ... a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life". The suddenness of his death was shocking becasue here in Britain at any rate, there had bee nno murmur or mention of illness.

Along with Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins, Coltrane was one of the father figures who commanded total respect at a time when jazz was in a state of flux such as it had never known before. In teh last couple of years, with more achievemnets to his credit than most musicians can only dream of, he identiifed himself with the more extreme elements of the avant garde, using many of the younger musicians on his recording sessions and generally encouraging a movement in jazz which has been the object of scorn and derision rather than understanding and open-mindness.

But throught his career, which began at the age of nineteen playing in a Philadelphia club, he was constantly setting himself new horizons, erecting new obstacles to overcome, chasing after that personal musical fulfillment whic hobviously eluded him even though he was producing masterpiece after masterpiece. After a spell in the navy he worked with Eddie Vinson's R&B band and at teh age of 24 was a Dizzy Gillespie's big band and small group. He returned to the earthier fields of R&B with Earl Bostic in 1952. A spell with a Johnny Hodges group followed before he was invited to join Miles Davis in 1955.

Trane's style in this peroid was dubbed "sheets of sound" (by American critic Ira Gitler) and his baying sound and relentless, insistent rhythmic drive justified the description. I started experimenting becaseu I was trying for more individual development," he said of his playing of that time. "I was beginning to apply teh three-to-one chord approach and at this time the tendency was to play the entire scale of each chord. Therefore they were usually played fast and sometimes sounded like glisses". The David group albums from this peroid, especially "Kind of Blue" adn "Milesteons"

Coltrane's achievemetns by 1960 when he left Miles to form a gorup of his own were impressive enough to ensure jazz immortality. His conception has superceded Rollins's as the most influential in jazz tenor; his reputation was secure; his future seemed assured -- all he had to do was stick with the style which had won him world-wide recognition and acclaim.

But he couldn't do it. I n1961 he arrived in Britain for a tour with a quintet which included the late Eric Dolphy. The musicians and fans fo this country awaited his visit with bated breath, ready to acclaim one of the great jazzmen of our time. But the music which Coltrane presented to this workshipful audience shocked and confused it to such a degree that many never recovered. Twenty-five minute solo son "My Favourite Things" when everybody expected "Freddie Freeloader" and "Milestones" ... local jazz "names" walking out in the middle of concerts ... critics dazed by the sheer power of the experience ("What Happened?" shrieked a headline in the Melody Maker)>

What had happened was simply that British ears, unprepared because no recordings of the "new" Coltrane had reached here, had had their first brush with the avant garde and had been pretty bruised by it.

He was disappointed by the reception in Britain ; but paradoxically Coltrane jazz was one of athe most sought after sounds on the American jass club and concert circuit. The Coltrant-Tyner-Garrison-Jones quartet became one of the most successful, musically and otherwise, on the scene. Again a situation arose where a warier spirit than Coltrane's would have played safe; but promoters booking the Coltrane Quartet were liable to find the stage occupied not by four, but by seve nor eight men. Tenorist Pharoah Sanders adn Drummer Rashied Ali were added to the group as Trane plunged headlong into his association with the avant garde.

Perhaps his powers faltered in these later years, and there were often moments when it seemed that Trane was no longer master in his own group as Sanders' more extremist style pulled his leader more and more away from the gorund on which he was undisputed monarch. But again, some of his work (the over whelming passion and intensity of his soprano solo on "My Favourite Things" from teh "Live at teh VIllage Vanguard AGain!" set is a wonderful example) reached the halcyon heights which are populated by only the very great.

*whew*

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