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John Coltrane CDs:
Ascension
/
Ballads
/
Best of John
Coltrane /
Impressions
/
My Favorite Things /
Selflessness /
A Love Supreme /
Giant Steps
Meditations
Kulu Se Mama /
Interstellar
Space /
The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions /
Stellar Regions /
Expression /
Afro Blue Impressions
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* * *
John William Coltrane
(1926-1967)
Composer, Bandleader, Saxophonist
Saxophonist John Coltrane combined great
emotion with excellent musicianship and discipline with freedom.
Like [Charlie "Bird"] Parker, he did not have an
extensive career compared to Armstrong and Ellington. His career
lasted about twelve years, from 1955 to 1967.
John Coltrane was born in Hamlet, North
Carolina, September 23, 1926. He studied saxophone in
Philadelphia and began playing professionally in that city.
Coltrane started to attain recognition while playing with Miles
Davis from 1955 to 1960. In 1960 he formed his own quartet. in
1965 Alice McLeod (Mrs. John Coltrane) joined the group.
Coltrane's short career ended with his death on July 1, 1967, at
the age of forty.
Musicians disagree about other contemporary
players such as Ornette Coleman, but there were few
disagreements about John Coltrane. Coltrane was a fine saxophone
player (tenor and soprano) in every sense. The prime concern of
most musicians is the tone that a player produces. There is no
way to imagine a musical sound without considering the quality
of the tone. Coltrane produced a large, dark, lush sound from
his instrument.
A brief listen to "Ogunde" verifies
this fact. On the album Giant Steps (Coltrane's first album
under his own name) his beautiful, solid tone is most evident in
"Naima." This record shows his confidence at this time
in his career and reveals deeper feeling and conviction than
when he worked for Davis. His drive is very apparent on
"Cousin Mary."
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Coltrane's chief legacy was his beautiful
tone and his control of the upper register. (He had equal
strength in all registers of the instrument--an unusual trait.)
Wayne Shorter, Charles Lloyd, Pharaoh Sanders, and Eddie Harris
all show traces of this legacy. The influence of Coltrane's very
passionate approach appears in unlikely places, like in an
occasional near scream from cool saxophonist Stan Getz. Coltrane
said that Sidney Bechet was an important influence on his own
playing.
Coltrane advanced jazz improvisation
harmonically through long excursions into the higher harmonics
of chords on an instrument that that is sounded where a
trombone, or a man's voice, is pitched (the tenor saxophone). |
Coltrane had great coordination between his
fingering of the saxophone and his tonguing. This coordination
allowed him such fast technique that he played arpeggios so
rapidly that they are referred to as Coltrane's "sheets of
sound." His sheets of sound can be heard as easily in his
career as "All Blues" with Miles Davis, and a little
in "Cousin Mary" with his own quartet. Coltrane's
creativity with his sheets of sound was actually homophonically
constructed music which had been carried to a higher level. He
thought of these runs as if they were chords on top of chords.
His fast arpeggios have great emotional impact, and he was an
expert in the use of sequences.
A logical starting place for those
uninitiated in Coltrane's music is miles Davis' recording of Kind
of Blue. On "All Blues," "So What," and
"Freddie Freeloader," the listener can hear Coltrane
when he was working for a fairly conservative leader. Therefore
he had not expanded his directions very much and is quite easy
to understand and appreciate immediately. it is interesting to
compare the Coltrane of this album with Cannonball Adderly. On
both "So What" and "Freddie Freeloader,"
Adderly shows a more direct association with parker and at the
same time plays some very funky-type phrases not to be found in
Coltrane's playing. In "Freddie Freeloader," Coltrane
is blowing aggressively and melodically at the same time.
Coltrane played rhythmically but counter to
that which was being played by what would normally be the rhythm
section; so the music became arhythmic. This effect freed the
rhythm players to play whatever occurred to them according to
the melodic thoughts they were hearing. Coltrane could play
"on top of the beat" whenever he wanted to, but he
liked to play differently from the rhythm players with the idea
that this freed them from having to play with him. His
counterrhythms can be heard on both "Countdown" and
"Spiral" on Giant Steps. he seemed to fuse melody and
rhythm in "The Father and The Son and the Holy Ghost."
| Eventually, Coltrane turned toward
emphasizing the melodic line above all else. Chords were used
only as they related to the melody. instead of melody being
improvised out of harmony, melody was improvised from melody--an
approach used by classical composers quite early in the history
of music but seldom by jazz performers. Coltrane had the
advantage of working with Thelonious Monk. From Monk, he was
able to establish a mature, consistent relationship between the
chords and his melodic thoughts. Monk stimulated Coltrane's
interest in wide intervals, while it is very possible that his
interest in various types of scales came from his time with the
Miles Davis group.
Thelonious Monk Quartet (2005) |
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Coltrane broke away from the format of theme,
solos, theme. On his recording of "The Father and The Son
and the Holy Ghost," there is no real theme before his
solo, and the ensemble portion has no theme at all. This is very
disturbing to jazz listeners who expect only traditional
approaches to jazz. In "Coundown," Coltrane shows his
great coordination. The work sounds free; yet when chords are
brought in under his solo, he is exactly where he should be
harmonically.
An example of Coltrane's innovation is a
selection called "India," recorded before the Beatles
received credit for discovering Ravi Shankar. In this album one
hears influences such as Indian scales and rhythms.
Coltrane opened the path for others like
Archie Shepp through his conviction that improvisation could
continue past all existing melodic considerations, harmonic
considerations, and rhythmic flow. Free form seemed to need
another leader besides Ornette Coleman. Coltrane became this
leader with his long improvisations (sometimes 40 minutes), his
sheets of sound, his tome, and his technique. he was looked upon
as a spiritual leader. Coltrane and his followers have often
been criticized fro playing solos that were too long, but their
answer was that they needed the time to explore the music in
depth.
At first Coltrane was admired more as a
technically complete musician than as a creative artist. he
showed speed as he cascaded chords with his powerful moving
tone. But his recording A Love Supreme seemed to change the
attitude toward his playing. it is a very emotional record that
does away with some earlier excesses and is more a work of art
than an exhibition. Coltrane tried to explain (in his music) the
wonderful things that the universe meant to him. playing jazz
was a spiritual experience to Coltrane, and he always felt that
he should share his feelings with his listeners. There is no
doubt about his strong religious motivation.
Coltrane continually experimented. Even when
listeners were well acquainted with Coltrane's recordings, they
would still be constantly surprised and amazed at each live
performance. His fans learned to expect only the unexpected.
"Coltrane came, and he made music. he
built on existing foundations. he and his music lived in
inexorable relation to other lives, other ideas, other musics.
But How he built! The musical structures are changed forever
because of him
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Coltrane Discography
Ascension.
Impulse Records, A-95
Ballads. impulse
Records, S-32
Best of John
Coltrane. Atlantic Records, S-1541
Impressions. Impulse
Records, AS 42
John Coltrane.
Prestige Records, 24003
My Favorite Things.
Atlantic Records, 1361
Selflessness.
Impulse records, AS-9161
Smithsonian
Collection of Classic Jazz. Columbia P6 11891 (12 sides)
The Mastery of John Coltrane, Vol. 1 Feeling
Good Vol. 2, To the Beat of a Different Drum * * *
* * Reviews
Interstellar Space
John Coltrane's last recordings have a concentrated intensity
and a pointed focus that give them the authority of a final
testament. On
Interstellar Space, recorded in February 1967 just a few
months before his death, Coltrane reduced the idea of the group
to its absolute minimum, a duo with drummer Rashied Ali. Without
the fixed harmonic frame of reference provided by piano or bass,
Coltrane takes each of his brief themes and submits it to
extended testing--repeating, contracting, and expanding phrases
until they melt into a new inspiration. These are performances
of extraordinary technical achievement. Coltrane ranges over the
tenor with a vibrato so tight it sounds like it might contort
the horn, exploring incremental shifts in pitch and tone and
bending notes from one register to another. But it's a
virtuosity that may well go unnoticed amid the sheer passion of
his work and the unknown goal toward which every improvisation
moves. It's visionary music, filled with expressive necessity
and the full tumult of life, embarking on journeys that are as
apt to begin in serenity as end there. Rashied Ali matches
Coltrane here as well as Elvin Jones had earlier in the decade,
using continuous rolls and cymbal details to create a
polyrhythmic backdrop that's filled with subtle, responsive
shifts in accents. It's clearly all the support that Coltrane
required.—Stuart Broomer
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The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions
In 1961 John Coltrane's
explorations of different modes and rhythms led to several
powerful works that invoked other cultures, like "Olé," "India,"
and "Brazilia." While those pieces were all recorded with
expanded versions of his quartet, "Africa" was a unique
opportunity, with Eric Dolphy's arrangements for up to 13 brass
and reed instruments providing a setting of volcanic energy for
Coltrane's majestic, declamatory tenor and the surging drumming
of Elvin Jones. The orchestrations, as well as the solos, vary
on the two sessions heard here, and there are also thoughtful
adaptations of traditional material like "Greensleeves," a
lilting feature for Coltrane's soprano saxophone that recalls
the earlier treatment of "My Favorite Things," and "Song of the
Underground Railroad." The two-CD complete collection expands on
the original release with alternate takes of "Africa" and "Greensleeves"
as well as a previously unissued recording of "The Damned Don't
Cry."—Stuart Broomer
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Stellar Regions This set
is drawn from a February 15, 1967, recording session—one of John
Coltrane's last days in the studio. The tapes had been in Alice
Coltrane's care since the recording, and she gave titles to the
pieces, overseeing their release on CD in 1995. All are
previously unreleased with the exception of "Offering" which
appeared on Expression. As on that release, there's evidence
here that Coltrane's relentless musical search was drawing him
ever further out. The performances are shorter, focused, with a
magisterial lyricism seamlessly integrated with exclamatory
shrieks and cries. There is an aching, though rough-hewn, beauty
to Coltrane's playing on these tracks. With the exception of "Tranesonic"
where he is on alto, he plays tenor sax throughout. His command
of the instrument from the very bottom of the low register to
the stratospheric heights of the altissimo is staggering--note
in particular his "duet" with himself on "Sun Star" where he
questions and answers with himself on the extreme ranges of the
horn. There's a depth and wisdom to these recordings that only
further extends the Coltrane legacy.—Michael
Monhart
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Expression
When he died on July 17,
1967, John Coltrane was in a period of exploration, and while
his musical pedigree afforded him a level of jazz authenticity
that perennial outsiders such as Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman,
and Cecil Taylor could only dream of, the cathartic,
rhythmically turbulent music of 1965-1967 tested the indulgence
and endurance of even his staunchest fans. But Coltrane was a
creative lightning rod for any number of improvisors, and while
a few jazzmen, such as the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Julius
Hemphill, followed his spiritual lead, his vertical constructs
and open-ended modality also found fruition in the open-ended,
electric blues and jazz of groups such as Cream, the Jimi
Hendrix Experience, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and the many bands
of Trane's old mentor Miles Davis. "Ogunde" is an ecstatic,
rolling ballad, all white-peaked waves and billowing winds, in
the lyric tradition of A Love Supreme. Likewise, on
"Offering," the centerpiece of Expression, Trane proceeds
from a stirring lyric prelude, through spasmodic rhythmic
abstractions, culminating in a jubilant, wailing dialogue with
the droning, pulsating percussion of Rashied Ali.—Chip
Stern
Source:
The Study of Jazz
by Paul O.W.
Tanner and Maurice Gerow /
http://www.johncoltrane.com/automat/swf/main.htm * *
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posted 14 July 2008
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