John Coltrane film

[Jazzrook]

As discussed on the Coltrane special 'Jazz Now' last night:

https://www.coltranefilm.com

JR

[Richard Barrett]

Looking forward to that.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

As discussed on the Coltrane special 'Jazz Now' last night:

https://www.coltranefilm.com

JR

There's a short clip from it on You tube. Trane in his dressing gown playing with his dog in the back garden, a very nice house. Sonny in red silk like a wise jester! All that and more would be great, I just HOPE there's not too much Bill Clinton? Oh C,mon...

BN.

[Serial_Apologist]

There's a short clip from it on You tube. Trane in his dressing gown playing with his dog in the back garden, a very nice house. Sonny in red silk like a wise jester! All that and more would be great, I just HOPE there's not too much Bill Clinton? Oh C,mon...

BN.

Bit strange, that bit in the write-up, where it says 'Trane was listening to Bird when aged 13. In 1939? Let alone a 13-year old, would anybody have been??

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Bit strange, that bit in the write-up, where it says 'Trane was listening to Bird when aged 13. In 1939? Let alone a 13-year old, would anybody have been??

Yes, I missed that. Some sloppy hackery there. I learnt today that Coltrane was addicted in later life to...wait for it .. Butterscotch life savers! Like big Polos in shape but very sweet. McCoy Tyner said he went through packets of them - with one time his fingers sticking to the tenor keys. May not be quite like that but quite a good image!

"Hey Trane, what's that you're playing?.... "Giant Sweets"!

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

Jazzrook must have been reading my mind when he posted this thread as I was intending on posting a link to this really interesting article:-

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/john-coltrane-coltrane-and-crescentshadows-and-light-by-mark-werlin.php

My perception of Coltrane is likely to be totally different from a lot of the older posters on this board as I was only two months old when he died. My Dad has never been in to Coltrane and I had to come to his music by myself. Initially I didn't like his post-Miles stuff and it felt all rather boring at the time when all the young New Neos were trying to sound like him. When I eventually came around to his music after hearing the album "Coltrane" and a selection of ballad performances it was still difficult to assimilate. I think the "difficulty" of his music has made me less confident in the perceived wisdom of what his best albums are and even now that I have amassed a large collection of his records, I still find that I much prefer some less-celebrated records.

This article is fascinating as I had never really considered the chronology of the Impulse records and I think that, for the first time, listening to the two records which the writer considers to be almost the bookends of the "classic" quartet as well as considering what went on in between makes me appreciate how the jazz audience at the time would have perceived his music. I had no idea just how well paid this group was ( the second biggest draw after Miles) but it never twigged that the Hartman / ballad / Ellington discs were part of a strategy to rein Coltrane in to a more "populist" agenda which would have shifted records. The Hartman disc is really problematic for me as the mixture of Coltrane with an Eckstine-esque singer is a bizarre project because the signer , as good as he was, must have sounded old-fashioned in the early 60's. It might have been "hip" in 1945 but sits at odds with the ethos od Coltrane's musical trajectory. I love the "Ballad" album which is absolute perfection yet the Ellington disc is only intermittently successful. I believe that Coltrane was suffering from gum trouble when he made this disc and that playing was painful yet the biggest problem is that the Duke sound disinterested on some of the tracks. The perception I had of the Impulse records was that they followed on from the success of "My favourite things" and broadly culminated in near transcendental performances around 1965 after which he plunged fully in to the New Thing. I wasn't that appreciative of the chronology of the records nor of the fact that Impulse actually had a marketing strategy that they saw as being compromised.

I quite like the idea of Coltrane working on "projects" and the more focused sets seem superior to albums like "Impressions" which seems culled from a number of sessions. For me, "Impressions" is one of the weakest albums he made, the title tune outstays it's welcome and the disc as a whole is only worth listening to for "After the rain" - ironically one of his very finest ballad performances. By contrast, it is staggering that something like "Plays" is never seriously rated even though tracks like "Brazilia" and "Song of praise" are pretty much essential performances. The most under-rated studio record is "Crescent" which Alyn, Jazzrook and Bluesnik have praised on this board before. This is far, far superior to "A love supreme" even though the central movement of the later are pretty mind-blowing. The curious thing about the Coltrane quartet is that the live performances on an album like "one down, one up" often trump the studio records. I was amazed by this disc when I first heard it.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Well I, being of an age, bought Coltrane's records as they came out, starting with Giant Steps. A friend brought the Atlantic imports of Favourite Things and Coltrane Jazz back from Paris, "he's now playing chords on tenor!...Harmonique!" and we alternated with imports from then on right up until Live in Seattle. I think Coltrane's Sound is overlooked, perhaps the best of the Atlantic, although Coltrane hated the cover, and of the Impulses, Transition is phenomenal, the quartet at the brink of tearing itself apart. Probably in a minority but I also really like the Prestige dates, the ballads, and even on the blowing dates there's usually something going on. And sometimes even Atlas stubs his foot.

Finally, I'm all for a good documentary but do we have to go down the Sainthood street again, he was, after all, human. And addicted to sweets.

BN

Btw Wbgo played Shepp's Four for Trane in its entirety late Saturday night. It must be one of the best homages ever. No attempt at cloning.

[elmo]

Ian re "Impressions" I think perhaps better taken as part of the "Complete 1961 Village Vanguard sessions". That whole package is full of wonderful music "Spiritual, Chasin the Trane etc.

Besides "Giant Steps" and Monk and Trane on Riverside the first Trane albums that I got were Africa/Brass - (still love that album) and two obscure 1958 albums originally issued under Wilbur Harden's name " on 42nd street" and "Dial Africa" excellent "Sheets of sound" era Trane and very good trumpet/flugel from Wilbur.

BN Agree re "Transition" and the Prestige sessions, another underrated album by the quartet is "First Meditations".

https://youtu.be/6Kw850B2x78 - Trane and Wilbur

elmo

[Ian Thumwood]

Ian re "Impressions" I think perhaps better taken as part of the "Complete 1961 Village Vanguard sessions". That whole package is full of wonderful music "Spiritual, Chasin the Trane etc.

Besides "Giant Steps" and Monk and Trane on Riverside the first Trane albums that I got were Africa/Brass - (still love that album) and two obscure 1958 albums originally issued under Wilbur Harden's name " on 42nd street" and "Dial Africa" excellent "Sheets of sound" era Trane and very good trumpet/flugel from Wilbur.

BN Agree re "Transition" and the Prestige sessions, another underrated album by the quartet is "First Meditations".

https://youtu.be/6Kw850B2x78 - Trane and Wilbur

elmo

The curious thing about Coltrane is that it is often quite easy to understand how the music works on a basic level. So much of the material seems to be a distillation to either one or two chords. The clever bit is playing the unusual scales and then seeing how the music evolves. "Nature Boy" is really intriguing, for example, as the improvisation is initially based on a D minor chord and the whole song structure is jettisoned. Towards the end, the whole improvised section just clicks like two sticks being rubbed together and, hey presto, you have created fire. "Impressions" is just a rehash of "So what" but I feel it does nowhere. Even albums like "Africa Brass" use single scales on some of the themes and Steve Reich has cited this album as being instrumental in his musical development. Essentially, Coltrane simplified things in order to make the process more complicated.

It is strange how sometimes the improvisational process Coltrane used produces bountiful ideas whereas it can lead to tedium like "impressions." I think that this album has so little of McCoy Tyner on it too that I feel it is a bit monotonous. Unlike Miles Davis where there is a sense that the records have been "produced" by Teo macero, Coltrane's records seem much more organic and, towards the end, the actual concept of an album being cohesive is almost academic.

regarding the Atlantic material, I think that their sound quality is pretty thin and horrible, totally lacking the warmth of the Impulse releases.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Well its true Tom Dowd had a different take on recording jazz than Van Gelder and Giant Steps is a tad "boxy" esp Art Taylor, but Bags and Trane right through MFT, Plays the Blues, to Ole? Let's not sweepingly generalise...yeah I forgot, that's what we "do". Best.

BN.

For "warmth" in jazz recording, Contemporary (perhaps) outclasses them all.

[Jazzrook]

Well I, being of an age, bought Coltrane's records as they came out, starting with Giant Steps. A friend brought the Atlantic imports of Favourite Things and Coltrane Jazz back from Paris, "he's now playing chords on tenor!...Harmonique!" and we alternated with imports from then on right up until Live in Seattle. I think Coltrane's Sound is overlooked, perhaps the best of the Atlantic, although Coltrane hated the cover, and of the Impulses, Transition is phenomenal, the quartet at the brink of tearing itself apart. Probably in a minority but I also really like the Prestige dates, the ballads, and even on the blowing dates there's usually something going on. And sometimes even Atlas stubs his foot.

Finally, I'm all for a good documentary but do we have to go down the Sainthood street again, he was, after all, human. And addicted to sweets.

BN

Btw Wbgo played Shepp's Four for Trane in its entirety late Saturday night. It must be one of the best homages ever. No attempt at cloning.

'Live at Birdland'(IMPULSE!) was the first Coltrane album I heard in the early '60s and was blown away by tracks like 'Afro-Blue', 'I Want To Talk About You' & 'Alabama'.
I then worked backwards through his ATLANTIC & PRESTIGE catalogues and also bought every new album as they came out.
'Crescent' from 1964 is my absolute favourite of his albums and I want 'Wise One' played at my funeral(hopefully a few years away!).
Look forward to seeing the film and hope Bill Clinton has a minimal role!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrqb0373cVs

JR

[Old Grumpy]

Thoroughly enjoyed this weeks Jazz Now - and looking forward to the film. I was given a copy of Ben Ratliff's book Coltrane: The Story of a Sound for my birthday - must get round to reading it!

OG

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Thoroughly enjoyed this weeks Jazz Now - and looking forward to the film. I was given a copy of Ben Ratliff's book Coltrane: The Story of a Sound for my birthday - must get round to reading it!

OG

Its a sober account although not that revelatory given his New York Times? mode of journalism. And I think he came to Coltrane well after JCs death so he doesn't catch the sheer excitement, curiosity and debate that used to surround each record.

BN.

[Jazzrook]

Coltrane live in Stuttgart, 1963:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM_uS99mHOo

JR

[Jazzrook]

John Coltrane Quartet at the Half Note, April 2, 1965:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrmx0Zjsvgo

JR