Do You Get On With "Late Period' Coltrane?

[Richard Barrett]

I cannot imagine Coltrane getting in to jazz rock. I have been listening a bit to Weather Report of late and it is clear that their concept is really about arrangements. There are moments where I feel that Zawinul had a big band in his mind when he was writing. I find it hard to square this with where Coltrane would have been coming from. I just think he would have looked beyond jazz in the 1970s.

Agreed about Zawinul (eg the voicing of the main theme in the title track of Black Market), although Weather Report arrangements are usually way more interesting than anyone else's in that period and style.

What would Coltrane have done? I'm not sure that he would have been much interested in the fusion direction, being of a very different temperament from Miles. Going further in the free jazz direction would also maybe not have appealed to him since there's almost always an implicit modality in what he did. He could just as easily have stayed where he was, exploring the stylistic range that can be heard between his last few recordings. I can well imagine that he might have admitted more input from non-western musics, Indian in particular. Something like Shakti? Maybe.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Lol Coxhill
Saxophonist, improviser:

"No one can know where (Coltrane) would have gone. If he'd carried on from where he was, he would have developed that. I can't imagine any other direction except him just growing and growing on that level. What he had was perfection in itself, but he could have developed that area anyway. I don't think he needed to go somewhere else. We just naturally develop, we don't think about where we're going. We just keep going - and never arrive, I hope." - "Coltrane, 40 years on". Guardian symposium, 2007.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

John Coltrane in 1966...

“There was a thing I wanted to do in music, see. I figured I could do two things: I could have a band that played like the way we used to play, and a band that was going in the direction that the one I have now [in 1966] is going in — I could combine these two, with these two concepts going. And it could have been done.” - - - - Quoted in Ben Ratliff's Coltrane book

[Serial_Apologist]

Of course, but I thin conjecture is fun and it also allows you to dispel the notion that late Coltrane was some sort of musical full stop. The issue is that the music continued to evolve beyond 1967 and that the what might be perceived as a culmination would have only have been phase in his development had he lived. It is a bit lazy to look at the 1970s as being dominated by fusion and jazz rock as it was more a period where musicians were able to take stock of the free jazz movement but also open their ears to others sounds too. It is intriguing to look at where the like of Sanders, Ayler and Shepp ended up in the next decade (dead in the case of Ayler but signing off with an R n/B record) and to see that the musicians who seemed most in debt to Coltrane in the 70s and 80s essentially came from the jazz mainstream. I would be thinking of musicians like Mike Brecker, Steve Grossman, Charles Lloyd, Bob Berg, Dave Liebman, Branford Marsalis, etc. However, I think that a player like Mike Brecker was able to build upon Coltrane's work with a more modern harmonic concept even if there was a trade-off in other respects.


One of the most rewarding aspects of jazz in the last twenty years is that Coltrane's influence is less of a force and that musicians are looking far beyond this. I can't say that Coltrane has any discernible influence on Steve Coleman's music nor the likes of players like Steve Lehman, Dave Binney, Mark Turner, Henry Threadgill, etc, etc. I am glad that jazz has escaped from the shadow of Coltrane but for the generation of players who grew up under his spell, it is not the late-Coltrane that appears to be a significant pull. The issue for me is that few players have ever managed to match the emotional clout of Coltrane nor have managed to grasp the titanic approach to lengthy solos which seem to create a shape over a prolonged period of improvisation.

What I've highlighted in what you wrote - that's it, Ian: you've got it, imv. The thing about the Breckers, Grossmans, Lloyds, Bergs, Liebmans and Marsalises is that they stepped back a stage from 1965, and took the "classic quartet" Coltrane (1960-64) as the basis for their respective approaches - in the case of Mike Brecker even adducing what essentially became a formulated approach based on certain Coltrane-derived melodic shapes built out of intervallic patterns often applied almost rigidly. His was an approach that influenced many of that 1980s generation, particularly in this country, thinking of Mornington Lockett in particular, as probably the most fluent emulator. It was a hard influence to resist, given Brecker's level of conviction and the flexibility with which it could be applied in contexts ranging from fusion to straight ahead ballads. A useful exercise might be to go through all the Coltraneish tenor and soprano saxophonists in one's collection and really listen to how they solo - possibly starting with Jan Garbarek recordings going right back to the "Afric Pepperbird" era, the start of ECM, as he seemed to be distilling certain Coltrane methods and filtering them through the sound he developed, which can then be heard influencing even Brecker's sound on recordings such as Kenny Wheeler's classic "Double, Double You" of 1983. Here are some more (British) names more-or-less of straight ahead persuasions to conjure with - different from the ones I've already drawn attention to like Pine, Dunmall and Skidmore: Simon Picard, Tim Whitehead, Andy Sheppard, Mark Lockheart, Iain Ballamy, Phil Todd, Pete Hurt, Tim Garland, Jerry Underwood, Nigel Hitchcock (when he transferred over from alto), Steve Williamson (equally influenced by mid-period Coltrane and Steve Coleman), Theo Travis, Patrick Clahar, Ed Jones, Harrison Smith, David Jean Baptiste (on clarinet!), Dave O'Higgins, Julian Nicholas. I'll stop name=checking off my listings there because I'm tempted to start naming tenor players who marked the turn away from the Trane influence! Suffice to say that each of the above exemplifies how the richness of Coltrane's development of improvisatory vocabulary could affect players as diverse as the above.

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

But I would add that I think that Brecker was more harmonically advanced than Coltrane who relied on intervallic devices whereas Brecker's harmonic language was more adventurous. If you wanted to be hypercritical of Coltrane, the "out" moments in the classic quartet often come from vamping off one chord. Listen to a track like "Nature Boy." I would have to say that Brecker was more sophisticated than that and you can also say the same of many of the players I initially listed.

The "problem" with late period Coltrane is that it was such a natural conclusion of where jazz was headed but I think that it was a passing phase in jazz and could possibly have been but a fleeting moment in a career had he lived in to the 1970s and 80s. From a harmonic point of view, I feel that a lot of the "fire music" produced by the likes of Ayler, Shepp and Sanders was not as sophisticated as some of the better and more informed "free jazz " of the late 1960s. You can add early Garbarek into that list as well - I personally don't feel that music has stood up particularly well over the years. (Garbarek was only really compelling from the mid 70's until the late 80's after which he abandoned jazz for New Age music.) Check out something like the improvised music played by Bobby Hutcherson with Herbie Hancock on a disc like "Happenings" which shows the full potential of improvised music. Underlying this, is a strong knowledge of harmony. Herbie is one of the great "outside" improvisers. I love Coltrane but am less enthused by some of these players who followed in his wake. Some of the "astral jazz" of the early 70's is seriously over-rated in my opinion and highlights the major "negative" influence of Coltrane which was to distil the music down to a basic harmonic base and use this to improvise beyond the structure of Broadway tunes. The "astral" stuff is very much of it's era and I would swap not of it for records by the likes of AEoC, William Parker, Billy Bang, let alone more contemporary free jazzers like the crew from Chicago.

I just feel that the later Coltrane records from 1965 onwards are great yet the more interesting avant garde was coming from other sources like AACM , Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley and even musicians like Keith Tippett. I wonder just how popular the "late Coltrane" material would be if Coltrane had continued to produce a further body of work in to the 1980's / 90's. I don't think he would have ceased exploring and records like "Ascension" might not be accorded a similar level of respect if he continued to churn out great music afterwards. My guess is that this record might have been diminished by other developments he might have explored. I would be particularly interested to see how his harmonic language evolved. Like a lot of musicians who died to early, I have a sneaking suspicion that Coltrane would gave continued to have produce a recorded legacy that would continue to be talked about. It is a bit like Bix. The music is great yet it is largely the work of a musician yet to achieve maturity. You can say the same about Charlie Christian, Clifford Brown, Chu Berry, etc.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well I pretty much agree with you Ian, apart from your view that Coltrane's harmonic language was not as advanced as Mike Brecker's would be. Unless you're talking about Coltrane up to and including "Love Supreme" I would have to disagree: it's a huge assertion to make. Listen to any of the solos on "Interstellar Space", where he is free of fixed harmonic markers throughout, or likewise on "Expression", particularly the final, eponymous track, and tell me you can make out what is going on in there. Brecker is relatively straightforward by comparison; sure, his "chromatic modal" approach serves him and us well in the way it interweaves between acknowledging the underlying chord or modal structures and circumnavigating tangentially around them; but there's the rub! - namely in the fact that for Brecker there are predetermined harmonic underpinning structures to work with and against. You don't have them in the final Coltrane - or at least, they have become so etiolated as to be virtually non-dependable from the point of view of understanding the music or how it can be listened to, to make sense of it. Trane, as I hear him, is unfolding the harmonic and rhythmic structure of music as it unfolds, it is unfettered; and in this he was following on from the point Ornette had reached roughly 8 years earlier when, free ab initio from the baggage others like Coltrane and, for that matter, Dolphy, had felt committed to basing their advances on, he had achieved this freedom to move forward without the same feeling of a weight being on his shoulders. It is this latter sense of responsibility that I find as profoundly moving as the actual musical results.

[Joseph K]

Well I pretty much agree with you Ian, apart from your view that Coltrane's harmonic language was not as advanced as Mike Brecker's would be. Unless you're talking about Coltrane up to and including "Love Supreme" I would have to disagree: it's a huge assertion to make. Listen to any of the solos on "Interstellar Space", where he is free of fixed harmonic markers throughout, or likewise on "Expression", particularly the final, eponymous track, and tell me you can make out what is going on in there. Brecker is relatively straightforward by comparison; sure, his "chromatic modal" approach serves him and us well in the way it interweaves between acknowledging the underlying chord or modal structures and circumnavigating tangentially around them; but there's the rub! - namely in the fact that for Brecker there are predetermined harmonic underpinning structures to work with and against. You don't have them in the final Coltrane - or at least, they have become so etiolated as to be virtually non-dependable from the point of view of understanding the music or how it can be listened to, to make sense of it. Trane, as I hear him, is unfolding the harmonic and rhythmic structure of music as it unfolds, it is unfettered; and in this he was following on from the point Ornette had reached roughly 8 years earlier when, free ab initio from the baggage others like Coltrane and, for that matter, Dolphy, had felt committed to basing their advances on, he had achieved this freedom to move forward without the same feeling of a weight being on his shoulders. It is this latter sense of responsibility that I find as profoundly moving as the actual musical results.

I second this.

I am afraid I cannot fathom why anyone would not find interest in Coltrane's playing over either one chord or, on Interstellar Space, no chord; his playing on the latter, as well as the last two tracks of Expression, is astounding; in effect he is making the chords up as he goes along and his control of harmony in dazzling sheets of sound I find endlessly rewarding and fascinating. I love Coltrane no matter the lack or number of chords.

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

Interesting point of view as I don't really hear that with Coltrane. The point is that Coltrane may have been free of "harmonic markers" but Brecker's concept of harmony reflects the passage of about 20 years. Harmony really interests me and I feel that Brecker was part of a coterie of musicians who had moved beyond Coltrane and in which I would include players like Herbie, John Taylor, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny , etc whose harmonic concept is lightyears beyond something like "interstellar Space." There is a really interesting CD by Dave Liebman where he played Ornette tunes and he makes some interesting points about the approach to free improvisation and the use of harmonies. He falls firmly on the side that using changes still remains a vehicle for expansive expression.

I strongly believe that what happened in the mid 60's with harmony continued to evolve in to the next decades. The genius of Coltrane isn't so much his harmonic language but the syntax of his playing and the fact that he simplified the music to give greater potential for improvisation as opposed to the Bop tradition of being nailed to chords. This allowed him to kick down the form of the music and, from this point of view, this is true achievement. For me, Coltrane is never similar to Beethoven in classical music insofar that both felt constrained by the idioms of the time and produced music which was a rebellion against the forms of the time. I am sure that both musicians would have understood each other entirely. Coltrane's freer stuff wasn't really concerned with harmony in the same sense as Brecker for whom harmony seems to be very much the raison d'etre. Brecker never really smashed down the form of music as was the case with Coltrane.


I don't find Brecker straight forward but would concur that he produced music that was certainly more approachable than Coltrane's more adventurous work. It is interesting how jazz harmony evolves because in 2019 we are a million miles away from where Coltrane was. Albums like "Ascension" make sense in the context of their time but it is wrong to consider them as a conclusion in a music that continues to evolve or indeed even a high point within the avant garde. It is not an album I particularly like being like a text with no punctuation but as a representation of the "avant garde" of the time, I am not even convinced it is Coltrane's best and certainly not match for Ornette's "Free jazz" let alone better groups like AEoC. It was entirely necessary and "of the moment" but not really worthy of the status. The other Coltrane albums do appeal from this era but they are but one route available when a wide range of possibilities opened up within the music.


The problem for me with the avant garde is that critics are not always honest or know what criteria to apply to the music. For me, the weird thing about Free Jazz is that the better albums usually date from beyond the late 60's. The avant garde since the 1980s has generally been more exciting and better performed than in the late 60's. I just think that musicians are better at doing this thing these days.

[Serial_Apologist]

The problem for me with the avant garde is that critics are not always honest or know what criteria to apply to the music.

[Ian Thumwood]

I second this.

I am afraid I cannot fathom why anyone would not find interest in Coltrane's playing over either one chord or, on Interstellar Space, no chord; his playing on the latter, as well as the last two tracks of Expression, is astounding; in effect he is making the chords up as he goes along and his control of harmony in dazzling sheets of sound I find endlessly rewarding and fascinating. I love Coltrane no matter the lack or number of chords.

Try listening to "Impressions" to understand how boring this concept could sometimes be. I love Coltrane too but I am not uncritical of him. The problem with playing off one chord is easy to understand as it is totally binary. Either you are playing on the harmony of the chord or you are not. It is purely black or white. It may have been interesting and "liberating" in 1964 but to my ears the concept is mind numbingly boring in 2019. You can hear this concept in all types f music whether it is fusions such as 2Girls in Airports" (totally f/king boring), a lot of African music, most Funk and also in Reggae with groups like Toots and the Maytals who I have been listening to this week. It is ubiquitous.

With regard to playing "no chords" , I am sceptical and would love to see a notation as there us surely some harmonic concept underpinning the music. By omitting a harmony instrument, it is possible to infer all sorts of keys but I am sure there is a basic ingredient beneath this. Wonder if you had read Walt Weiskopf's book about intervallic improvisation which explains how you can play pairs triads based on scales but which suggest other keys. This underpins Coltrane's improvisation and I think the idea that Coltrane was some magical pied piper who had jettisoned harmony should be kicked in to touch. There is a lot of maths behind what Coltrane was doing and it had a strong element of harmonic understanding. Once you understand the theory behind this, it is clear that as opposed to being totally free, Coltrane had been liberated by understanding more fully how harmony could work. I don't think he was any different from Brecker in this respect :-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intervallic-Improvisation-Modern-Beyond-Linear/dp/1562242598/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1548017813&sr=1-1&keywords=intervallic+improvisation

[Joseph K]

Try listening to "Impressions" to understand how boring this concept could sometimes be. I love Coltrane too but I am not uncritical of him. The problem with playing off one chord is easy to understand as it is totally binary. Either you are playing on the harmony of the chord or you are not. It is purely black or white. It may have been interesting and "liberating" in 1964 but to my ears the concept is mind numbingly boring in 2019.

I love Impressions - especially the final one, played IIRC at Antibes, France, in 1965, and the heroic one from Newport from 1963 with Roy Haynes on drums. I also love So What, for that matter. You are wrong when you say either you are playing on the harmony or not - it makes more sense to think of scales anyway, and, rather than simply a binary on/off, there is actually a spectrum, degrees of relatedness and unrelatedness, to the underlying scale. Coltrane would imply all sorts of things in this framework, too.

With regard to playing "no chords" , I am sceptical and would love to see a notation as there us surely some harmonic concept underpinning the music. By omitting a harmony instrument, it is possible to infer all sorts of keys but I am sure there is a basic ingredient beneath this. Wonder if you had read Walt Weiskopf's book about intervallic improvisation which explains how you can play pairs triads based on scales but which suggest other keys. This underpins Coltrane's improvisation and I think the idea that Coltrane was some magical pied piper who had jettisoned harmony should be kicked in to touch. There is a lot of maths behind what Coltrane was doing and it had a strong element of harmonic understanding. Once you understand the theory behind this, it is clear that as opposed to being totally free, Coltrane had been liberated by understanding more fully how harmony could work.

Check out Lewis Porter's book on Coltrane. It features a transcription of Venus from Interstellar Space, as well as an analysis. Why are you so sure there is a basic ingredient behind it? Of course 'no chords' actually equal 'lots of chords' in Coltrane here, but the difference is the level of spontaneity involved in - rather than having a pre-planned set of chords, actually Trane improvises the entirety of the harmony which yes, is implied… you must be aware that it's said that a good bebop solo is so strong harmonically that playing it by itself is sufficient enough to delineate the harmony? Well, here in Interstellar Space, Trane does that, but rather than the clichéd changes of bebop, he has invented his own harmonic language, which Albert Ayler IIRC called 'space-bop', replete with dazzling virtuoso effects and textures which, as Porter shows in his book, show that Trane thought orchestrally in some of his improvisational techniques - e.g. implying more than one line; it shows a mastery that is surely on a level, say, of Bach's music for unaccompanied violin or cello.

[Ian Thumwood]

I love Impressions - especially the final one, played IIRC at Antibes, France, in 1965, and the heroic one from Newport from 1963 with Roy Haynes on drums. I also love So What, for that matter. You are wrong when you say either you are playing on the harmony or not - it makes more sense to think of scales anyway, and, rather than simply a binary on/off, there is actually a spectrum, degrees of relatedness and unrelatedness, to the underlying scale. Coltrane would imply all sorts of things in this framework, too.



Check out Lewis Porter's book on Coltrane. It features a transcription of Venus from Interstellar Space, as well as an analysis. Why are you so sure there is a basic ingredient behind it? Of course 'no chords' actually equal 'lots of chords' in Coltrane here, but the difference is the level of spontaneity involved in - rather than having a pre-planned set of chords, actually Trane improvises the entirety of the harmony which yes, is implied… you must be aware that it's said that a good bebop solo is so strong harmonically that playing it by itself is sufficient enough to delineate the harmony? Well, here in Interstellar Space, Trane does that, but rather than the clichéd changes of bebop, he has invented his own harmonic language, which Albert Ayler IIRC called 'space-bop', replete with dazzling virtuoso effects and textures which, as Porter shows in his book, show that Trane thought orchestrally in some of his improvisational techniques - e.g. implying more than one line; it shows a mastery that is surely on a level, say, of Bach's music for unaccompanied violin or cello.

Joe

Sounds like a load of bollocks to me, to be honest. A lot of the freer stuff I have heard Coltrane come off derives from soloing off a set scale. Read the book I linked to which explains how you can imply difference keys by forming triads off scales. I think the confusion here is that you are confusing this with form. He was soloing freely and whilst he might not have been limited to one scale, there is still a harmonic language behind what he was playing. The harmony may have evolved over the course of the improvisation but I am not aware of Coltrane ever using devices like tone rows for improvisation. I don't doubt that he was thinking about pursuing more than one line but it is a bit if an exaggeration to call this thinking orchestral!

[Richard Barrett]

Of course 'no chords' actually equal 'lots of chords' in Coltrane here, but the difference is the level of spontaneity involved in - rather than having a pre-planned set of chords, actually Trane improvises the entirety of the harmony which yes, is implied… you must be aware that it's said that a good bebop solo is so strong harmonically that playing it by itself is sufficient enough to delineate the harmony? Well, here in Interstellar Space, Trane does that, but rather than the clichéd changes of bebop, he has invented his own harmonic language, which Albert Ayler IIRC called 'space-bop', replete with dazzling virtuoso effects and textures which, as Porter shows in his book, show that Trane thought orchestrally in some of his improvisational techniques - e.g. implying more than one line; it shows a mastery that is surely on a level, say, of Bach's music for unaccompanied violin or cello.

... or an Evan Parker soprano solo. Yes, I hear Interstellar Space very much the way that you do. The difference for me between "free" improvisation and other kinds of improvisation is that, whereas in other forms there's a preexistent framework (changes, for example) within which the improvisation takes place, once we cross the border into free playing that very framework itself is drawn into the range of what is being spontaneously invented. Interstellar Space is, as you imply, a good example of this, in that it works with the spontaneous generation of harmonic materials which are inseparable from the music's melodic thread. I don't see where Ian finds you talking about "tone rows" because these are neither mentioned nor implied in what you say!

[burning dog]

that very framework itself is drawn into the range of what is being spontaneously invented.!

That's just how I hear late Coltrane

[Serial_Apologist]

That's just how I hear late Coltrane

It's a brilliant summary definition - one for which I will have to gratefully reference Richard if I ever need to use it!