I am beat. Enjoy the music everyone. Steven D
Today marks what would have been John Coltrane’s 88th birthday. The video clip I am sharing is from his “Classic Quartet” period, and is a piece I have always treasured. Today also marks the release of one of his later concerts, which may well offer hints as to what direction his music would have taken had he not succumbed to cancer so young. It will be a minute before I can afford to pick up this newest recording, but if it is anything like the above-linked article describes, it will be right up my alley. I don’t have3 the formal musical training that probably most jazz fans have – in fact my formal training is precisely zero. All I know is what I like and how the music makes me feel. Coltrane’s music – including his later work – leaves me in a good place. As to what direction he would have taken had he lived, we might never really know, although I’d like to think that pieces like “Kulu Se Mama” might have given some hints. If so, he would have been at home during the heyday of the early AACM, Black Artists Group, Don Cherry’s increasingly world music explorations, and so on.
Anyway, before I begin to ramble, enjoy the “Alabama” video.
In Booman’s absence, we could all use a little happiness. Be well, one and all.
True story — a college radio station DJ read off the list of performers that would appear at an upcoming Jazz Festival. When he got to Alice Coltrane, he paused and said, “Alice? Why isn’t John Coltrane performing?” In the background the mic picked up someone saying, “John sort of died many years ago.”
Somehow, I could imagine that. Ooops!
Alice would have been someone I would have loved to have seen in action. Her solo recordings were unlike anything out there. A reviewer once referred to one of her mid-1970s work albums thusly:
Journey in Satchidananda is, to this day, one of my favorites to play when I need to relax during a stressful day on the job. Not too many harpists in the jazz world. She made it work.
Young guy that knew almost nothing about the topic he was presenting. Not even enough to say, oops. Way ahead of his time as it turns out as later he could have been a contender for Faux news or one of the cable TV news shows.
Never get behind the mic unprepared. And if you do, know that you have a lucrative career at CNN awaiting after graduation. I made the mistake of knowing what I was playing. 😉
Pay special attention to the drummer. Elvin Jones. He was an expression of a special kind of power that comes only once a lifetime. The expression of time as power. Listen to the whole thing paying attention to his playing…his time on the cymbal during the middle section. Where he puts the beat is so simple and yet so indescribably perfect. A millisecond in any direction and the whole thing would be lost, the whole feeling of the piece. And then the end. The power!!! And that’s listening to a compressed, digitized sound. I heard him live with Coltrane many times, up close and personal in clubs. He was a pure force of nature. They talk of “The Greatest Generation” regarding the pre-and post WW II years, and it was in jazz as well. From Bird and Diz starting in the earl;y ’30s right on through Coltrane, Elvin, Miles, Sonny, Monk, Mingus and the rest. A music that will live forever, a music that will inspire other musicians for centuries if we last that long.
RIP, gentlemen.
You did your work well.
RIP.
Amen.
AG
P.S. Think about this piece is an historical context as well. It’s called “Alabama.” Think of the racial strife going on in Alabama and the rest of the south during the ’50s and ’60s, when these musicians were reaching their mastery. Think Little Rock and Rosa Parks, think George Wallace, think lynchings and assassinations and church bombings. Think about the sadness and simultaneously accepting calm of most of this piece, and then think about the power of its ending.
Mastery on every level.
Mastery.
That’s “From Bird and Diz starting in the ear;y ’40s.” Gotta learn to proofread more.
S.
Back about three decades ago, one of my sisters (at the time an aspiring drummer) was very insistent I check out John Coltrane’s classic quartet recordings in part because she knew I had a thing for percussion and figured I’d love Elvin Jones’ work. She was so right. The drumming on those albums was off the hook.
Spot on about the social commentary in “Alabama”. Certainly plenty being said by Mingus, Shepp, etc., that for bettor or worse still speaks to us to this day.
Simply the best CD’s I own , John Coltrane and the Thelonious Monk Quartet live at Carnegie hall. Recorded Nov 29, 1957 is a classic. So happy 88th John, and thanks for posting this.
One of my favorite playlists is Ballads. I have Coltrane’s first and then Karin Allyson’s version. Listening to it now. Thanks.
Let’s give Steven D a shoutout for all his hard work!