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at a glance...
Hometown: Hamlet, NC
First Recordings: 1950
Sidemen:
McCoy Tyner -piano
Jimmy Garrison -bass
Elvin Jones -drums
Notes:
Coltrane remains the most influential jazz musician of the past 40 years. His expeditions on tenor saxophone stand as testament to his unbridled emotion and curiosity. He began as an R&B honker before making his first recordings with Dizzy Gillespie's band. He came to national prominence as a member of the original Miles Davis Quintet from 1955-1957. Coltrane was booted by Miles because of heroin addiction. He would then kick the habit, have a religious awakening in the process, rejoin the scene with Thelonious Monk's band, and eventually return to Miles, all by early 1958. From this point on, his tenor work displayed amazing fire and invention. His music used modal jazz as a starting point, incorporating Eastern ideas, free-jazz tendencies, and boundless energy. All the while, he remained a sensitive ballad interpreter.
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John Coltrane
A Love Supreme
Impulse, Recorded 1964
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Not for the faint of heart, Coltrane's master work offers a complete synthesis of his musical ability and his religious belief. Building on a modal-jazz foundation, he adds elements of Eastern music and free jazz while his tenor searches and soars and screams and yelps and slithers. His horn is merely a conduit: The music comes directly from his heart and soul, a stunning example of music as pure emotion. He unleashes torrents of notes, intense and pained at times, celebratory and defiant at others. His tenor knows no limits, yet never seems too far removed from Earth.
The droning "Acknowledgment" opens the four-part suite and is followed by "Resolution." Despite its name, "Resolution" begins with a tense melody from Coltrane before McCoy Tyner's brilliant piano solo, which is filled with passionate harmonic invention and breathtaking right-hand flurries. Drummer Elvin Jones supplies the fuel for the excursion: His fiery and urgent polyrhythms inspire the leader to great heights. Following Tyner, Coltrane returns with angular, jagged statements featuring short bursts, squeals, and moans that bristle with energy. "Pursuance" opens with a Jones solo before Tyner borrows from Coltrane's frenzied attack. Tyner's left pounds out a series of dramatic, seemingly unrelated chords while his right scurries across the keys. Coltrane then sprays notes like a machine gun, firing off in a million directions. Somehow, it never sounds frivolous--each squawk has passion, each note has meaning. Finally, on the closing "Psalm," he seems to have found what he's been searching for. "Psalm" is the uneasy calm after the storm, a tenuous peace, but peace nonetheless.
If you like John Coltrane, check out:
John Coltrane Coltrane Plays The Blues
John Coltrane Coltrane Jazz
John Coltrane Interstellar Space
John Coltrane Impressions
John Coltrane Blue Train
David S. Ware Surrendered
Eric Dolphy Outward Bound
-- Marc Greilsamer
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