Reconciling Late John Coltrane With the Subsequent Work of Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Et Al.

Coltrane's music went through such rapid changes from 55 to 65 I'm sure that it would've been different again in 75 - electricity seems like the next 'logical' step

i think he had kind of been there already...'india', parts of love supreme, etc. feel similar to a lot of alice's stuff.

And if you listen to stuff like the tracks on the Transition album, there was a core of tranquillity amid all the seeming ferocity.

I dunno, it's hard for me to imagine Coltrane embracing electric instruments in the same way that Miles -- and well, everybody else -- did. But that might just be hindsight talking (or something). I mean, if Miles had died at the same time Coltrane did, it'd be pretty difficult to imagine Agharta. Anyway, I actually CAN imagine Coltrane "mellowing out" along the lines of Alice's first trio of records -- though mellowing out isn't the right phrase. Maybe getting more meditative? Seems like he was taking things to the limit with those latter day records, and that he might've decided it was time for a change. I kind of see some of Pharoah's stuff as being a stylized version of latter-day Coltrane -- working in the same realm, but not really taking it anywhere new. (and i like those records, mind you). Insane that Coltrane's been dead for more than 40 years now.

electricity seems like the next 'logical' step

and indeed coltrane spent about a week working with a varitone electric saxophone attachment (which I believe produced a sound an octave above or below what was played into it). he had a prototype on loan from the company, so he had to give it back, and died a few weeks later. supposedly there are some home recordings of him experimenting with it, and one of the coltrane bios has a photo of him with it.

So hard to say, because he was changing SO FAST in the last six or seven years of his life, but an interesting exercise for sure.

Expression is pretty "laid back" ("meditative," as tylerw writes). Isn't it supposed to be his last recording date? I thought Interstellar Space was recorded earlier but released later.

I've only heard Universal Consciousness and Journey In Satchidananda. I've paid more attention to/like better UC.

Coltrane is one of the more interesting what-ifs along with Buddy Holly.

if John Coltrane had been alive in '77 he would be breaking e-meters and wiping the ashram's collective asshole clean with some mellow green tea & pinner New Age jamz.

he would wear batik kente monk robes with ivory body henna and there would be potential collabros with Florian Fricke.

lolwaht

"The Creator Has a Master. JAM!"

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/2828/starshipyj7.jpg

The last few answers = major LOLz!!!

Aside from electricity or a case of the new ageys, can anyone see Trane getting with the new blood from Chicago???????

After all, he championed, supported and promoted everyone from Sanders to Ayler to Marion Brown. The influx of guys from Chicago, St. Louis and Cali could well have given him his next round of inspiration.

Maybe the loft scene would have had a higher profile with his help. I seem to recall reading that the electronic sax attachment was more of an experiment. Coltrane's commitments, I think, would have led him to more of the loft scene's DIY spirit (as evidenced by his later efforts to record himself and keep his tapes, put on shows like the Olatunji concert in community spaces, etc.).

But then, this exercise has more to do with what we, individually, would have liked to have seen him do, right? That, or our cynical observations fueled by actual examples of gradual disappointments...

Oh, man, I wish I could help you. I'm not too insecure to say I can't.

Listened to a lot of JC, though.

My mom sort of thinks I've wasted my life, too.

I've never listened to a lot of John Coltrane, and I've always felt I probably prefer Sanders and Alice Coltrane to him. In general I like the sort of collective groove Sanders and Alice have more than the sort of endless heroic individual soloing favoured by some jazz fans, and John Coltrane seems to be more about this. Or am I wrong?

john coltrane has been about a lot of stuff.

blue train is not africa/brass is not not om is not ascension blah blah.

one not too many

Okay, can you recommend some John Coltrane album that's more about collective playing than his individual soloing?

do you promise you'll buy them in a store and not download them?

I don't really download music except for DJing purposes.

Do you PROMISE?

Tuomas: "Ascension," more than any other, I'd say.

Based on things he's said, I could see Coltrane getting more into a collective thing, which is why I can imagine him bonding with the AACM people by 1969.

Given that he'd already worked with AACM bassist Donald Rafael Garrett this is not improbable.

But I keep dreaming of an alternate universe/if only <i>Bitches' Brew</i> with Miles, Coltrane and Dolphy.

mid-eighties: he would have linked up with Laswell for sure. How about a Last Exit with both Coltrane and Brotzmann?

I'm picturing a lot of Coltrane on ECM in the 70s stuff and living in Italy or India or someplace else that starts with a capital I.

Ipswich?

Islington

...I actually CAN imagine Coltrane "mellowing out" along the lines of Alice's first trio of records -- though mellowing out isn't the right phrase. Maybe getting more meditative? Seems like he was taking things to the limit with those latter day records, and that he might've decided it was time for a change...

tylerw, I agree that "mellowing" is the wrong word.

Regarding being more meditative (which I think is OTM), I still have a hard time imagining Coltrane taking that path. Anything quiet or ballad-like in later years, from "Meditations" to "Expression" or "Stellar Regions," has such HUGE doses of tension, anxiety, sadness... something which I have trouble naming, but which is similar to what I hear in Albert Ayler's quieter moments on his later recordings. It's something fundamentally at odds with the sort of playing I hear post-1967 from Alice or Pharoah.

How much of that was because he was in physical pain, though. If he lived many years longer, he probably would have been in better health.

He was so obsessed with his own playing and ideas, I could see him taking it farther. Some impenetrable solo sax records, maybe with overdubbing or electronics. Then he would've disappeared for the 80s and come back with a full-circle "Coltrane Plays Standards" Grammy-winner. Maybe a quartet reunion with Charnett Moffett or William Parker (or Matthew Garrison) on bass. Probably would've been on Ask the Ages.

How much of that was because he was in physical pain, though. If he lived many years longer, he probably would have been in better health.

Is there any evidence that Coltrane's musical choices or sound was at all influenced by his failing health? I've not heard that.

What's being forgotten in such a shift is that --concurrent to when Coltrane passed on in 1967-- the social climate changed irrevocably in black neighborhoods. When I interviewed Blue Note drummer Joe Chambers for Stop Smiling Magazine about that era, and he enlightened me as to what was happening in communities:

Even when jazz was going further out of the mainstream, it still had a strong support system, the neighborhood clubs and bars, in cities all over. That died out in the mid-Sixties with the riots. I remember going out to clubs when they had lines around the block; black people in black neighborhoods in black clubs. The end of the neighborhood clubs and bars saw the demise of the black audience by the late Sixties, going into the Seventies. Those places were gone.

SS: Why was that?

JC: Because the infrastructure was destroyed by the riots. The riots happened in all the big cities in 1966 and ’67. That destroyed the infrastructure, and it kept the people away. What went on politically, socially — that affects the society and the music. You can’t have one without the other.

Such societal upheaval is what I feel marks the changes in Alice and Pharoah's music from 1967 onwards. Coltrane would have sought such reconciliation as well. That turmoil was so real and at street level that they had to find peace in their own music, or perhaps just moved to esconce themselves in monasteries more in seeking tranquility within. But the social change always happens first. Music just follows that.

I haven't heard it either, UChannels. Just pulled it out my rear.

beta blog, I dunno..... Listen to the varied approaches in the 70s music of Sam Rivers, Arthur Blythe, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, The Art Ensemble Of Chicago...

Music is surely indexical of social changes, but I'm not sure it happens in such a prescriptive way as you appear to be laying it out.

Would he be prone to 'other genre' artists asking to collab with him?
Would he jam with Iggy? Think not, right?

Joe Henderson was a hired gun for rnb and rock acts for years, right? Who's to say Coltrane would have neccesarily escaped that?

Sax solo on "Miami Vice closing theme" - John Coltrane

(okay, now I'm sickening myself)

He would surely have dabbled a bit with disco and funk?

More Coltrane "group" recommendations for Tuomas:

Dakar
Lush Life
The Avant-Garde
Thelonius Monk with John Coltrane
Thelonius Monk with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall

And some of the earlier classic quartet stuff, obviously.

i don't see it, he wasn't fucking with any boogaloo/funk/pop etc. in the 60s.

Maybe not so obviously.

Way too legendary for studio work, in my opinion.

Coltrane surely would have been extreme top billing for the rest of his years. I think the real danger would be becoming divorced from up-and-comers and in his own world, meaning workmanlike sidemen and little interplay with vital collaborators (ahem, Rollins).

Come on, you know you wanted to hear him on Guru's "Jazzmatazz 6."

Ha!

I'd like to hear him on the Rolling Stones' "Waiting On A Friend," railing so loudly that every other sound is completely obscured.

Or perhaps performing the theme to "Taxi."

Or in keeping with the Rollins comment:

"Tenor Madness Y2K"

i don't know, rollins is a blower's blower, jc always had a lot more conceptual shit going on.

That turmoil was so real and at street level that they had to find peace in their own music, or perhaps just moved to esconce themselves in monasteries more in seeking tranquility within. But the social change always happens first. Music just follows that.

I think it's more complex than that. Music is a social force too, and it works in constant interplay with other such forces, where they reinforce and contradict each other and change as a result. Sure, other social forces usually have a bigger impact on the society as a whole than music, but you can't really say which comes first. Maybe music reflects upon riots, maybe it also incites riots. I'm sure Sanders and Alice Coltrane going into transcendental, meditative music was partially a reaction to the social upheaval, but I'm pretty sure music like that also got some people interested in meditation and contemplation, therefore being a factor in certain social changes just as well as reflecting others.

if John Coltrane had been alive in '77 he would be breaking e-meters and wiping the ashram's collective asshole clean with some mellow green tea & pinner New Age jamz.

-- sanskrit, Tuesday, 13 May 2008 01:39 (Yesterday) Link

he would wear batik kente monk robes with ivory body henna and there would be potential collabros with Florian Fricke.

-- sanskrit, Tuesday, 13 May 2008 01:46 (Yesterday) Link

THIS IS NOT SOME LOL BULLSHIT
THIS IS FACT
OBVS HE WOULD TAKE IT TO A PLACE THAT U CORNEE INDEES WOULDNT EXPECT
YOU MUST DEAL.

I like backpack jazz.

sanskrit=
cash sitta for all the noise

what about the possibility that he'd tune in and drop out, like mrs coltrane? he'd be sitting on a hillside in big sur, doing circular breathing and carving driftwood.

Not too far from what sanskrit said, except sanskrit's post included some Super Sayan shit.

to get back a little closer to the question from the OP, a good book that treats the issue of how coltrane's spirituality squared w/ coltrane's music - and that received a heck of lot of angry trad-jazz dude beef / hostility for constructing an answer out of coltrane's spiritual beliefs rather than just "he did it for the chops, maaaan" - is bill cole's john coltrane

I remember that book being interesting (it's been a while), but dude: is that the book that has a quote from John McLaughlin talking about listening to Coltrane and having a waking dream of flying over Africa???? In any event, most embarrassingly ridiculous quote EVER.

That said, the intersection of Coltrane's chops and his spiritual values are what make this question so difficult. Alice was a decent pianist before she met John. Good harpist, too. Pharoah does a nice job at what he does. Still, while I'm no musicologist, I think I'm safe in saying that Coltrane was on another level musically.

I don't think his spirituality would trump his musicality. I think they'd be on pretty equal footing. Just about everything Coltrane has ever said has upheld the notion that he was first and foremost a musician.

Don't know that book, but the Ben Ratliff book is bad. Had to go out and buy the Lewis Porter book after reading that one to right its wrongs.

Jordan OTM upthread.

well i would say that that's the notion of coltrane that the book actively works against - or maybe it's a larger question, in that there's a way of talking about someone where "first and foremost a musician" means "first a foremost a dude who practices playing an instrument" or "first and foremost about playing accurate scales". there's a sense there that the listener should be suspicious of concepts, spirituality, mysticism, performance, etc ... that maybe sun ra's costumes and alice coltrane's philosophies are somehow "outside" of their to the music, or maybe at best an interesting ornamentation around the edges, whereas something like a sheet of chord changes or a detailed look at fingering technique is really somehow *about the music*

there's an xpost

it just feels like there's this lurking notion that if someone says "i wanted to write a song that was about a dream of flying over africa" it has less explanatory power than "i had just read that european dude's book about the lydian mode" (what was that guy's name?)

George Russell? Was he European?

James Redd: Bookwise, I find you absolutely OTM. In my opinion, the Porter is the only real winner, and I've read most if not all the major ones.

Moonship: That's why I think things are tricky. To Coltrane, I think that the musicianship was integral to the spirituality. Without reducing what he was doing to only this, maybe the easiest comparison would be to numerology? Porter's examination of the major solo in A Love Supreme backs this, as do claims that Interstellar Space was meticulously composed...

Regarding your last post, I think that people draw their own distinctions between spirituality and BS. The guys from the Penguin guide calling some of Pharoah Sanders' records being less about music and more about wearing funny hats seems a little harsh. As for (what I remember of) McLaughlin's quote, it just seems like silliness.

One of Coltrane's strengths was in resisting the urge to make his spirituality gaudy, melodramatic, or overly simplistic.

Funny hats were good enough for Thelonious Monk, goddamnit!

George Russell? Was he European?

Russell is African-American, and the work you're referring to is the Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization.

no, it's not russell. i'm talking about a european modern composition guy, wrote a huge book about the lydian and higher modes that coltrane read. he also played a concert w/ frank zappa. he's not a household name, though (ie not like boulez or schoenberg)

not saying that coltrane *didn't* read russell, but he's not who i'm talking about

Interesting, until this second I never knew George Russell was African-American, and I've got albums with his picture on it.

I didn't know that until recently either. I also didn't know he wrote "Cubano Be, Cubano Bop" until recently, until I learned these two facts at the same time.

moonship, are you talking about gunther schuller, by any chance? if so, he's american

Coltrane was a big admirer of John Gilmore, so I like to think that in one parallel universe, he joined the Arkestra front line ...

no ... i'll know his name when i hear it ...

Here I go without internet for a few days and of course I have to miss out on an Interstellar Space thread!

haha, this has turned into a thread like the jimi hendrix sex tape thread. WHAT WOULD HE HAVE DONE ETC? It's true, like Sanskrit says, that if Coltrane had lived, there would've been plenty of time for weird, occasionally embarassing twists and turns. But to get back to the original question, I don't see it out of the realm of possibility that he would've made a record or two along the lines of Ptah or Satchanananawhatsis. I mean, he bought the harp for Alice and told her to learn how to play it, right? I can also see him doing some orchestral kinda stuff like Alice's later albums.

damn, it is really driving me insane. here's what i know about the composer i'm talking about

- he wrote a really funny autobiography in which he talked about getting a call from frank zappa, having no idea who zappa was, but flew out anyway to LA to play a show with him

- he wrote a huge book on scales and modes. similar to the george russell book but less theory-oriented and more just about listing all the permutations.

- want to say he's czech, hungarian or polish, but i might be wrong

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp

I can also see him doing some orchestral kinda stuff like Alice's later albums.

Alice's "Infinity" project seems to point along these lines. I have no idea whether he was planning to do that to those tracks or what, though. I don't recall Porter mentioning the record at all.

sounds like a weird combination of Bartok and Varese but I'm truly stumped.

you're not very good at this game, are you, moonship?

Nicolas Slonimsky?

oh, duh.

actually that's more of an "ah-ha!" sort of thing.

Nicolas Slonimsky?

aha!

thanks

=D

"Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Pattern"

slominsky, anyway

slockinsky

This is an awesome thread.

It's always seemed to me that Coltrane's latter work is about striving, reaching for something. You can almost hear him lengthening his body, trying to grasp something just beyond his fingers. Alice and Pharoah seem much more interested in inner space, in the openness on the inside. All those sus chords! The unresolved phrases! John played like he was trying to force the universe through his reed, Alice played like she was outlining astral projections.

Excellent stuff on here! I suppose I'll always wonder what free jazz's rep would have been like with the public had he lived another 10 years...

Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana is a really interesting picture of where Coltrane might have gone had he taken Alice's route and sort of dropped out for a while.

He was so obsessed with his own playing and ideas, I could see him taking it farther. Some impenetrable solo sax records, maybe with overdubbing or electronics. Then he would've disappeared for the 80s and come back with a full-circle "Coltrane Plays Standards" Grammy-winner. Maybe a quartet reunion with Charnett Moffett or William Parker (or Matthew Garrison) on bass. Probably would've been on Ask the Ages.

― Jordan, Tuesday, May 13, 2008 2:29 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark

^^^ most probably suggestion itt i think

"The Creator Has a Master. JAM!"

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, May 13, 2008 3:17 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

lmao

Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana is a really interesting picture of where Coltrane might have gone

has anybody ever heard of this by the way cause google isn't finding anything?

It's an Alice Coltrane album, widely available!

this is a cool thread!
also, this album is amazing! hadn't heard it before: http://ajbenjamin2beta.blogspot.com/2008/11/pharoah-sanders-live-at-east.html

Yeah, Live at the East kills - it was reissued as a Japanese import a few years ago by Universal, I think; I got that and Cecil Taylor's Live in the Black Forest right around the same time.

Great thread, don't remember seeing it before. I think Jordan and Hoos and this:
---

That said, the intersection of Coltrane's chops and his spiritual values are what make this question so difficult. Alice was a decent pianist before she met John. Good harpist, too. Pharoah does a nice job at what he does. Still, while I'm no musicologist, I think I'm safe in saying that Coltrane was on another level musically.

I don't think his spirituality would trump his musicality. I think they'd be on pretty equal footing. Just about everything Coltrane has ever said has upheld the notion that he was first and foremost a musician.

― Usual Channels, Wednesday, May 14, 2008 2:07 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seem the most likely answers. Coltrane was ultimately always, in a sense, formalistic in his playing, and even modernistic -- spirituality was something he approached through exploratory improvisation that was based on the logical expansion and permutation of specific musical ideas. I don't know if Coltrane would put it in these terms, but I don't think he ever really embraced the expressive fallacy of free jazz, the idea that you could just let go of everything and play some kind of pure improv free of any preconceived structures. Of course that fallacy produced some awesome music, so I don't mean to knock it, I just hear a different approach in Coltrane right up to the end. I also get the sense that he was not as interested in exploring musical style as Miles Davis, for whom style itself was an integral part of the artform. It's not that I think Coltrane would shy away from electronics, so much as I think he would think "what additional musical possibilities does this open for me" instead of "how will this create a different overall aesthetic effect on record."

It's always seemed to me that Coltrane's latter work is about striving, reaching for something. You can almost hear him lengthening his body, trying to grasp something just beyond his fingers. Alice and Pharoah seem much more interested in inner space, in the openness on the inside. All those sus chords! The unresolved phrases! John played like he was trying to force the universe through his reed, Alice played like she was outlining astral projections.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, February 8, 2009 3:31 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a great post. I always get that feeling from Coltrane too. It's almost like the Miles Davis thing about the notes you don't play being just as important as the ones you do, except with Coltrane it's the hypothetical, almost platonic notes that he's reaching for that count

electricity seems like the next 'logical' step

and indeed coltrane spent about a week working with a varitone electric saxophone attachment (which I believe produced a sound an octave above or below what was played into it). he had a prototype on loan from the company, so he had to give it back, and died a few weeks later. supposedly there are some home recordings of him experimenting with it, and one of the coltrane bios has a photo of him with it.

― Lawrence the Looter, Monday, May 12, 2008 5:46 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He also doubltetracked his sax on the version of Living Space that was released on the posthumous album of the same name.

Sometimes I think Creator Has a Master Plan sounds like shitty Love Supreme.

Well, it's based on the same basic riff (du-dun du-DUN), so the comparison is obvious, and Sanders and Thomas never meant to hide that. But I think the approaches of the two bands to that are way different: ALS is all about contemplation, seeing the hardships of the world and withdrawing to a quiet meditative state (or the Mercy of God, whichever is your thing) to build the strength needed to deal with them. Whereas TCHaMP is about facing the world head-on, taking in everything, even the ugly bits; hence the free-jazz freakout climax before returning to the more melodic content. Both lyrically and musically it's more forward-pushing: "the creator has a master plan" - a plan is something that has not yet happened, that needs action to be completed. Whereas "a love supreme" needs nothing more, it's already supreme as it is. Considering how the social and political situation had changed between 1964 and 1969, and their more out-there attitude, it's understandable why Sanders and Thomas would take that riff/theme/concept to a different direction than Coltrane, but I don't think either approach is less valid, or either album less beautiful.

A bunch of Pharoah Sanders albums have been reissued as budget twofers—you can get Tauhid/Jewels of Thought, Thembi/Black Unity and Village of the Pharoahs/Wisdom Through Music for $10-12 each. I highly recommend all three. I'm not a huge fan of Karma (the one with "The Creator Has a Master Plan" on it), but Pharoah's early '70s albums are generally great; his blend of free jazz, gospel, African rhythms and Indian scales was really unique and a path not many others followed.

Great post tuomas

^^

if John Coltrane had been alive in '77 he would be breaking e-meters and wiping the ashram's collective asshole clean with some mellow green tea & pinner New Age jamz.

― sanskrit, Monday, May 12, 2008 8:39 PM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

he would wear batik kente monk robes with ivory body henna and there would be potential collabros with Florian Fricke.

― sanskrit, Monday, May 12, 2008 8:46 PM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink