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John William Coltrane was born on
September 23, 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina. John was a major
influence on Jazz during the sixties and seventies.
John grew up in
the house of his maternal grandfather, Rev. William Blair, a preacher
and community spokesman. While he was taking clarinet lessons at
school, his school band leader suggested his mother buy him an alto
saxophone. In 1939 his grandfather and then his father died, and after
finishing high school he joined his mother in Philadelphia.
John spent a
short period at the Ornstein School of Music and the Granoff Studios,
where he won scholarships for both performance and composition, but
his real education began when he started gigging. Two years' military
service was spent in a navy band (1945-46), after which he toured in
the King Kolax and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson bands, playing
goodtime, rhythmic big-band music. It was while playing in the Dizzy
Gillespie Big Band (1949-51) that he switched to tenor saxophone.
Coltrane's musical roots were in acoustic black music that combined
swing and instrumental prowess in solos, the forerunner of R&B. He
toured with Earl Bostic (1952), Johnny Hodges (1953-54) and Jimmy
Smith (1955). However, it was his induction into the Miles Davis band
of 1955 - rightly termed the Classic Quintet - that brought him to
notice. Next to Davis' filigree sensitivity, Coltrane sounds awkward
and crude, and Davis received criticism for his choice of saxophonist.
The only precedent for such modernist interrogation of tenor harmony
was John Gilmore's playing with Sun Ra. Critics found Coltrane's tone
raw and shocking after years in which the cool school of Lester Young
and Stan Getz had held sway. It was generally acknowledged, however,
that his ideas were first rate. Along with Sonny Rollins, he became
New York's most in-demand hard bop tenor player: 1957 saw him
appearing on 21 important recordings, and enjoying a brief but
fruitful association with Thelonious Monk. That same year he returned
to Philadelphia, kicking his long-time heroin habit, and started to
develop his own music (Coltrane's notes to the later A Love Supreme
refer to a "spiritual awakening"). He also found half of his
"classic" quartet: at the Red Rooster (a nightclub that he
visited with trumpeter Calvin Massey, an old friend from the 40s), he
discovered pianist McCoy Tyner and bassist Jimmy Garrison.
After recording numerous albums for the Prestige label, Coltrane
signed to Atlantic Records and, on 15 August 1959, he recorded Giant
Steps. Although it did not use the talents of his new friends from
Philadelphia, it featured a dizzying torrent of tenor solos that
harked back to the pressure-cooker creativity of bebop, while
incorporating the muscular gospel attack of hard bop. Pianist Tommy
Flanagan (later celebrated for his sensitive backings for singers such
as Ella Fitzgerald and Tony Bennett ) and drummer Art Taylor provided
the best performances of their lives. Although this record is rightly
hailed as a masterpiece, it encapsulated a problem: where could hard
bop go from here? Coltrane knew the answer; after a second spell with
Davis (1958-60), he formed his best-known quartet with Tyner, Garrison
and the amazing polyrhythmic drummer Elvin Jones. Jazz has been
recovering ever since.
The social situation of the 60s meant that Coltrane's innovations were
simultaneously applauded as avant garde statements of black revolution
and efficiently recorded and marketed. The Impulse! label, to which he
switched from Atlantic in 1961, has a staggering catalogue that
includes most of Coltrane's landmark records, plus several
experimental sessions from the mid-60s that still remain unreleased
(although they missed My Favorite Things, recorded in 1960 for
Atlantic, in which Coltrane helped re-establish the soprano saxophone
as an important instrument). Between 1961 and his death in 1967,
Coltrane made music that has become the foundation of modern jazz. For
commercial reasons, Impulse! Records had a habit of delaying the
release of his music; fans emerged from the live performances in shock
at the pace of his evolution. A record of Ballads and an encounter
with Duke Ellington in 1962 seemed designed to deflect criticisms of
coarseness, although Coltrane later attributed their relatively
temperate ambience to persistent problems with his mouthpiece. A Love
Supreme was more hypnotic and lulling on record than in live
performance, but nevertheless a classic. After that, the records
became wilder and wilder. The unstinting commitment to new horizons
led to ruptures within the group. Elvin Jones left after Coltrane
incorporated a second drummer ( Rashied Ali ). McCoy Tyner was
replaced by Alice McLeod (who married Coltrane in 1966). Coltrane was
especially interested in new saxophone players and Ascension (1965)
made space for Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Marion Brown and John
Tchicai. Eric Dolphy, although he represented a different tradition of
playing from Coltrane (a modernist projection of Charlie Parker ), had
also been a frequent guest player with the quartet in the early 60s,
touring Europe with them in 1961. Interstellar Space (1967), a duet
record, pitched Coltrane's tenor against Ali's drums, and provides a
fascinating hint of new directions.
Coltrane's death in 1967 robbed avant garde jazz of its father figure.
The commercial ubiquity of fusion in the 70s obscured his music and
the 80s jazz revival concentrated on his hard bop period. Only Reggie
Workman's Ensemble and Ali's Phalanx carried the huge ambition of
Coltrane's later music into the 90s. As soloists, however, few tenor
players have remained untouched by his example. It is interesting that
the saxophonists Coltrane encouraged did not sound like him; since his
death, his "sound" has become a mainstream commodity, from
the Berklee College Of Music style of Michael Brecker to the
"European" variant of Jan Garbarek. New stars such as Andy
Sheppard have established new audiences for jazz without finding new
ways of playing. Coltrane's music - like that of Jimi Hendrix - ran
parallel with a tide of mass political action and consciousness.
Perhaps those conditions are required for the creation of such
innovative and intense music. Nevertheless, Coltrane's music reached a
wide audience, and was particularly popular with the younger
generation of listeners who were also big fans of rock music. A Love
Supreme sold sufficient copies to win a gold disc, while the Byrds
used the theme of Coltrane's tune "India" as the basis of
their hit single "Eight Miles High". Perhaps by alerting the
rock audience to the presence of jazz, Coltrane can be said to have -
inadvertently - prepared the way for fusion. Coltrane's work has some
challenging moments and if you are not in the right mood, he can sound
irritating. What is established without doubt is his importance as a
true messenger of music. His jazz came from somewhere inside his body.
Few jazz musicians have reached this nirvana, and still have absolute
control over their instrument.
Sources:
Encyclopedia
Britannica
Encyclopedia
Africana
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