Jazz - What's your bag, man?

[cybot]

MCQ:

that is one hell of a post. Makes me look at Coltrane all over again from a new light.

Well done and this should be mandatory reading.
Thanks!

Exactly....

[Ivor]

I'll be listening with different ears to JC myself.

[JAW]

Never lisyened to him - but the time seems right! Thanks, MCQ!

[mcq]

Many thanks for the kind words, lads. Sometimes when you hear great music you really feel inspired to get your thoughts down on paper.

[mcq]

Inspired by Paul's piece on Coltrane I decided to spend some time this weekend listening to some of his albums including the only live material I possess of Coltrane.To tell the truth,even though I admire his music,I never really 'got it'. After reading Paul's piece I'm a little bit nearer to understanding him and what drove him to keep on searching and searching and searching.... On the first Village Vanguard set ('61) his playing on 'Chasin' the Trane' is positively cathartic and I can only begin to understand Philip Larkin's description of Coltrane's playing: "the picture of a man rocking back and forth in pain between two chords".... However, on the second Vanguard set ('66) Coltrane has the look of a sick man and I feel that his sidekick Pharoah Sander's solos are the most amazing in all of Jazz thus eclipsing the great Coltrane, especially in this setting....he (Sanders) actually sounds like a man possessed; trying to strip himself to the marrow of being and brilliantly captured by the recording engineer/producer (Rudy Van Gelder/ Bob Thiele - I assume, as there's no info on the sleeve).

Miles Davis once said that "When he (Coltrane) was with me the first time, people used to tell me to fire him.They said he wasn't playing anything.I know what I want though.I also don't understand this talk of Coltrane being difficult to understand. What he does, for example, is to play five notes of a chord and then keep changing it around, trying to see how many different ways it can sound. It's explaining something five different ways.And that sound of his is connected with what he's doing with the chords at any given time."

If you like the first Village Vanguard set from 1961, Dermot, you really should pick up the complete box set. It really is one of the very best set of performances around and absolutely transcends the studio albums. Eric Dolphy is on outstanding form too. I have no doubt that Dolphy would have played on Ascension (and maybe even A Love Supreme as well) had he lived and I'll always wonder what miracles he would have gone on to work with Coltrane.

I'm also very fond of the second Village Vanguard set from 1966 which is, in many ways, the perfect primer to the later Coltrane, and should be fully absorbed before even thinking of going near Live in Japan. Incidentally, Philip Larkin absolutely hated the second Village Vanguard album, calling it "the very quintessence of blended ugliness and insolence that defines the New Wave". Now, "ugliness" is a personal thing but it's interesting he should also refer to the music's "insolence". I think he's absolutely right there. Many people speak of the violence of Coltrane's work in 1966 and 1967 but I think a better description of the atmosphere of the musical performances would be insolence. This is the sound of a man who no longer cares about public perception of the directions his music is taking but is determined to give vent to the music that he was hearing in his head. The primal sounds that he was offering up sound very Old Testament. And, the band he had around him were very much in tune with this. You hear a lot of music that is purported to "shocking" but, next to what Coltrane was doing around this time, it just sounds like a baby throwing toys out of a pram. This, however, is the real thing.

[fergus]

I can now post my first authentic post in this section because under the guidance of my mentor in this area (Gussy) I viewed a recording of the Bern Jazz Festival 2002 which featured the Christian McBride band.
The session was essentially broken down into two different sections the first part being more straightforward Jazz and the latter part being more modern, funky jazz (forgive my lack of the correct terms).
I had never even heard of McBride before I viewed this session. The more straightforward jazz was the style that appealed to me and I certainly enjoyed it. I was very impressed with McBride’s playing in particular but the level of musicianship was powerfully good throughout from all of the players.

[cybot]

If you like the first Village Vanguard set from 1961, Dermot, you really should pick up the complete box set. It really is one of the very best set of performances around and absolutely transcends the studio albums. Eric Dolphy is on outstanding form too. I have no doubt that Dolphy would have played on Ascension (and maybe even A Love Supreme as well) had he lived and I'll always wonder what miracles he would have gone on to work with Coltrane.

I'm also very fond of the second Village Vanguard set from 1966 which is, in many ways, the perfect primer to the later Coltrane, and should be fully absorbed before even thinking of going near Live in Japan. Incidentally, Philip Larkin absolutely hated the second Village Vanguard album, calling it "the very quintessence of blended ugliness and insolence that defines the New Wave". Now, "ugliness" is a personal thing but it's interesting he should also refer to the music's "insolence". I think he's absolutely right there. Many people speak of the violence of Coltrane's work in 1966 and 1967 but I think a better description of the atmosphere of the musical performances would be insolence. This is the sound of a man who no longer cares about public perception of the directions his music is taking but is determined to give vent to the music that he was hearing in his head. The primal sounds that he was offering up sound very Old Testament. And, the band he had around him were very much in tune with this. You hear a lot of music that is purported to "shocking" but, next to what Coltrane was doing around this time, it just sounds like a baby throwing toys out of a pram. This, however, is the real thing.

Indeed it is ,thrillingly so..... Will keep an eye out for the box set plus more Coltrane vinyl treats;Only yesterday I came across an Atlantic session called 'Coltrane Plays the Blues' but passed on it as I was in a hurry. However it had the usual top notch players and I'm wondering......???

[mcq]

Coltrane Plays The Blues is a great album, as indeed are all of the Atlantic recordings, Dermot. This is where he really found his feet as a solo artist and shows him capitalising on his prior experience with Miles and Monk. Previously he had been working at Prestige which was notorious for providing bands with insufficient rehearsal time. (There was also the single Blue Note session that yielded the classic Blue Train album in 1958.)

Each of these recordings - Giant Steps, Coltrane Jazz, My Favourite Things, Ole Coltrane, Coltrane Plays The Blues and Coltrane's Sound - are classics and, crucially, have their own individual identities. Most people name check the first three but the last three are just as important and were recorded contemporaneously with his first recording sessions with Impulse. By this stage most of the classic quartet was in place - only Jimmy Garrison would remain elusive for a little while longer. Ole Coltrane was Coltrane's first meeting with Eric Dolphy who contributes a wonderful flute solo to the title track which is one of Coltrane's most important compositions up until this point. Plays The Blues is a stripped-down, intense examination of a series of blues themes, my favourite of which is his tribute to Sidney Bechet, Blues To Bechet. Coltrane's Sound is a personal favourite - to take three examples, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, Liberia and Body and Soul (one of its greatest interpretatons, perhaps only bettered by Coltrane's revision on Live in Seattle) are extraordinary performances of great power.

These Atlantic albums are also available in a big box set - The Heavyweight Champion - which also finds room for Bags and Trane and The Avant Garde, two excellent recordings with Milt Jackson and Don Cherry, respectively, which showcase the breadth of the man's range - "mainstream" or "avant-garde" were redundant definitions to Coltrane: it would only ever be about "music". Here's a link to the vinyl release: http://store.acousticsounds.com/index.c ... e_ID=10826. (I was browsing the Acoustic Sounds website and I also found this: http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/66242 ... l_Box_Sets. Even though I'm running a CD-only system at the moment, this is one of those releases that could tempt be back to vinyl. But I digress.) I have this on CD and it's fantastic but there's no great advantage to buying this over the original albums. All of the unissued performances are available separately on the Alternate Takes and The Coltrane Legacy albums and in some ways it's preferable to hear the albums as they were originally issued without the distraction of false starts and alternate takes.

[cybot]

Thanks for your diligent reply to my 'Coltrane Plays The Blues' query Paul....next time I'm up Dublin way I'll search out the Atlantic sessions including the CPTB album. I might as well have a look at the box set link too :-)

By the way what other Bill Evans albums would you recommend? I already have two doubles - The Village Vanguard Sessions and Spring Leaves - both, of course, featuring Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian. There's a few titles available in Tower but I never feel the need to buy them as I can't imagine that they could come anywhere near the legendary threesome! I always think, wrongly I'd say, that they might veer too close to cocktail jazz...I'm probably way out and 'tis the reason I'm asking.

[Gussy Finknottle]

How about something daring from Bill Evens.
''Bill Evans International Quintet live in Poland 1999,
featuring Victor Bailey -Bass,David Gilmore-Guitar,Janusz Skouron,Krzyszof Zawadzki.