Lost John Coltrane album set for release.
NEW YORK (AFP) -
Missing for more than 50 years, recordings by jazz legend John Coltrane leading the quartet behind his masterpiece "A Love Supreme" are coming out as a posthumous album.
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Very cool for Jazz fans.......I'm not one of them however.
ReplyDeleteI remember when they released "discovered" Jimi Hendrix recordings a few years back. The only thing that stood out is they were unreleased for a reason. Garbage.
ReplyDeleteMy tastes in music have been described as eclectic. However, Jazz leaves me cold.
ReplyDeleteI've never been much of a fan of jazz -- the exception being the jazz that Henry Mancini composed.
Delete@ TC, you've got to remember that Jimi Hendrix spent a lot of years playing as part of different bands playing in road houses and dives. Those recordings, the "lost" ones were of inferior quality - as in really bad - and he was just going through the motions trying to keep body and soul together. I don't believe he would have had them released. At least not the ones I heard.
ReplyDeleteI DO like Jazz, but there are a great many varieties of Jazz some of which i do NOT enjoy, –– just as their are genres of classical music I don't choose to listen to for enjoyment.
ReplyDeleteJohn Coltrane's music – what I've heard of it –– has always sticken me as "morbid" and "depressing." Music of terrible loneliness, alienation, desperation and possibly repressed hostility.
Is it any wonder that our favorite site pest, Canardo, adores it?
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chttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHVarQbNAwU
DeleteI think you'll find this not morbid or depressing...give it a try and let me know what you think, FT :-) xx
Z,
DeleteNo devotee to jazz am I, but that is nice.
Trane is an icon, true enough FT but I think you're taking a tunnel visioned look.
DeleteZ ha made an excellent suggestion and as a piano player your reaction to McCoy Tyner's playing on the title piece solo would b interesting.
Also available on Youtube for your consideration:
Bags and Trane
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
Duke Ellington and John Coltrane
It's true that there is loneliness and desperation in some of his music but understand that those emotions are valid and need to be expressed if they are to be managed.
You might want to try A Love Supreme . It has all those emotions in the voice of a man searching for God.
He will long remain part of the foundation of American music.
McCoy Tyner...fabulous player. I play good piano, too (if I said I didn't and you knew how many years I've played, you'd consider me even more a moron than you do ;-)) and I know GOOD PIANO!!!....Tyner ROCKS but the best part is he does NOT rock, if you know what I mean. Which is good....
DeleteDefinite loneliness and desperation in Coltrane...his call. We needn't listen, right? And many don't!
I read today that A Love Supreme resonates with "Psalms" in one comment; interesting.
Okay, I just heard Giant Steps. Impressive for its continuous high energy and instrumental virtuosity –– particualrly on the sax, not "depressing" but like so much of this jazz genre the piece doesn't seem to GO anywhere. It sounds to me as though it's furiously chasing its tail in hopes of chewing it off from beginnng to end. Andm despite the high energy and hyper-kinetic virtuosity, the harmonies do seem to want to drag your spirit down. If there is a MELODY on which he's improvising, I failed to detect it.
DeleteI don't DISLIKE it, but I could never LOVE it either.
Well, you did ask. };^)>
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I'm still mad abut Art Tatum (now THERE was truly GREAT pianist), Eubie Blake, George Shearing, Errol Garner (though he got a little too 'fnhy" for my taste –– there's a qua;ity close to VIOLENCE in Garner's Jazz, but he was a GREAT performer. Oscr Peterson too was brilliant, but nowhere near as much as Art tatum, who was i a class by himself. I admire the coolness and elegance of Bill Evans too, also Keith Jarrett, but Jarrett's posturing at the keyboard is sickening. I can't stand to look at him, but I do like to LISTEN.
I enjoy most of the Big Band stuff and the vocals that went with it.
Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Armstrong too OF COURSE! And Peggy Lee captured my young imagination with FEVER when it first came out. Still love it.
I love everything that George Gershwin produced, and have always been sorry I never got the chance to play his Concerto in F –– a piano extravaganza with orchestra; accompaniment that Rivals Rachmaninoff
In fact I adored Popular Music, until 1955. That was the year that ELVIS arrived on the scene thrusting his "junk" obscenely at the audience while stroking his guitar like phallic symbol. I was immediately turned off, and tuned out the Pop Scene ever since. I was right to do so, because things one went from bad to worse to GOD HELP US, PLEASE!!! after that,
Well, with your emphasis on melody it's no surprise that you're not a bebop fan (evident in the favorite you picked). The emphasis on improvising on chord changes had a logical terminus and you just listened to it.
DeleteBut I don't see why Coltrane's improvisational brilliance is any less satisfying than Tatum's. Where do either of them "end up"?
Here's some real loneliness
@Warren
DeleteExactly. It's like nicking a rock with a chisel and calling it an unreleased work of Michelangelo.
@TC
DeleteYea, I have the vinyl somewhere around here. Played it once, it's probably at the bottom of a stack somewhere. Major disappointment.
Coltrane is like a ride on a rocket-powered motor-cycle. Fun if like that sort of thing and you know how to hold on, but falling off is not fun.
DeleteAlso, there's something austere in my experience of him, probably because I need to achieve a sort of Zen-like state to keep up with it.
I quite like Coltrane, but truth be told my favourite aspect of his soloing style is the contrast it makes with someone calmer, like Miles. Giant Steps is a touchstone for me though.
Lots of people don't like bebop, and I don't blame them -- I find most of it unsatisfying, but I admire the ambitiousness of it. Is there a musical genre today that places as high a premium on innovation as jazz did 60 years ago?
An unexpected friendly gesture, Warren, I thank you.
ReplyDeleteYeah, jazz fans are excited about this one.
It gives a look at the quartet as they were transitioning into A Love Supreme . Just how "progressive" the compositions are remains to be seen. They hadn't broken away from standard conceptions of form just yet so a look at that process has created some anticipation.
I enjoy listening to Jimmy Smith
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/BUtkr4rndZk
Not a big organ fan, but he is SO GOOD. If you like keyboard, are you an Oscar Peterson fan? I saw him in Munich once, after he'd suffered a stroke and at least 2 fingers on one hand were unworkable....you could NOT TELL. Astonishing talent!
DeleteCongratulations, Warren.
ReplyDeleteYou initiated one of the most cordial threads in AOW history.
Wonderful, isn't it?
DeleteNow, if only we could converse is a similar manner matters on which we disagree!