The Major Work of John Coltrane - 1965 (1992)

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The Major Work of John Coltrane - 1965 (1992)

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Product Description: John Coltrane's twin bookends of spiritual outreach – A LOVE SUPREME (December 1964) and MEDITATIONS (November 1965) – represent the telepathic peak of spontaneous interplay by his classic quartet. Trane, Tyner, Elvin and Garrison invented a whole new way of performing (and thinking about) jazz, and in 1965 they stretched the boundaries even farther. By now, Trane was the patron saint of the emerging avant garde, a lightning rod for controversy, because his pedigree and technical mastery was unchallenged; he had come up through the ranks…and his records sold. THE MAJOR WORKS OF JOHN COLTRANE showcases Trane's great musical safari through the post-modern landscape, in search of some lost chord. As 1965 rolled on, Trane augmented his quartet with extra reeds, bassists and drummers; by 1966, Elvin and Tyner would be gone–Rashid Ali and Alice Coltrane took their place. The influence of Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and Albert Ayler is more and more apparent with each major event: the collective pandemonium of ASCENSION, the trippy, psychedelic turmoil of OM and the Afrocentric wanderings of KULU SU MAMA (the tune "Selflessness" is from the later session). ASCENSION is Trane's rejoinder to Coleman's FREE JAZZ and Ayler's NEW YORK EYE AND EAR CONTROL, landmarks of collective improvisation. Much as Trane reached out to his avant-garde contemporaries years before, he now embraced, and validated the younger generation of firebrands–players who preferred no fealty to the older harmonic traditions, who just wanted to bust out and play free. In turn, Trane was energized by reedmen Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Marion Brown and John Tchicai, trumpeters Dewey Johnson and Freddie Hubbard, and the maelstrom of sound they produced on two editions of "Ascension" suggest some ecstatic congregation of male and female voices."Om" is even more mystical. Trane and Pharoah Sanders sound like Timothy Leary's stunt doubles. Beginning with an earnest, spooky evocation of the Vedas and rites ordained, they soon launch into a fiery collective meltdown. Trane emerges speaking in tongues, creating convoluted, complex rhythmic patterns, reaching for one convulsive note while exploring the timbral extremes of his horn. Sanders follows with some frenzied squeaks and hollers, including one high note that sounds as if it could only have been sucked from the horn. By the time we get to "Kulu Su Mama" and "Selflessness" drummer Frank Butler and percussionist Juno Lewis have joined the fray. Lewis' "Kulu Su Mama" opens with twin drums and percussion, setting a ritualistic tone, and when Lewis chimes in on vocals with an Afro-Creole dialect, the effect is not unlike the old Dizzy Gillespie-Chano Pozo arrangements. But when Trane, Pharoah and bass clarinetist Donald Garrett enter over the dense six.

Recording information: Camelot Studios, Lynwood, WA (06/28/1965-10/14/1965); Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, NJ (06/28/1965-10/14/1965); Western Recorders, Los Angeles, CA (06/28/1965-10/14/1965).

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The Major Work of John Coltrane - 1965 (1992)

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Review: Okay, this is not the ideal Coltrane starting point. These recordings are simply the epitome of Trane's free jazz period, which makes them some of his most polarizing ones by nature. The songs (or "works", as they are more akin to) barely follow a predetermined structure - the closest thing to a "chorus" on the entire record is a small army of horn players honkin' away at semi-regular intervals during the forty minute Ascension - a tour de force, but not one for those raised on records such as My Favorite Things. Pick a take of Ascension (there are two). It'll blow your mind, knock you out, maybe even send you runnign from the room if you don't know what to expect from Coltrane. It's harsh, foreboding, difficult to listen to but well worth the effort. Ditto for the half-hour Om - this has got to be the most unfairly slagged of all Trane's recordings. Now, the "I am Om!" monologue is heavy-handed, indulgent and probably could've been removed. But give it a chance. Once you've gotten to the meat of the song, you'll know what I mean: it's pretty chaotic, but has an odd, almost disturbing beauty to it. Not in the schmaltzy sense, but in the otherworldly sense. Especially that flute - flautist Joe Brazil is the session's unsung hero.

Disc two is the slightly more accessible of the two - aside from another take on Ascension, anyway. But the music recorded here obviously wasn't made for the general public, since the most conventional recording on the disc is a twenty-minute tribal dance/poetry recitation/free jazz excursion that totally rules. We call it Kulu Se Mama (Juno Se Mama). The only song not by Coltrane on the disc, it was instead written by the like-minded (and talented) drummer Juno Lewis, who delivers it in a cool Creole dialect that DOES take a few listens to grow on you. The whole thing closes with Selflessness, which can best be described as "Ascension's little brother" - intense, all right, but shorter and a bit more listenable than Ascension.
This is a fine roundup of Trane's avant-garde years. You get two full albums (Ascension and Om), plus about half of the Kulu Se Mama album, for a pretty good price (I got it $25 or so) - that's two-and-a-half albums for the price of two. Now I'll admit it isn't an instant-gratification album like A Love Supreme. When I first heard it, I thought "What the hell?" and filed it away for a couple months. But now I've realized that it's just as good as (if not better than) A Love Supreme, and these pieces together form one of Coltrane's absolute masterpieces. So it takes plenty of patience, but is worth owning. ~ Amazon Customer

Note: Credit to eddy164, the original uploader.

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The Major Work of John Coltrane - 1965 (1992)

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The Major Work of John Coltrane - 1965 (1992)

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The Major Work of John Coltrane - 1965 (1992)

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