Coltrane & Coleman - A Critical View From 1966

Jazz Journal in November 1966 published a contemporary review of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. It was a combined piece from two separate articles, previously published in the Saturday Review as 'Coltrane Up To Date' and 'Coleman in Stockholm'.
It must be too much of a coincidence, but every mid to late 60s article and critical review I uncover is wholly supportive of John Coltrane's later work and his followers' in the New Thing/New Music/Avant-Garde/Free Jazz. And they all mention that not everyone was as appreciative of this controversial music. I guess these naysayers must've written in mainstream newspapers, not in dedicated Jazz journals.
There are some really interesting points made, especially in the Coltrane review. For example I haven't read anywhere about the nasty journalistic in-fight in relation to Black Nationalism; Ascension being a truly contemporary performance and communal rite; an incredibly bold statement about Coltrane's music with respect to the contemporary African American struggle in America in 1966. In 1966 John Coltrane was still alive and had in no way reached the iconic level he occupies today. However, this article is really interesting in where it is places him in US culture and society. (Also remember this is a contemporary 1966 publication and is written in that cultural/societal context and language).

And not forgetting Ornette Coleman, there is an informative and positive outlook on Coleman, Coltrane's attraction to him, and a focus on his two volumes of recordings at the Golden Circle club in Stockholm.

Coltrane and Coleman Up To Date / Martin Williams

Tenor and soprano saxophonist John Coltrane is a successful musician, but at the moment his position does not seem enviable. His initial popularity depended on a hit version of My Favorite Things (Atlantic ATL 5022) and he is required not only to perform that piece often but, apparently, to follow it with readings of similar material. He feels responsible to assist and encourage a segment of younger ‘advanced’ musicians who consider themselves his followers. At the same time, he is under attack from reviewers who do not like Coltrane’s work or its implications and often end up blaming him for a kind of wilful musical obscurity. More recently Coltrane’s music has become the centre of a nasty journalistic in-fight over its ‘content’ and ‘meaning’ and its relationship to Black Nationalism—a controversy in which Coltrane’s supposed ‘meaning’ turns out to be some opportunistic Marxist cliches delivered with a slightly Pekingese accent. It has been over a year since I wrote of Coltrane and a backlog of several releases has accumulated by now.

A Love Supreme (HMV CLP 1869) comprises a single, four-part piece by the Coltrane Quartet. It is offered in a rather austere black-and-white jacket with liner notes by Coltrane himself. This unusual LP was barely released before it was selling very well, and it has already won a couple of popularity polls. The notes begin ‘All praise to God’ and programmatically the piece concerns a religious experience, a period of irresolution, and a return to faith. Each section opens with a theme, followed by free form, modal improvisation by Coltrane and the members of his group. Considering the subject matter and the strong emotion usually generated by this ensemble the general tone here is relatively calm. By contrast the frugally titled John Coltrane Quartet Plays (HMV CLP 1897) is offered in a full-colour jacket and would seem to have fairly conservative, even commercial, intentions, including versions of Chim Chim Cheree and Nature Boy. The explorations, however, are sometimes quite strong technically and emotionally.

Ascension (HMV CLP 3543) is the most daring recording Coltrane has ever made. It is a continuous thirty-eight-minute performance in which Coltrane's quartet is augmented by two trumpeters, two tenor saxists, two altos, and an extra bassist. It utilizes a single, slight thematic idea, several loose, turbulent improvised ensembles and solos by most of the players. It soars and it sings. It also blares, rages, shouts, screams, and shrieks. It is at once a truly contemporary performance and a kind of communal rite.

There are surely many things to admire in these records. There are some of Coltrane's ingenious spidery lines on Chim Chim Cheree. There is drummer Elvin Jones’s inspired playing on the same piece. And although I have felt that pianist McCoy Tyner’s harmonic sense was overly lush for this music, his solo on Brazilia on the Quartet Plays set is hard and gem-like. However, some of this music seems to me repetitious and some of it banal. And there are moments when Coltrane's wildly authentic passion seems not so much a part of the music as a part of the musician-the reaction of a player who is improvising with a minimum of built-in protection but who sometimes cries out, frustrated, against the very limitations and challenges he has set for himself. Often, one’s final impression is of musical statements that are highly charged and have brilliant moments but that are somewhat static and unresolved—statements sometimes contained only by a fantastic and original saxophone technique on one hand, or by a state of emotional exhaustion on the other. (It is surely indicative that many of these performances are faded out mechanically rather than ended musically.)

Certainly Coltrane’s music is related to the mood of American Negroes, and particularly the awakenings and frustrations of young American Negroes——as if anyone ever doubted that it was, or as if it could be meaningful to so many people if it were not. And in the sense that it is, I think a performance like Ascension might be heard, felt, and reflected upon by every politician, police official, psychologist, social worker, editorial writer—perhaps every American-—whether it succeeds esthetically or not. If a listener is at first confused or repelled by it, perhaps he should hear it again. To put it another way, if there were a documentary film on the Watts riots, I think John Coltrane would be the ideal man to score it—and I intend the remark to characterize and compliment his work, not to criticize it. The challenge of America’s racial problem is, as the young James Baldwin saw so clearly, a fundamental challenge to Western civilization and all its traditions. And Coltrane’s jazz, like much good jazz, looks deep into the inner-being of all men. Some musical statements such as his, even if they fail esthetically, are certainly not to be dismissed.

If Ascension leaves one with a feeling of despair, he might turn to Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz (American Atlantic 1364), a performance to which Ascension is directly indebted, but for me a work of beauty and affirmation and hope. For me Free Jazz, in Joyce’s phrase, better sees the darkness shining in the light. Still, it is a sight for which Coltrane can prepare us, and the preparation can be invaluable. The aforementioned Brazilia stays with one and echoes through one’s being long after its notes are spent.

Other recent releases include two LPs by Ornette Coleman, his first new recordings in several years, and an album with Coltrane improvising on Coleman pieces.

In 1958, when Ornette Coleman’s first recordings appeared, many listeners were puzzled; his music sounded they were apt to put it, too far out for them. Some musicians were puzzled too, but they were more apt to find his work simple, or even to voice a doubt as to whether Coleman knew what he was doing. Two LP releases of The Ornette Coleman Trio at the Golden Circle, Stockholm (Blue Note 4224 and 4225) may answer the earlier reservations of both audiences and fellow players. Coleman's original talent, his refreshing approach to jazz rhythm, jazz melody, and improvisation have been around long enough to be familiar. No, his ideas have not yet found their way into an Andy Williams record but there was some would-be Coleman during a recent TV background score. By now, most listeners can go directly to the music itself, rather than be stopped by its surface unfamiliarity. And a musician will surely note the clarity and precision with which Coleman now articulates every note, every inflection, every phrase. There seems no question about it, Ornette Coleman knows what he is doing, he means it all, and he now plays with almost the careful deliberateness of a sculptor whose small mistake may destroy a larger design. The question that remains for a listener is how much he likes what he hears. A musician of course may have the additional question of how fruitful he finds Coleman's approach for the future of the music.

By the time these live Stockholm performances were taped, the Coleman Trio had developed praiseworthy individual and collective virtues. Bassist David Izenzon had begun to Swing more, and he has a particularly well organized solo on Dee Dee in Volume 1. Drummer Charles Moffet had elaborated his basic, down-home style (a style appropriate to Coleman, who is basically a bluesman) so that it became capable of an appropriate variety of textures (again, hear Dee Dee). Faces And Places, also in the first volume is characteristic, finely developed Coleman——a swift and frequently ingenious monologue built on melodic permutations of one direct rhythmic idea. European Echoes is a lightly humorous waltz in which Coleman’s solo grows out of an enunciation of the basic waltz count, 1-2-3.

Perhaps the most successful piece is Dawn, a lovely group invention in which each member contributes equally and almost simultaneously. One of the most striking performances in Volume 2 is also descriptive, Snowflakes And Sunshine—-and this judgement, I should add, comes from one who usually distrusts the idea of programme music. It is a tissue of shimmering impressionistic sounds on which Coleman plays some functionally successful violin and trumpet. There is also a slow, prayerful but optimistic Morning Song, a variant on the dirge-like mood of which Ornette Coleman is a master. The Riddle is a wonder and a real contribution to the jazz language, a riddle of tempo that moves in and out of several speeds with such natural musical logic that one barely notices. Similarly, on the deliberately meandering Antiques, there are casual changes of tempo. These records show Ornette Coleman's music at such a level of development that, if one doesn’t know his work at all, Blue Note 4224 and 4225 are an excellent place to begin.

Coleman’s style allows for free melodic improvisation, not on the outline of a succession of chords, as in earlier jazz (the ‘harmonic variation' of classical parlance), but on an harmonic pedal-point or ‘drone’. Coincidentally, I am sure, Miles Davis used a similar approach on certain of his pieces, and after recording these pieces with Davis, John Coltrane developed the idea on certain of his (try Naima on London LTZ-K 15197 for example). Such an approach is at once relatively simple and highly challenging. The soloist has only one chord or one ‘drone’ to deal with instead of several, but he has to make that single point-of-departure yield a long stretch of eventful melody. I am sure that Ornette Coleman found his way to such modal improvisation on his own. Perhaps it seemed to certain New York musicians as if Coleman had already staked out a personal claim in territory where previously they had only panned some nuggets. In any case, it should come as no surprise that John Coltrane was attracted to Coleman's music. 

Atlantic now has issued concrete evidence of that attraction, an album recorded six years ago with Coltrane on tenor and soprano saxophones. Don Cherry on trumpet, Charlie Haden or Percy Heath on bass, and Ed Blackwell on drums—in effect, Coleman's group of the time without Coleman. Perhaps six years is too long a time to have waited. Coltrane is certainly more adept at free improvisation now than he was then, and his style has become richer both technically and emotionally. Admittedly, The Blessing and Invisible are early and tamer Coleman, but on Cherry’s piece, Cherryco, unless I am missing the point, Coltrane seems stuck for ideas. He is at his best on the more conventional Thelonious Monk piece Bemsha Swing. I am disappointed, too, that the most interesting of the three Coleman compositions included, Focus On Sanity, is truncated. The original (on American Atlantic 1317) uses several ensemble passages, several changes of tempo, and shifts of mood.

This version virtually cuts it down to a medium-tempo section followed by a faster one. Throughout the LP, (Atlantic 587004) Cherry offers one fanciful melodic turn of phrase after another, generally with a technical precision not heard on his previous recordings.