In a previous blog entry 1965 - A Stellar Year for John Coltrane I described what a truly productive and transformative year 1965 was for Coltrane. And, ending the year as the first musician to win four awards in DownBeat magazine's Annual Reader's Poll : Hall of Fame, Jazzman of the Year, Record of the Year and Tenor Saxophone.
In the same December 30 1965 edition of DownBeat there was an AB Spellman review of Trane + 7 at the Village Gate in NYC. Essentially this was an extension of what Trane had been driving at the Ascension recordings. Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Ward and Rashied Ali complementing the (classic) Quartet.
Interesting on a few fronts. 1. Shows again Trane's desire to keep certain musicians funded, and to promote them. 2. Sanders as the "damnest tenor player in the English language". 3. Elvin Jones not appearing for the first set and AB Spellman saying that the night was better for it. 4. Clear evidence on how 1966 was shaping up with the transformation of Trane's group. I love tracking down these 1960s jazz journals.
At the same time as the restless Coltrane was winning unprecedented accolades, his group was in the process of partly self-destructing and radically re-aligning to a much more avant-garde and free future.
"Trane +7 = A Wild Night At The Gate
John Coltrane
Village Gate, New York City
Personnel: Coltrane, soprano and tenor saxophones;
Archie Shepp, Pharoah Saunders (sic), tenor saxophones;
Carlos Ward, alto saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano;
Jimmy Garrison, bass; Rashid Ali, Elvin Jones, drums.
The band John Coltrane showed at the
Gate Nov. 10 might be called “J. C. &
After.” Coltrane, who put the kinetic
field back into the tenor saxophone after
it had been lost when the Illinois Jacquets
disappeared from Respectability (a small,
affluent suburb of New York), assembled
an aggregation of reed men who were
learning their fingering when he was cut-
ting Blue Trane; their harmony when he
was cutting Milestones; their selves when
he was cutting Coltrane’s Music.
Trane, with his Ascension record date
and with the augmented quartet he uses
in the clubs, is not only creating a band
with more power than Con Ed but is
also introducing some of the best of the
New Jazz musicians to the World of the
Living Wage and, thereby, performing a
double service. Shepp and Saunders, by
virtue of the discomforting weight of their
music, get precious few gigs, and Col-
trane, by presenting their music in its
proper musicological context, is perform-
ing a great service to their generation.
Both these men have highly distinctive
styles. They really sound nothing like
Coltrane, but it is clear that they have
benefited from Coltrane’s line, harmonics,
and dissection of a song’s melody.
On this night, the two sets consisted of
long interpretations of one tune each:
Afro Blue and Out of This World. The
difference between the two sets was that
Jones didn’t show for the first. And the
first was, to my ear, far better.
Coltrane played the theme on soprano,
and Shepp, in very good voice, took it
from there. Shepp’s style is reiterative—
a kind of supercharged theme and varia-
tions. He stated a motif, broke it down
to its elements, and returned to it every
few bars. After carrying one idea through
innumerable permutations he would start
another. Shepp is a bluesy player who
roars his masculinity. He plays at both
ends of the horn, and he may spot his
intensities at any part of the register. He
makes heavy inflections on the notes he
wants to emphasize. His opening solo,
about 10 minutes long, was a strong one,
as it had to be, for this is deep water.
This was the first time I’d heard Pana-
manian altoist Ward. He seemed to be
neither a screamer nor a singer, but a
talker. He seemed to be engaged in some
kind of a dialog with himself, playing a
rapid series of terse, self-contained, but
related phrases. I liked Ward; his ear. is
different. I couldn’t sort out his influences
in this cauldron, however, and I look for-
ward to hearing him in a smaller group.
Saunders followed Ward, and he is the
damnest tenor player in the English
language. He went on for minute after
minute in a register that I didn’t know the
tenor had (actually, I did—I’ve heard
Saunders before). Those special effects
that most tenor men use only in moments
of high orgiastic excitement are the basic
premises of his presentation. His use of
overtones, including a cultivated squeak
that parallels his line, is constantly start-
ling. He plays way above the upper
register; long slurred lines and squeaky
monosyllabic staccatos, and then closes
with some kind of Bushman’s nursery
rhyme. Pharoah is ready, and you'll all
be hearing from him soon. Or should.
Trane soloed on soprano which, as
usual, seemed a few months behind his
tenor. Here, in this reed chorus, it had
the effect of stretching out the sonic boom.
The orchestral composition of the group
had been expanding all along. No one
was ever idle—a man would finish his solo
and pick up a rattle, tambourine, or some
other rhythm instrument and start shaking
away. The reeds also were free to provide
filler or comment for the soloist, and the
effect was of an active, highly charged
environment. With the constantly shifting
rhythms of Rashid on drums this was free
large-group improvisation at its best.
Rashid’s playing is an ever flowing patter
that defies time signature. He once said
he was after a drone effect that flowed
with the horns. At the Gate, he showed
how well he achieves this effect.
Garrison’s bass was strong and witty,
and Tyner’s chords are necessarily more
dissonant than before.
The difference in the second set was, to
me, the unnecessary addition of Jones. It
was interesting to hear this band~ with
Rashid, who, unlike Jones, disperses the
rhythm centers. It has always been an awe-
ful, pleasurable experience to have Elvin
tear up my nervous system for me. I have
also heard two drummers used with laud-
able results, e.g., the intimate communi-
cation of Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell
in Ornette Coleman’s monumental Free
Jazz LP and some work Rashid did with
another drummer in a Sun Ra concert.
I think I see what Coltrane wants—an
ever evolving groundswell of energy that
will make the musical environment so
dangerous that he and the others will have
to improvise new weapons constantly to
beat back all the Brontosaurs. However,
if Jones is to be one of the two drummers,
then Lincoln Center at least is needed to
contain and separate all that sound. One
simply couldn’t hear anything but drums
on Out of This World. I had no idea
what the soloists were saying, and I doubt
that the players could hear each other.
Garrison (who played a truly virtuoso
solo to open the second set) was com-
pletely swallowed up. At one point, I saw
Coltrane break out a bagpipe (another
demon in the forest) and blow into it,
but damned if I heard a note of what he
played.
Note: Coltrane played bass clarinet in
some ensemble sections. I was told that
the instrument had belonged to Eric
Dolphy and had been given to.Coltrane
by Dolphy’s mother. —A.B. Spellman
The New Jazz Musings - 1965 - A Stellar Year for John Coltrane
In the same December 30 1965 edition of DownBeat there was an AB Spellman review of Trane + 7 at the Village Gate in NYC. Essentially this was an extension of what Trane had been driving at the Ascension recordings. Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Ward and Rashied Ali complementing the (classic) Quartet.
Interesting on a few fronts. 1. Shows again Trane's desire to keep certain musicians funded, and to promote them. 2. Sanders as the "damnest tenor player in the English language". 3. Elvin Jones not appearing for the first set and AB Spellman saying that the night was better for it. 4. Clear evidence on how 1966 was shaping up with the transformation of Trane's group. I love tracking down these 1960s jazz journals.
At the same time as the restless Coltrane was winning unprecedented accolades, his group was in the process of partly self-destructing and radically re-aligning to a much more avant-garde and free future.
"Trane +7 = A Wild Night At The Gate
John Coltrane
Village Gate, New York City
Personnel: Coltrane, soprano and tenor saxophones;
Archie Shepp, Pharoah Saunders (sic), tenor saxophones;
Carlos Ward, alto saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano;
Jimmy Garrison, bass; Rashid Ali, Elvin Jones, drums.
The band John Coltrane showed at the
Gate Nov. 10 might be called “J. C. &
After.” Coltrane, who put the kinetic
field back into the tenor saxophone after
it had been lost when the Illinois Jacquets
disappeared from Respectability (a small,
affluent suburb of New York), assembled
an aggregation of reed men who were
learning their fingering when he was cut-
ting Blue Trane; their harmony when he
was cutting Milestones; their selves when
he was cutting Coltrane’s Music.
Trane, with his Ascension record date
and with the augmented quartet he uses
in the clubs, is not only creating a band
with more power than Con Ed but is
also introducing some of the best of the
New Jazz musicians to the World of the
Living Wage and, thereby, performing a
double service. Shepp and Saunders, by
virtue of the discomforting weight of their
music, get precious few gigs, and Col-
trane, by presenting their music in its
proper musicological context, is perform-
ing a great service to their generation.
Both these men have highly distinctive
styles. They really sound nothing like
Coltrane, but it is clear that they have
benefited from Coltrane’s line, harmonics,
and dissection of a song’s melody.
On this night, the two sets consisted of
long interpretations of one tune each:
Afro Blue and Out of This World. The
difference between the two sets was that
Jones didn’t show for the first. And the
first was, to my ear, far better.
Coltrane played the theme on soprano,
and Shepp, in very good voice, took it
from there. Shepp’s style is reiterative—
a kind of supercharged theme and varia-
tions. He stated a motif, broke it down
to its elements, and returned to it every
few bars. After carrying one idea through
innumerable permutations he would start
another. Shepp is a bluesy player who
roars his masculinity. He plays at both
ends of the horn, and he may spot his
intensities at any part of the register. He
makes heavy inflections on the notes he
wants to emphasize. His opening solo,
about 10 minutes long, was a strong one,
as it had to be, for this is deep water.
This was the first time I’d heard Pana-
manian altoist Ward. He seemed to be
neither a screamer nor a singer, but a
talker. He seemed to be engaged in some
kind of a dialog with himself, playing a
rapid series of terse, self-contained, but
related phrases. I liked Ward; his ear. is
different. I couldn’t sort out his influences
in this cauldron, however, and I look for-
ward to hearing him in a smaller group.
Saunders followed Ward, and he is the
damnest tenor player in the English
language. He went on for minute after
minute in a register that I didn’t know the
tenor had (actually, I did—I’ve heard
Saunders before). Those special effects
that most tenor men use only in moments
of high orgiastic excitement are the basic
premises of his presentation. His use of
overtones, including a cultivated squeak
that parallels his line, is constantly start-
ling. He plays way above the upper
register; long slurred lines and squeaky
monosyllabic staccatos, and then closes
with some kind of Bushman’s nursery
rhyme. Pharoah is ready, and you'll all
be hearing from him soon. Or should.
Trane soloed on soprano which, as
usual, seemed a few months behind his
tenor. Here, in this reed chorus, it had
the effect of stretching out the sonic boom.
The orchestral composition of the group
had been expanding all along. No one
was ever idle—a man would finish his solo
and pick up a rattle, tambourine, or some
other rhythm instrument and start shaking
away. The reeds also were free to provide
filler or comment for the soloist, and the
effect was of an active, highly charged
environment. With the constantly shifting
rhythms of Rashid on drums this was free
large-group improvisation at its best.
Rashid’s playing is an ever flowing patter
that defies time signature. He once said
he was after a drone effect that flowed
with the horns. At the Gate, he showed
how well he achieves this effect.
Garrison’s bass was strong and witty,
and Tyner’s chords are necessarily more
dissonant than before.
The difference in the second set was, to
me, the unnecessary addition of Jones. It
was interesting to hear this band~ with
Rashid, who, unlike Jones, disperses the
rhythm centers. It has always been an awe-
ful, pleasurable experience to have Elvin
tear up my nervous system for me. I have
also heard two drummers used with laud-
able results, e.g., the intimate communi-
cation of Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell
in Ornette Coleman’s monumental Free
Jazz LP and some work Rashid did with
another drummer in a Sun Ra concert.
I think I see what Coltrane wants—an
ever evolving groundswell of energy that
will make the musical environment so
dangerous that he and the others will have
to improvise new weapons constantly to
beat back all the Brontosaurs. However,
if Jones is to be one of the two drummers,
then Lincoln Center at least is needed to
contain and separate all that sound. One
simply couldn’t hear anything but drums
on Out of This World. I had no idea
what the soloists were saying, and I doubt
that the players could hear each other.
Garrison (who played a truly virtuoso
solo to open the second set) was com-
pletely swallowed up. At one point, I saw
Coltrane break out a bagpipe (another
demon in the forest) and blow into it,
but damned if I heard a note of what he
played.
Note: Coltrane played bass clarinet in
some ensemble sections. I was told that
the instrument had belonged to Eric
Dolphy and had been given to.Coltrane
by Dolphy’s mother. —A.B. Spellman
The New Jazz Musings - 1965 - A Stellar Year for John Coltrane
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