In the March 1978 edition of Britain's Jazz Journal, Alistair Loftus gave us his own personal recollections of John Coltrane, and his perspective on his works. With a preference for the 'classic' quartet period, he still covers pretty much Coltrane's entire career. He saw Trane live during the 1961 JATP tour, so another cool input for me.
ABOUT TEN years ago jazz lost one of its giants when John Coltrane died at the age of 40 on July 17, 1967, his full potential still to be realised. His influence was tremendous and many of the tenor players who have emerged in recent years have tried, usually unsuccessfully, to sound like him — just as aspiring altoists tried to copy Bird's licks in the forties and fifties. Fortunately Coltrane left behind a substantial amount of recorded work, made between 1949 and 1967, so there are plenty of examples of his playing in various settings.
John Coltrane was brought up in a musical environment since his father, a tailor by trade, played several instruments as a hobby. John studied the E-flat horn, then clarinet and then turned to the alto saxophone in high school. His musical studies continued at the Granoff and Ornstein schools of music in Philadelphia and his first job at the age of 19 was on alto with a cocktail lounge group. He then worked for a year with a Navy band in Hawaii and it was around this time that he became increasingly interested in jazz.
It has been said that Trane's main influences were Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins; yet his playing would not appear to show any strong influence from these sources. Perhaps a more likely sequence of John's initial influence would be that he first listened to Lester Young then Hawk, Ben, Tab Smith and was finally impressionably exposed to Parker and Gillespie. He clearly listened widely but, like all great individualists in the music, he was soon to emerge as very much his own man.
After the spell with the Navy band, he joined Eddie Vinson as a tenor player in 1947 and in 1948, just before joining Dizzy Gillespie, he played with Jimmy Heath's band in Philadelphia. Heath knew more about musical construction than John did at this time so it is likely that Coltrane learned much from their friendship. In Gillespie's big band he continued his association with Heath; they both played altos in a section completed by Jessie Powell and Paul Gonsalves on tenors and Al Gibson on baritone. While with this band Coltrane made his first recordings, in November 1949 and January 1950, on the Capitol label. When economic reasons forced Gillespie to break up his orchestra, he formed a sextet which included Coltrane. Then followed almost two years with an unlikely band, that of Earl Bostic. But apparently Coltrane found that Bostic was a gifted musician who helped him by showing him a lot of things on his horn. The next band he found himself in was that of Johnny Hodges. Trane is said to have remarked afterwards that he really enjoyed that job: "It all had meaning, and it all swung".
He was now concentrating solely on tenor and must have been emerging as a significant player since he was offered a job with Miles Davis during the autumn of 1955. This was the famous Miles Davis Quintet with Miles on trumpet, Coltrane tenor, Red Garland piano, Paul Chambers bass and Philly Joe Jones drums. This quintet made several albums, notably the Steamin', Workin', Relaxin' and Cookin' Prestige series issued in the UK on the old Esquire label. Working with this superb rhythm section and the genius of Miles, it was inevitable that Coltrane should develop enormously musically during this period. Throughout much of 1957 Trane worked with Thelonious Monk and clearly broadened his musical horizons still further. This group with Monk on piano, Coltrane on tenor, Wilbur Ware on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums recorded an album in April 1957 for Riverside. By January 1958 Coltrane had returned to Miles's group. Cannonball Adderley was added to make it a sextet and in April they recorded the illustrious Milestones album. Later Red Garland and Jones left the group to be replaced by Bill Evans and Jimmy Cobb. This new sextet recorded a few albums, a fine one being Kind Of Blue made in 1959.
It was the Kind Of Blue album that first brought Coltrane into my life (I have since caught up with some of his earlier recorded work with various pick-up groups assembled for recording purposes only). Quite honestly, however, I was not bowled over by his playing on this album at the time, nor did I believe that here had arrived the tenor ultimate! I felt that he was a fine tenorist with a distinctive sound, but not much more than that. Incidentally, the main attraction of that album to me was not any one particular soloist but the overall group. The musicians sounded great together and the compositions were classics of their kind.
My next encounter with Coltrane and his music came when I heard and saw him during his British tour in November 1961 as part of Norman Granz's Jazz At The Philharmonic package. The Coltrane group of John on tenor and soprano, Eric Dolphy alto and flute, McCoy Tyner piano, Reggie Workman bass and Elvin Jones drums played the first part of the programme, the second part featuring the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet.
I am sure that most people who heard Coltrane on that 1961 tour were rather overwhelmed by what he played, because although Coltrane had made many records before this date, they had mostly been with Miles and other assorted outfits. Since then his playing had changed dramatically. He had, of course, recorded such albums as Giant Steps, My Favorite Things, and Coltrane Jazz in 1959 and 1960, but most UK collectors didn't catch up on these albums until later. Now here he was in November 1961 with his own working group, playing music his way; not just another blowing tenorist, but a real individualist playing something entirely fresh. What was more, he was playing original music, some of it with a modal feel to it, not the more familiar jazz standards or even the kind of compositions that he had been playing with Miles.
I cannot remember specific titles that were played that evening, but I know the music had a dynamic quality about it; the tremendous interplay between Coltrane and Elvin Jones was already apparent. Elvin's rather torrential style of drumming was tremendously exciting. Another thing that sticks in the memory was the length of each composition; in Coltrane's set of around an hour-and-a-half he played only three compositions! I remember being very moved by the music but much of it was so strange and different to me, I did not fully understand it at the time. Looking back now at the music Coltrane was playing in 1961, it seems almost conventional.
My complete conversion to Coltrane's music came with my exposure to My Favorite Things recorded in October 1960. The title track, played on soprano in waltz time, has a haunting and fascinating quality about it.
Soon after his return to the States following the 1961 European tour, Coltrane hired Jimmy Garrison to replace Reggie Workman and he remained with Coltrane until the end. This was, as far as I am concerned, the ultimate Coltrane group, with Tyner and Elvin Jones. The recordings they made between December 1961 and mid-1965 contain, I believe, the most vital, exciting and memorable music that Coltrane ever produced. The band had a tremendous togetherness and the musicians were clearly mutually receptive and sympathetic to one another's playing and to John's music. John's wife Alice told Nat Hentoff that she was sorry the band ever broke up, "they were so right together, so open to each other". (McCoy and Elvin had left by early 1966, their places being taken by John's wife and Rashied Ali.) An outstanding example of this group's music can be heard in the album A Love Supreme recorded in December 1964. The power of Trane's music, emotionally and spiritually, is overwhelming and this ranks as one of his most significant works.
One of the qualities in Coltrane's playing which is perhaps neglected by some people is his beautiful lyricism. Examples of this quality range through most of his playing career, but the Crescent album, also recorded in 1964, contains several pieces which show his lyrical, yet probing, ability to the full. On Lonnie's Lament, as well as John's playing there is ample space given to the trio. McCoy (another great lyricist) solos in fine style and Garrison constructs one of his highly personal solos. His highly developed use of double stops and frequent strumming made him one of the most interesting bassists to listen to in jazz. Another beautifully lyrical recording is the Ballads album recorded for Impulse in 1961 and 1962.
From around the Spring of 1965 onwards there were significant changes in Coltrane's music. Generally speaking his playing became less melodic, more harsh and some of his solos seemed to consist of a relentless exploration of just a few notes. He seemed to be working hard at the further freeing of time and structures that predominated in his music in this final period. The use of sound as a kind of force was now prevalent in his music; as Barry McRae wrote in his review of the composition Creation (JJ, June 1977) his music now "moves into the sound areas that concerned him greatly and in which latent power was an important ingredient". He was now also making great use of modality (although this had always been a part of his music), adopting a scalar or pedal-point approach. An example of his modal work in this period is his Suite recorded in June 1965.
Coltrane was a musician who practised a great deal but during this final period of his life he did even more writing than playing. According to his wife, he was always immensely well prepared to play, to the extent of taking two or three tenors with him when he left for work! Certainly I remember he carried two tenor saxophones on to the stage when I saw him in 1961.
While much of Trane's later music may have seemed rather wild and chaotic at times, his considerable lyricism still showed through on records such as Dear Lord recorded in May 1965 and Ogunde (1967), Incidentally, the tracks Ogunde and Expression were the last compositions recorded by him (March 17, 1967). Four months later he was dead. There are, however, earlier recordings by Trane which have been released for the first time quite recently.
John Coltrane was the true creative artist, and a real pioneer. He was always searching for new paths, moving ahead all the time, looking deeply into himself and his music, never resigned or falling back on past clichés. He wanted his music to be a force for good in the world, and for anyone open enough to hear it, I believe that is exactly what it is and that it will continue to be so.
Ref: Photographers uncredited. Jazz Journal March 1978
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