The New Jazz Musings

On January 23rd 1966 at Stanford University's Memorial Auditorium, the Thelonius Monk Quartet and the John Coltrane Octet performed. Canada's Coda jazz magazine reviewed the event at length. It's acknowledged that Trane's time as a regular with Monk was crucial to his growth as a musician and composer. But in the subsequent ten years, it is clear that the two musicians' trajectories were very different.  This was the couple of weeks Coltrane spent in California when he supplemented his group further with Juno Lewis on percussion and Donald Garrett on bass. McCoy Tyner had already left and the strain felt by Elvin Jones was apparent. monk and coltrane at stamford (sic) reviewed by Philip Jacka It was beautiful. Simply, this year Stanford University would investigate jazz. The scheme was not dissimilar to that Festival of the Arts which Brandeis University focused on jazz back in 1957 (hear "MODERN JAZZ CONCERT", Columbia WL127, or its twin-pack reissue, ...

Knowing that 1965 was such a transformational year for John Coltrane, the one when he evolved from his "Classic Quartet", experimenting with some of the younger, more avant-garde musicians in live settings, and in some studio sessions, I decided to post each of thirteen albums on Instagram that emanated from the 1965 sessions (in recording date order). Not including some other live sessions (mainly on CD). Trane was feeling the need to change by adding other musicians. He was experimenting more than usual, and recording more. The output from 1965 was immense. The first seven records are below, with information on the recording sessions. #1 of 13. The quartet entered Van Gelder's on Feb 17th for two days' recording with Art Davis on 2nd bass. On the 1st day Nature Boy, Feelin' Good and Chim Chim Cheree were laid down. All material from this session was unreleased until this double album in 1978, when one of the Nature Boy takes was included. From a recording later ...

In a blog post from May this year, I presented Jack Cooke's Late Trane retrospective from 1970. Link below. This time it's a feature written by John Norris, from the May 1968 edition of Canada's Coda magazine, which became a Coltrane memorial issue. If you are interested in a contemporary take on Coltrane's records from The John Coltrane Quartet Plays to Expression, read on.  Late Trane Retrospective From 1970 John Norris was a regular contributor to many jazz publications, including Coda, was jazz critic for the Globe and Mail, and was a jazz music host on Canadian radio and television. THE FINAL LEGACY by John Norris Until very recently, jazz musicians were static as artists. Every musician evolved a style and remained true to that, with minor variations, for the remainder of his career. In this sense the jazz musician paralleled the course of practitioners in other art forms prior to the Twentieth Century. Today it is much different. Musicians are trans forming thei...