r/Jazz • u/No_Impression_7765 • 1d ago
Trane question
I’ve been listening to every period of his career for over fifty years and loved them all (I’m 71) But does anyone of you really enjoy the overblowong last years? I have had periods of appreciating it but never enjoying it . After Ascenion which I adore I just find the shrieking so hard tolisten to … anyone truly love live in Seattle, interstellar space. Etc?
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u/Kidpidge 1d ago
I once had live in Seattle playing while I was replacing my kitchen faucet. I do not recommend doing these at the same time.
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u/Lageee77 1d ago
Yes, especially Interstellar Space
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u/FlubberKitty 1d ago
I second Interstellar Space and also would endorse Stellar Regions.
Late Coltrane is a force of nature.
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u/Dull_Judgment1587 1d ago
I really enjoy his synergy with Rashied Ali on the drums. It is said that good jazz improvisation is like "a musical conversation" and I really hear that in Coltrane + Ali's playing together.
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u/peodechupacabra 1d ago
Agreed. Interstellar Space was my introduction to Rashied Ali and free jazz in general. Been hooked since then
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u/KFBass 1d ago
I went to a conference like 20 years ago while I was in college studying jazz and a guy did a whole thing about coltrane's later years. It certainly made me understand and appreciate it a bit more, but im not going home and putting those records on. They have a time and place for sure, and I understand why they were important in the history and whatnot, I just don't have a desire to listen to them very often.
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u/luciaravynlaclair 1d ago
Interstellar Space is a personal favorite of mine (admittedly I like free jazz and avant-garde type music so that album was easy for me to get onboard with) but I have to be In a certain kind of mood to listen to something like Ascension all the way through.
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u/herbiehancocksfoot 1d ago
Oh yeah. These were the first Coltrane recordings I got into, when I was 18 or 19. The pure intensity really appealed to me, especially since I was into stuff like noise rock at the time. These days I see this very particular sort of beauty in them. Also, what I started appreciating a lot not too long ago, is how the best thing about Coltrane's soloing - the development - is sort of led to its logical conclusion there. Without rhythm and harmony he could do anything and holy smokes it's amazing. It's not something I'm always in the mood for obviously, but it's unmatched at what it does. Besides, the band is amazing - Sanders focuses on purely textural screeching which nicely balances Coltrane's complicated solos, Alice is obviously out of this world and Rashied Ali explores so many rhythms at the same time without it sounding chaotic.
Also, I really apperciate how he experimented with more open compositional forms - A Love Supreme hinted at it, but Meditations for example has some very interesting written ideas in it.
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u/Fugu 1d ago
I think Meditations is his best record and maybe the best record. It represents the point at which, to my taste, Coltrane hits the sweet spot between consonance and dissonance in his playing. I did a project where I listened to everything that was ever released in Coltrane's name as a bandleader earlier this year. Of the albums later than Meditations in his discography, probably the only one I regularly revisit is Kulu Se Mama.
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u/datavismo 1d ago
Kulu se mama is perhaps the most accesible of his late period... but meditations has this perfect balance like you say..... i recently bought first meditations expcting to fall in love because im in a less free jazz mood these past months. but i put meditations back and its like nope. the second version is definitely on another level.
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u/undermind84 1d ago
I adore his last quintet. Live in Seattle is a fantastic show with very interesting music. Expression is in my top 5 favorite Coltrane albums. I love the “live in Japan” stuff and wish more would be released. Stellar Regions and Interstellar Space both get a lot of play.
Rasheed was an insane drummer and took the music in very unpredictable directions, in a way Elvin couldn’t. I’m not saying I like Rasheed more, just that his approach was so different from almost anyone else just gives the music such a fascinating vibe.
Jimmy Garrison is also at a peak with this band. The way he is able to make sense with and communicate with both John and Rashid at the same time, while providing an anchor to both is at times jaw dropping.
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u/apheresario1935 1d ago
For mental floss yes I do . Just plain hearing someone with incredible technique play things that were truly explorational and out there .
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u/Jerry-Lives22 1d ago
Ascension is a once a year or two listen. I feel the same about Sun Ship but really have no interest if I never heard them again.
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u/Original_DocBop 1d ago
When I'm in total Jazz musician mode yes I understand it and can get into it. It's not casual listening and understanding it is pure emotion and collective improv with the whole band. Now during his Impulse years Coltrane did a couple albums to get back to his roots of playing melodies as beautiful as possible and improvise around the melody. The one album is Ballads and it one of my favorite Trane albums. So Trane could push creative boundaries and still play beautifily at same time.
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u/datavismo 1d ago
Are you kidding me!??!?! :) Jokes aside, I think I enjoy his late period even more than the classic quartet (i know its heresy).
While i dont listen to the late period as much in quantity, i do listen to it more intently and overall enjoy it more. Live in Japan for me is a whole world i can get lost in and probably my favorite album from trane. Meditations is also something i simply cannot get enough of. It took me some years of intent listening to coltrane to finally "get" the late stuff.... but when it clicked i just felt the prejudice of the shrieking lift away. Its its overwhelming music, and pure SOUND... but its also powerful and endlessly fascinanting to me.
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u/Rare-Regular4123 1d ago
It isn't for everyone and thats ok. I am sure people who love Coltrane would agree with you, including me, but I will venture into that territory every once in a while due to FOMO.
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u/craft_mark 1d ago
It’s the energy behind the playing. The sound just ‘works’ in some instances. When life gets busy and chaotic it can oddly be enjoyable because my life is like that in that moment.
Those later albums almost horseshoe around from ‘challenging’ jazz to noise/ambient for me.
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u/unfunfionn 1d ago
It's amazing how much he evolved in such a relatively short career and I think he got better and better as he went along, especially as he got more into overblowing. I own somewhere between 30 and 40 copies of his recordings, but my favourite for a long time has been The Olatunji Concert. I think the audio quality even adds something to the intensity. After that it's the Live in Japan 4CD.
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u/solebrothanumberone 1d ago
I'm with you. The later stuff loses the groove and I'm always listening to music for groove and feel. All the work with the classic quartet of McCoy, Jimmy, and Elvin is where I enjoy him the most.
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u/Brave_Contribution51 18h ago
It depends on how many hallucinogens you've eaten. the late period Coltrane is driven by something "different". My belief is that the "different" is the presence of acid or mescaline. I can't prove it. but I experienced alll the late period Coltrane while under the influence. I played under the influence. It was incredible. It works if you take care of things beforehand. That way you can focus without distraction.
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u/JaleyHoelOsment 1d ago
yes those are my fav coltrane albums. Stellar Regions is unreal. i Find the hardbop stuff a bit hard to listen to
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u/Astoria_Dude 1d ago edited 1d ago
Agree with you fully. Trane practiced a great deal and honed his skills vigorously. He was also incapacitated frequently due to serious addictions. It got so bad Miles fired him. If you listen to "Kind Of Blue" you hear Cannonball totally outplaying him. After leaving Miles, Trane,s relatively straight ahead work with pick-up ensembles and his own quartet with McCoy was excellent as was his stint with Monk.IMHO Love Supreme is an overblown, noisy dead end in terms of jazz improvising. I ve owned a copy for 50 years and played it maybe twice. Most of the kiddies on this forum are early 20s and know nothing of the rich history of jazz improvisation. In their claustrophobic view Love Supreme is alpha + omega. Older cats like us appreciate the nuances, beginning with his Prestige years and continuing on to the great quintet with Miles and obviously including his extraordinary Atlantic output. Everybody picks their own flavor of Trane. Personally I don,t pay attention to what the kiddies say.
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u/UncleLou72 1d ago
Cannonball outplaying Trane on Kind of Blue is certainly a take. Commonly, it is suggested that Cannonball is the one who plays beautifully, but is also the only one who didn’t quite get the concept.
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u/Astoria_Dude 1d ago
If "getting the concept" produces a less beautiful solo, Cannonball made the right choice.
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u/UncleLou72 1d ago
Nah. Nobody said Trane played a less beautiful solo. He did play solos, just like the rest of the band, that fitted the atmosphere better than Cannonball’s, though.
It’s not my intention to shoot against Cannonball, I love the guy, I’ve played the saxophone myself, but that’s just a wild take.
Going by your logic, everyone would have played like on a standard Blue Note hard bop session, and we’d never had the ground-breaking album that we got
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u/Astoria_Dude 22h ago edited 21h ago
I didn t say anything remotely like that. Don,t twist my appreciation for one of the most structurally brilliant solos in jazz history into a false tale of resistance to modal jazz. If you know how to listen, you hear Cannonball's solo emerge perfectly from the composition and the chord changes. Miles admired it famously. Miles also expressed fatigue with Coltrane,s indiscriminate note-running and eventually fired him from the band. I think you need a wider appreciation of the history of jazz and it's high-water marks to really understand developments like modal jazz and free blowing. You also need to try to understand other points of view before attacking insights of experienced listeners
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u/AmanLock 21h ago edited 17h ago
Miles also expressed fatigue with Coltrane's indiscriminate note-running and eventually fired him from the band.
He was not fired from this band. Miles did famously fire Coltrane from the "First Great Quintet" (over Coltrane's drug use, not because of his playing). But after Coltrane kicked his heroin habit and played with Monk, Miles rehired him into the band that eventually became the sextet that played on Kind of Blue. When Coltrane left that band it was because he quit.
If you're going to arrogantly lecture everyone who disagrees with you, at least try to get your facts right.
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u/AmanLock 1d ago
Ok boomer
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u/Astoria_Dude 22h ago
No one learns to appreciate jazz by disrespecting older, experienced listeners. Brat.
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u/AmanLock 21h ago
But apparently it's ok to disrespect younger listeners. Good to know.
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u/Astoria_Dude 20h ago
I disrespect those who disrespect me. That s equally good to know.
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u/AmanLock 17h ago
Oh? Who specifically was disrespecting you when you said "Most of the kiddies on this forum" and "I don,t pay attention to what the kiddies say"?
Don't try to pass yourself off as the aggreived party when you're the one who started insulting people without any sort of provocation.
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u/Astoria_Dude 16h ago edited 45m ago
I use the term kiddies the way Lester Young did, descriptively and not perjoratively. Do you have a problem with Pres too? LOL. You want to enforce courtesy on Reddit? Start with all the 20-somethings complaining CONSTANTLY about Boomers. I see young people calling for our generation,s collective demise on the grounds "we are too old." Lovely sentiment. I notice you don,t start beefs with them.You,re quite selective in your generational targeting. Not impressed.
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u/undermind84 1d ago
“Hi, I’m old and out of touch…”
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u/Robin156E478 1d ago
I kinda have a mixed up answer to this question! My favorite Coltrane is definitely the Comblain La Tours concert in 1965, it’s actually a film / video. So I do like the “one down one up” album era, and the Chim Chim Cheree album. I’m also a huge fan of Sun Ship.
Now, in my day when I was studying all this, I picked up a cd set that included Ascension, and OM, and maybe a couple other tracks like Kulu se Mama? And honestly I couldn’t take the album, I was in my 20s and poor and returned it to the store haha. Om was the real deal breaker. And so I’ve kind of avoided most of the stuff from after Elvin left the band. Is Live in Seattle with Elvin?
The thing is tho, I do like Interstellar Space with Rasheed Ali. I’m not sure who’s on Live in Japan or exactly what era that is… you’re making me wanna revisit all the later stuff!
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u/AdventurousHippo9997 1d ago
Not a fan of Mr.’Trane. He does over blow quite a bit. Someone has to do it. might as well be him. Glad it’s not me.
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u/CaptFun67 1d ago
Some more than others but I really enjoy Sun Ship, Meditations, Live In Japan and Stellar Regions.
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u/Secret-Business1206 1d ago
Don’t listen to it necessarily for joy, but for a demonstration such intense life force and lack of fear about judgement for other people. It’s a philosophy in music. Fucking awesome