By Vic Schermer
[With this brief commentary, as well as the book review of Lewis
Porter's John
Coltrane: His Life and Music, and the interviews with Porter
and David
Liebman, All About Jazz is initiating a dialogue about John Coltrane,
the person, his music, and his legacy. We invite you to submit your comments
and questions for inclusion; and we also want you to let us know if you
would like to write an article, book review, or CD review relevant to any
aspect of Coltrane and his work. Send a brief query before submitting any
lengthy material. Email all to Vic
Schermer. No email attachments please, unless requested. Thanks
in advance!]
"My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express
it in my music. If you live it, when you play there's no problem because
the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something.
It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I
am - my faith, my knowledge, my being."-- John Coltrane
I am one of countless fans who have always enjoyed and appreciated
the music of John Coltrane, the legendary saxophonist who over a span of
perhaps two decades (a relatively small time period for a musical life),
soared all over his instruments (tenor and soprano sax) and in, around,
and above many of the musical styles of his day, from the mainstream tunes
and harmonies through the most inventive chordal and melodic progressions,
to world music, and "free" jazz. Beyond this, however, Lewis Porter's book,
John Coltrane: His Life and Music, and some conversations I've had
with Dr. Porter, and with the masterful "post-Coltrane" saxophonist, David
Liebman, have led me to believe that Trane was not simply one of the five
or ten greatest jazz instrumentalists of the twentieth century, as indisputably
he was, but that he was a musical genius of the type which comes along
only once or twice in a generation, carrying on and moving forward the
great traditions of evolving musical forms as they have developed over
centuries in many different cultures and parts of the world.
An initial approach to Coltrane will either frustrate or stimulate a
music lover, depending on his or her listening preferences and frame of
mind at the time. One will hear either a) tendentious repetitions, emotional
bathos on the verge of hysteria, and experiments with melodic and chordal
changes that border on the grotesque (and I mean this with respect not
only to his later "free jazz" pieces, but also some spots in his earlier
work); or else b) extraordinary technical mastery combined with deep soul
searching and creative expression. These contrary impressions occur in
my opinion, because Coltrane heard and played in very large gestalts, whole
patterns which fall into place only if you keep the entire context in mind.
Once you percieve the "gestalt," Trane's remarkable coherence lends inner
beauty to all the details which intially seemed to come from the formless
void. These gestalts occur over a single chorus, an entire piece, or sometimes
over a period of years (!) as the patterns of one recording clarify those
of several that had gone before.
We know that Trane totally immersed himself in his instrument and in
music. There are countless stories of his constant practicing, to the point
where he would rehearse backstage while others were playing their solos
on the bandstand, or that he wouldn't answer the doorbell at his Manhattan
apartment
because he was practicing, or that he slept with his horn, etc. The constant
practicing, combined with other factors such as his mastery of alto, soprano,
and tenor sax, and his interest in mouthpieces, accounts for his extraordinarily
lucid and haunting sound. It also betokens the mark of a great musician,
namely that the distinction between the music and the musician becomes
less and less demarcated, as everything within him comes out of his horn
(and compositional pen) and everything within develops from his relation
to the music- that is, his music becomes a meditation of his soul. (See
the above quote by Trane.) Coltrane's virtuosic technique, exempified by
his "sheets of sound," and inventive chord progressions, evolved totally
in conjunction with his increasing range of self- expression and creativity.
At times, it is as if he literally "talked in tongues" with his instrument;
at other times as if he meditated soulfully in solitude, at others as if
he talks to a close friend or a lover, and at still others, as if he hears
another voice, another song, from a different time and place, a different
world. Always, there is some ineffable element in his sound that is reminiscent
of a cosmic, primal scream- the infant's cry, the pain and joy of all of
our lives, the wailing side of "Omm," the universal consciousness.
Coltrane's extraordinary "triple helical" fusion of technique, self-expression,
and creativity has occurred very rarely in the history of Western music.
Its classical apogee is, for me, in the life and work of Beethoven, and
I think a good case could be made for Charlie Parker having been the "Mozart"
of Jazz, and Coltrane being the reincarnation, if you will, of Beethoven.
As Mozart was "made for" the new classical forms, had infinite musical
resources and rarely, if ever, wrote a bad note, so Parker was "made for"
bebop, ever inventive, and, once he came into his element, incapable of
a bad phrase. As Beethoven moved from majestic and beautiful piano and
early symphonic pieces containing both majesty and tenderness, war and
peace, into the deep, complex, and elusive counterpoint of his last string
quartets; so Coltrane evolved from the controlled but virtuosic assertiveness
of bebop to ever deeper and more complex and disturbing expressions of
his inner life. Unlike Beethoven, whose letters document the wide range
of his passions and personal feelings, Trane wrote and said very little
about himself, so we are in mostly in the dark about what personal stirrings
were at work within him, other than what we can hear in his music. Nonetheless,
rarely have complex passions combined with spiritual consciousness in the
way that occurred with Beethoven and with John Coltrane.
So, for the more dedicated jazz fans out there, I recommend that, if
you haven't already done so, you listen systematically to the wide range
of Coltrane's recordings, from his days with Miles Davis and Thelonious
Monk through his work with the legendary quartet with Tyner, Garrison,
and Jones, and on through Ascension, A Love Supreme and Meditations. If
you listen in this way, instead of piecemeal to one recording or other
as the impulse moves you (no pun intended regarding Impulse Records!),
you will increasingly hear the gestalts, the wholes, the unity within diversity,
of one who can only be characterized as a great musical giant whose inspirations
are virtually endless.
In view of such encomiums, one may ask, was Coltrane a "saint," a status
to which he once candidly said he aspired and as one church congregation
in San Francisco believes? I am not one to judge another man's character
and spiritual state. I think it is enough to say that, as is well-documented,
he consciously strove to be a "good" man and to fulfill his spiritual destiny.
His music has something of the divine in it, as well as exploring the darkness
and the sadness of the soul, without flinching. Where he got this artistic
courage from isn't clear, but it was quite something when it came out of
his horn!
My own knowledge of Coltrane and his work is minuscule in comparison
with that of his biographer, Lewis Porter, and David Liebman, a saxophonist
who to some extent has followed in Trane's footsteps while striking out
on his own path. So I invite you to peruse my review of Porter's book and
the recent AAJ interiews with these two worthy gentlemen.
Vic Schermer is a psychologist and jazz aficianado in Philadelphia, PA. He is a regular contributor to All About Jazz and other jazz venues on the Worldwide Web. Vic welcomes thoughts from readers and will respond.
