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A View From Abroad On The Music Of John Coltrane And Elvin Jones
Recently, the All About Jazz "Giants of Jazz" John Coltrane page received two excellent "impressionistic" articles on John Coltrane and Elvin Jones from a jazz fan in Sweden, Bertil Holmgren. They are reprinted below. They are filled with passion and memories of Coltrane's and Elvins' playing, suggest how deeply personally meaningful Trane's music can become, and contain some fascinating insights into Trane's and Elvin's music-making and their significance for the development of jazz. We reproduce the articles here, with minor editing, with Mr. Holmgren's permission:
BERTIL HOLMGREN is an engineer and managing director of a firm in Stockholm in his native country, Sweden. He lives outside of Malmo in a small village called Bara. He has been interested in jazz and America since his youth, is married and has two sons, one living in the U.S. He describes his interest in jazz as follows:
"I guess my musical interest came from my father, who played the accordion in a band in my youth, and mainstream jazz was introduced to me by my older brother very early. I was in a way more of a rebel myself, and terrifying others with Coltrane music fitted well with my behavior then! But the first record that I bought was Doris Day's Once I Had A Secret Love at the age of six or seven. I listen to all music, it gives me great energy, and I think I might in a way have the same kind of musical interest as Coltrane. There is a soothing element to chaotic music, the more complex the better, it's like taking a tranquillizer."
I suspect you will greatly enjoy what Bertil has written.
--Vic Schermer, Editor
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