Date:	07-Mar-2001 15:54:31
From:	David Scardino
	My memory was of a night at the Half Note in New York City in about 1964 or 1965. Trane was leading his classic quartet--Tyner, Jones and Garrison--and I remember being totally blown away by the intensity with which they all played and (remember this was during the time rock was reducing the number of fulltime jazz clubs in Manhattan from eleven to one!)how they did it with only the most minimal amplification. (Elvin Jones' kit that night--and he wasn't miked at all-- consisted of one ride cymbal, a snare, a tom-tom, a small bass drum and a high-hat, and he got more out of it than rock and roll drummers whose kits took up half the stage.) Having seen Trane several times at Birdland, I can tell you this kind of intense, wring everything out of everything, kind of performance was typical of the man and the group. However much Trane practiced in between sets, he never left any of it backstage. And that's one of the reasons I love the "Live at Birdland" album on Impulse. Although it's pretty heavily edited for time, it nevertheless gives you a pretty accurate sense of what seeing Trane in person was like. I consider myself blessed to have experienced those nights and they will always live in my memory.

 

Date:	20-Mar-2001 11:14:30
From:	Rob Mariani (rjmariani@mediaone.net)
	I saw Trane at the Half Note too, during the hayday of that club in the early 60's. I remember jazz critic Martin Williams had written an article about Elvin's concept of time and how it was a different from the way other drummers conceived the beat... the way Elvin slid around on the beat and yet always had it at the center of everything. Then of course there were the musical ideas that he would constantly be feeding the rest of the group. That left hand that never stopped. The other thing I recall about those evenings at the Half Note was how Coltrane's personality would seemd to totally disappear into the music and it was as if the music were coming from somewhere else and just flowing through him. I think Trane was among the least charismatic jazz musicians I've ever seen.The complete opposite of Miles or Monk or Duke whose presence could fill a stadium before they even played a note. Trane's music filled stadiums and rooms and where ever else he played. But his personality? I never got a sense of it. It was always all about the music. And when he stopped playing so the other musicians could solo, he seemed to almost vanish into the shadows on the side of the bandstand. He never spoke or even acknowledged the audience. I don't think I've ever seen someone disappear into the music quite like that.

 

Date:	22-Mar-2001 16:48:10
From:	anthony (anthonydrake@hotmail.com)
	I feel its quite odd and ironic I never got to see the music I truly adore. I was born at the wrong time and can NEVER see trane and miles on stage. I am the biggest Miles fan; I cannot image the majestry that would have been present in the late 50's.

 

Date:	01-Apr-2001 03:10:00
From:	Peter Isackson (pisackson@wanadoo.fr)
	I heard (without seeing) Trane once and a year later actually saw him. Tbe hearing was because I was too young (16) to get into Shelly's Manne Hole in L.A. so I went to listen at the door in the back alley. The quartet was playing "My Favorite Things" and I was amazed to hear what a different sound it had compared to the 1961 Atlantic recording (the only one published at the time). Unfortunately, Shelly Manne suddenly showed up (he wanted to hear the master as well) and when I saw him coming through the alley towards the door where I was listening, I got frightened and left (I hadn't yet read Rabelais' story of the man who was accused by a sausage vendor of stealing after passing his bread through the vapor - "le fumet" - produced by the roasting sausage, which would have clarified me on my rights!). The time I actually saw the quartet was clearly a moment in history: Nov. 23, 1963, the day after Kennedy's assassination. The whole country had come to a standstill. Who would be believe it, 24 hours with NO COMMERCIALS ON TELEVISION! I had tickets to Trane's concert at UCLA (where I was a freshman). Like everyone else, I was upset about Kennedy but would have been more upset if Coltrane's concert had been canceled. Luckily, it wasn't, but we were deeply concerned when the stage remained empty half an hour after its programmed start at 8.30. Then someone came on stage and announced that Trane had been delayed but the trio would start things off. McCoy started playing Afro-Blue (Live at Birdland had only just been recorded and nobody in the audience really knew this tune). He soloed for nearly 30 minutes, leaving us wondering if Coltrane was going to show up at all. Then suddenly, McCoy started his trademark series of hypnotically intense richly voiced block chords and Trane was already soloing with his soprano as he walked on stage. The second number was "I want to talk about you" (same order as on "Live at Birdland"), which Leonard Feather mistakenly identified as "My Mother's Eyes" in the review of the concert published in the LA Times the following Monday. The rest of concert was mind-blowing. I discovered that in live sessions, Trane would solo on tunes like "Chasin the Trane" and "Impressions" for well over 30 minutes, and that the pattern was: head + 5 minutes of solo with the full quartet; McCoy stops and a minute later walks of stage; 10 to 15 minutes of "trio"; Jimmy Garrison stops playing, lays down his bass and walks off stage; another 15 minutes of nothing but Elvin and Trane (bent forwards, the bell of his tenor between his kness most of the time) in an incredible rhythmic/harmonic duo transporting the captivated listener (a clear but real minority) into the stratosphere of deliriously complex and intense musical experience. At the end of the concert, a friend of mine, a fine jazz bass player who subsequently went on to a classical career, said to the small group who had gone to the concert together(including our good friend, Andy Vajna, now a well-known Hollywood executive producer), "Long live Booker Ervin" (a tenor player we all admired). Trane's intensity was too much for him; he couldn't really take it on board. (I didn't agree. I knew Trane was saying something completely different). I remember three years later we respectfully listened to OM and thought how orderly, rational and structured was the music Trane's quartet was producing in 1963. Nobody today can imagine how quickly music moved in those days, how closely it linked with history and gave body to both political and metaphysical questions. Four little girls had died in Alabama a year earlier, Kennedy had just been assassinated (by the Mafia? the CIA? - the speculation would begin), Martin Luther King would be marching to Washington nine months later, Cassius Clay (the Louisville Lip) was hoping for a match with Sonny Liston (everyone was certain he would demolish the arrogant young Olympian), black power was still several years away and would shortly emerge along with flower power in the wake of the dismantlement of the neat, clean system of the Eisenhower years. Coltrane was the epitome of music; but we sometimes forget he was also at the focal point of a terrifying but magic moment in history, when American culture suddenly turned in a different direction (or different directions). Those of us who, in our late teens, lived through it certainly weren't aware of what was going on. Listening to Coltrane then and now, I have the impression that he was.

 

Date:	25-Jul-2001 04:45:46
From:	Len Dobbin (lendobbin@sympatico.ca)
	I saw John Coltrane on a number of occasions. The first time was at the Seville Theatre in Montreal in the early 50s where he appeared [on tenor]with a Dizzy Gillespie band made up of Milt Jackson [vibes and piano],Percy Heath,bass, Kansas Fields,drums and Joe Carroll, vocals. They were there for a week with about three shows daily. Then I heard him in NY at the Five Spot with Monk, Wilbur Ware and Shadow Wilson [the same night I heard Miles with Sonny Rollins, Tommy Flanagan, Paul Chambers and Arthur Taylor at the Cafe Bohemia]. I also caught Trane with Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Art Davis and Elvin Jones. They were playing the music that was later recorded on the "Africa/Brass" sessions and Blakey's Messengers and the Horace Silver Quintet were on the same bill that night at the Village Gate [NYC]. I also caught the classic quartet of Trane, Tyner, Garrison and Jones [with Roy Haynes subbing on one occasion] in Montreal at the Tete de l'Art and at the Jazz Hot Room of the Casa Loma - early 60s. On one of these occasions I actually took John to hear Nelson Symonds, a gifted local guitarist. Nelson says that on that night he was in the middle of a solo when he looked over at the stairs and thought "Oh f**k there's Dobbin with Coltrane". I left them together after the set and Melson tells me that Trane had kind words. All of the above hearings were memorable. I remember John as a kind and gentle man.