PC Paul Chambers is the unsung hero of this album. He holds down the low end with such a large sense of command, groove, and sophistication. In this particular case, Live! The trio setting allows Coltrane to stretch and bend in so many directions.
And to be sure, Coltrane and his famed quartet — plus drummer Rashied Ali and tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders — are pummeling your eardrums on this first track.
RK: This album stacks flawlessly constructed layers of sound on top of one another until an exquisite final track is achieved. Everyone needs to listen for themselves and interpret their own meaning.
That would be none other than Miles Davis, who in released the rather remarkable Sketches of Spain seriously, listen to it and who had then recently split with Coltrane. RK: The intensity that builds within the title track is extraterrestrial.
RK: This album continues to blow my mind. Elvin Jones, Elvin Jones, all day, Elvin Jones… It feels cheap to say that he played the drums on this album, because he expressed his soul through the drums on this album.
Once you hear the musical directions and abilities showcased on these cuts, it is no surprise to learn that this is the same quartet from A Love Supreme. Because in moving to modal, he did so while interpreting four standards after releasing several records of original compositions. You can hear the shift happening in their playing.
The band was moving away from the straight ahead as straight as they ever got swing to a more modal structure and then into free improvisation.
RK: Coltrane liked to push boundaries and sought out ways to innovate within the genre. The succinct, four-suite album, a big seller that went gold decades later along with My Favorite Things , is noted not only for Coltrane's astounding technical vision but for its nuanced spiritual explorations and ultimate transcendence. The work was nominated for two Grammys and is considered a hallmark album by jazz historians around the world.
Alice Coltrane would also play in her husband's band and establish her own unique jazz career noted for its Asian stylistic fusions and divine orientation. Coltrane wrote and recorded a considerable amount of material over the final two years of his life in which his work was described as avant-garde, steeped in poignant spirituality for some while spurned by others. In he recorded the last two albums to be released while he was alive — Kulu Se Mama and Meditations.
The album Expression was finalized just days before his death. He died at only 40 years old from liver cancer on July 17, , in Huntington, Long Island, New York, survived by his second wife and four children. In June , Impulse! Records announced plans to release B oth Directions at Once: The Lost Album , a collection of material lost to time until recently found by the family of his first wife.
Recorded over a single day in March with his "classic quartet" of Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner, the album included a studio version of "Impressions," a concert favorite, as well as two original, untitled tracks believed to have been recorded solely for this collection.
A voracious reader noted for his gentleness, Coltrane had an immense impact on the music world. He revolutionized jazz with his innovative, demanding techniques while showing a deep reverence for sounds from other locales that included Africa, Latin America, the Far East and South Asia.
Having received a Grammy posthumously for the live recording Bye Bye Blackbird , in Coltrane was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as well, with an array of unearthed recordings and reissues released in the years since his death. In , the Pulitzer Prize Board also awarded the musician a special posthumous citation. Coltrane's work continues to be an integral part of the sonic landscape and a major inspiration for newer generations of artists. We strive for accuracy and fairness.
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Billie Holiday was one of the most influential jazz singers of all time. She had a thriving career for many years before she lost her battle with addiction. Grammy Award winner Miles Davis was a major force in the jazz world, as both a trumpet player and a bandleader. Thelonious Monk is one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time and one of first creators of modern jazz. During the year, he switched from alto to tenor saxophone.
That fall, he joined a big band led by Dizzy Gillespie, remaining until the spring of , by which time the band had been trimmed to a septet. At some point during this period, Coltrane became a heroin addict, which made him more difficult to employ.
But he was fired because of his addiction in September He returned to Philadelphia, where he was playing, when he was hired by Miles Davis a year later. His association with Davis was the big break that finally established him as an important jazz musician. This unit immediately began to record extensively, not only because of the Columbia contract, but also because Davis had signed with the major label before fulfilling a deal with jazz independent Prestige Records that still had five albums to run.
After he became better known in the s, Prestige and other labels began to repackage this work under his name, as if he had been the leader, a process that has continued to the present day.
Coltrane tried and failed to kick heroin in the summer of , and in October, Davis fired him, though the trumpeter had relented and taken him back by the end of November. Early in , Coltrane formally signed with Prestige as a solo artist, though he remained in the Davis band and also continued to record as a sideman for other labels. In April, Davis fired him again.
This may have given him the impetus finally to kick his drug habit, and freed of the necessity of playing gigs with Davis, he began to record even more frequently.
They cut an album Prestige titled simply Coltrane upon release in September It has since been reissued under the title First Trane. During this period, he developed a technique of playing several notes at once, and his solos began to go on longer.
It was later reissued under the title Traneing In. That month, Coltrane rejoined Davis, playing in what was now a sextet that also featured Cannonball Adderley.
In between the sessions, he cut his third album to be released under his name alone, Soultrane, issued in September by Prestige. In May, he again recorded for Prestige as a leader, though the results would not be heard until the release of Black Pearls in The performance inspired a review in Down Beat, the leading jazz magazine, that was an early indication of the differing opinions on Coltrane that would be expressed throughout the rest of his career and long after his death.
All of these tracks were later compiled on a reissue called The Stardust Session. He did a final session for Prestige in December , recording tracks later released on The Believer, Stardust, and Bahia.
This completed his commitment to the label, and he signed to Atlantic Records, doing his first recording for his new employers on January 15, , with a session on which he was co-billed with vibes player Milt Jackson, though it did not appear until with the LP Bags and Trane.
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