Two of my favourite artists of all time and both definite 5s. Forgive the epic post, there is so much to say.
John Coltrane
I got into JC years ago, following the path from
Miles Davis who was the first jazz artist to grab me. Given his relatively short career (just ten years releasing records as a leader) there is an extraordinary depth and variety of music and one of the most thrilling ‘journeys’ (sorry) in musical history. From the early records where he was clearly operating in a bebop world, albeit already playing with more intensity than almost everyone, by the time of Blue Trane and Giant Steps (about 18 months into his solo career) he is absorbing modal forms and beginning to make music which, although rooted in jazz traditions, has a mysterious other-worldly quality that is unique.
With A Love Supreme he then produced one of the great artistic expressions of the twentieth century - intense, spiritual, deeply moving.
The albums he made in that period 1960-65 represent one of the most amazing creative periods of any artist ever - My Favourite Things, Olé, Africa/Brass, Coltrane, the album with Duke Ellington, Impressions, Crescent, A Love Supreme and The John Coltrane Quartet Plays are all masterpieces.
After that he went questing even further into the avant-garde and it’s not always easy to follow him, but all of the music he made, however ‘difficult’ it is at times had a unique and undefinable quality of emotional connection that the avant garde sometimes lacks. He never recorded a bar of music that didn’t have some value to it.
Alice Coltrane
I kick myself for taking so long to to appreciate Alice Coltrane but she now means as much to me as John does, and in fact I probably listen to her more these days. Partly it’s probably (lamentable and inexcusable) sexism to not take a musician seriously just because she was the wife of a titan. It doesn’t help that she was brought into JC’s band to replace McCoy Tyner, one of the great jazz pianists of all time. She’s an accomplished pianist by any standards, but she’s not McCoy Tyner. She’s no Linda McCartney either though, and her music after John’s death needs to be considered on its own terms.
‘Spiritual Jazz’ has become a bit of an annoying marketing buzz term but no-one encapsulates it better than Alice Coltrane. She was someone who devoted her life to her religion, spending twenty years as the spiritual leader of a Vedic ashram. Her music reflects that - a deeply felt attempt to express her religious devotion and also to blend jazz traditions with eastern influences. It makes for a heady and deeply unusual blend - her own playing on harp, piano and organ is blended with top-quality jazz rhythm sections and often with top notch horn players in the JC tradition, but there are also Indian instruments and Hindu devotional chants as well and often complex and rich string arrangements just to make things even more interesting. Song structures come from the blues but also from ragas and from western classical music.
Probably her very best records (and certainly the most accessible) are three she made with two of JC’s most brilliant saxophone disciples Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson. Journey in Satchidananda (with Sanders)is a masterpiece but Ptah the El Daoud (with both Sanders and Henderson) runs it close. Elements (credited to Henderson but with Alice as an influential sidewoman) is a ridiculously funky and brilliant record too.
There are classics throughout her career though. Early on she made some quite sparse, almost straight jazz,
albums which are well worth listening to. I’m a big fan of her three Warner’s albums from the mid 70s (recently rereleased as a two CD set) on which she is particularly brilliant on organ. Later in her life she made some music for devotional purposes which was never released commercially at the time but was recently compiled on the amazing World Spiritual Classics: Volume I: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, a record which I think won her a lot of new fans.
All I can say is that if you have not listened to John and Alice Coltrane you definitely should. It will enrich your life in extraordinary ways and remind you of what music can be.
