I remember the first time I heard John Coltrane. It was when my mother was playing the album “A Love Supreme” and I was the age of seven or eight. I was immediately taken by the expressiveness and beauty of the music. I had not yet started playing the guitar but almost ten years later I went with my father to a jam session and in the break someone put on “Live At Birdland”. What incredible energy! I went and bought the record immediately, as well as “Giant Steps”, and tried to transcribe what I heard. “Naima” was one of the first tunes I worked on, and also “Spiral” and “Afro Blue” were tunes I learnt.
When I was asked by Laila and Charles Gavatin to make a CD for Touché Music I asked myself: Who has most inspired me since I first began playing? Coltrane of course! On this CD I have tried in my own way to play what I believe I have learnt from John Coltrane, and in the company of musicians who I have long admired but with whom I have seldom had the opportunity to play. My sincere thanks to them and everyone who has made this recording possible.
Max Shultz
Translation: Dave Castle
John Coltrane was born in 1926 in North Carolina. Lester Young and Charlie Parker were early influences but he made his debut as a professional musician in different rhythm’n’blues bands. From 1949 until 1951 he played with Dizzy Gillespie, both with his big band and later with his smaller groups with which he made his first commercial recordings.
For a wider jazz public Coltrane begins to attract attention when he becomes a member of the Miles Davis Quintet in 1955. His style of playing in the beginning is controversial but he quickly develops during his years with Miles. By 1958 he has originated a very personal tonal language that in time develops even more to become stylistically influential throughout the whole jazz idiom. His way of compounding very fast and well-articulated phrases as tight groups of notes in every chord change is unique. His instrumental expression ranges from an intimately beautiful tone in ballads to intensive explosion-like waves of energy where the sound capacity of the instrument is stretched to the utmost limits. From the later half of the ’50s Coltrane’s work is richly documented in classic recordings with, above all, Miles Davis but also with, among others, Thelonious Monk. He also records many sessions for the Prestige label either in his own name or as a sideman. In 1957 he records the album Blue Trane for Blue Note, which becomes a milestone in his career and establishes him also as a distinctive composer. On 4th of May 1959 soon after making the historic Kind of Blue album with Miles Davis he records six titles in his own name for Atlantic, making what was to be another classic album in jazz, Giant Steps. One of these titles was Spiral. A seventh title, Naima, was added to the album from a later session on 2nd December of that year. Next year on 24th October 1960 Coltrane records many more titles for Atlantic that were spread over different LPs, one being Coltrane Plays The Blues. Two of his originals were Central Park West and Mr Syms, by which time he had started to play soprano sax in addition to the tenor.
In the mid-’50s Coltrane was deeply involved with drugs, a habit that he succeeded in overcoming. When he leaves Miles’ band in 1960 to form his own quartet his technique is virtuosic and he also has a musical vision that he develops with uncompromising logic. Coltrane’s music now often contains noticeable religious overtones and the traditional forms and harmonic sequences of jazz, which he so fully mastered, give way for more modal structures. In 1961 Coltrane has begun to make albums for the Impulse label and After The Rain comes from a session 29th April 1963. Later that year on 8th October, he records Afro-Blue live from Birdland with his classic quartet of McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones. In the summer of 1964 he records what many consider one of the most cohesive and interesting of Coltrane studio albums, Crescent. From that album come the three titles Wise One, Lonnie’s Lament and the title track Crescent. Elements of Asiatic and African music cultures become more and more prevalent in his music. Welcome was recorded by Coltrane on 28th June 1965 and represents one of his later works. At the time of his passing on 17th July 1967 Coltrane’s music has travelled through a metamorphosis from hardbop to free collective improvisation, all played with masterly instrumental control and totally convincing artistic integrity.
Ulf Adåker
Translation and repertoire research: Dave Castle
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