  |
|
|
 |
| Plays It Cool |
| John Coltrane |
első megjelenés éve: 2000
68 perc |
|
| (2000)
|
|
CD |
| 2.876 Ft
|
|
| 1. | Blue Train
|
| 2. | Naima
|
| 3. | Traneing In
|
| 4. | My Favorite Things
|
| 5. | Spiritual
|
| 6. | I Want to Talk About You
|
Jazz / Hard Bop
John Coltrane has emerged as one of the most influential and widely imitated saxophonists in Jazz. His intensely emotional style becoming a hallmark for future generations of players. These in-concert performances showcase the cooler side of the legendary performer with Coltrane at his best; At ease with an ecstatic audience and delivering some seriously stylish sounds.
Miles Davis, no mean innovator himself, was a front-runner when it came to appreciating Coltrane's meaningful probing into the unknown. "Trane was the loudest, fastest saxophonist I've ever heard," Miles claimed in his autobiography.
"He was the only one who could play those chords I gave him without them sounding like chords."
Not that John Coltrane seemed destined to change the shape of jazz when he first began playing professionally, back in 1945. North Carolina born but Philadelphia raised, he initially leapt onto the coat-tails of the bebop crowd, playing alto because that's what Charlie Parker did and Bird was the one to follow. Still not sure which path to probe, he analysed every style, listened to everyone from Johnny Hodges and Coleman Hawkins through to Sonny Stitt and Dexter Gordon. Eventually, he ditched jazz for a while and spent four years on the R&B circuit playing with bands such as those headed by booting saxman Earl Bostic.
An addict, not only to heroin and booze but also to sweets, the latter problem resulting in loss of some teeth, Trane was considered unreliable by some – Johnny Hodges kicked him out of his band in 1954 – and it wasn't until he joined Miles Davis'Quintet in the Fall of 1955 that things finally began to gell.
"While I was in the band," Coltrane once recalled, "I found Miles in the midst of a new stage of musical development. It seemed that he was moving to the use of fewer and fewer chord changes in songs. I found it easy to apply my own harmonic ideas. I could play three chords at once; but if I wanted to, I could play melodically. Miles' music gave me plenty of freedom."
The admiration was mutual. But the partnership soured in late 1956. Trane was strung out on heroin and drinking a lot. He became so unreliable that Miles began hitting him. Thelonious Monk witnessed one such beating and told Trane: "Man, you don't have to take that. You can come and play with me anytime."
The option was taken up. Coltrane became part of Monk's Quartet for several months, completing his learning curve. He also permanently kicked his habit.
Trane rejoined Miles Davis's band in early 1958 but his growth in reputation was such that he soon struck out to become a leader in his own right. Following a series of recordings with Prestige. he pacted with Atlantic, for whom he debuted with the classic Giant Step album. During 1961, Trane became the first artist to
sign for Impulse. With the new label, he rang the changes, recording with Duke Ellington and singer Johnny Hartman. He increasingly played soprano in an attempt to produce new sounds, new ideas. Additionally, multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy became part of his band. Another free spirit to with which to joust.
During the late ‘60s, Trane changed direction again. Melody played little part in his revised way of things. Inspired by such as Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp, Trane offered music that was totally intense, free from all restrictions.. His solos became marathons. He no longer played music. Music played him. And, eventually, it killed him. His death in July, 1967 was attributed to cancer, but many felt that it was Trane's self-imposed workload that was the real cause.
The music on this album stems from live shots, recorded at Stockholm's Konserthausen during the early ‘60s when many felt Coltrane was performing at his peak. Blue Train, Naima and My Favourite Things hail from a 1961 date at the venue,
a concert which saw the saxophonist heading a band featuring Eric Dolphy (flute, alto and bass clarinet), McCoy Tyner (piano), Reggie Workman (bass) and Elvin Jones (drums).Blue Train, the blues which lent its title to a 1957 Blue Note album, kicks off in steaming mode but gives way to urgent, exploratory forays by both Trane and Dolphy before Tyner ties everything down to basics once more. Naima, which follows, is a ballad of sheer angular beauty, named in honour of Trane's first wife.
It's Dolphy who takes the helm here, offering an immaculately considered bass clarinet solo that reflects the almost Ellingtonish approach of the whole. My Favourite Things, a Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune, might appear an odd choice for Coltrane to employ at virtually every gig he played during the period. A catalogue of simple pleasures, first sung by Mary Martin and Patricia Neway in the 1959 production of Sound Of Music, it hardly seemed a basis for the classic Coltrane outing, which it subsequently became. Traneing In, Spiritual and I Want To Talk To You, were recorded two years later. The ill-starred Dolphy, a diabetic who was to perish at the age of 36, had moved on, while bassist Reggie Workman had been replaced by Jimmy Garrison, a one-time bopper, whose work in the Ornette Coleman Quartet, helped fashion a musician who could offer great walking bass yet function ably in any of the free improvisational forays that Coltrane might toss into the arena. Traneing In, which Coltrane first recorded for Prestige in 1957 during his tenure with Monk, is another boppish blues that benefits from a pace-setting McCoy Tyner solo before Trane steps in to demonstrate that age-old formats can also serve as a basis for enthralling trips into the unknown, wayward yet still controlled. Spiritual is equally compelling, a lovely theme based on an actual spiritual. Originally recorded in the company of Eric Dolphy, with Trane employing soprano throughout, here it benefits from an opening tenor outing by the saxophonist and a near-funky solo by McCoy Tyner. Billy Eckstine's utterly romantic I Want To Talk To You, was among of the most attractive tunes in the Coltrane book at the time, one whose mention invariably coincides with reference to the remarkable cadenza-filled coda, still a source of wonder for those privileged to hear.
This then, is not just another record. More a legacy of genius. Believe.
---Fred Dellar
The John Coltrane Quartet's mind expanding quality is displayed on a half dozen trinkets with Coltrane's innovative dressing of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammersteins' "My Favorite Things," and the high-energy "Blue Trane," the glossiest, the former always leave me in breathless adoration. He shows softness on "Naima," and links the jazz idiom with divine power on "Spiritual" for a musical baptismal that's excellent for impromptu meditation sessions. The six tracks, which includes Billy Eckstine's much recorded "I Want To Talk About You," flows more than 60 minutes, which is enough of 'Trane and his crews' therapeutic expressions to clear cobwebs, tranquil nerves, and soothe the savage beast.
---Andrew Hamilton, All Music Guide |
|
CD bolt, zenei DVD, SACD, BLU-RAY lemez vásárlás és rendelés - Klasszikus zenei CD-k és DVD-különlegességek |  | | Webdesign - Forfour Design |
|
|
