This Coltrane-Eric Dolphy (and McCoy Tyner) live performance of "My Favorite Things" blew the young mind of young Jim Phelps some twenty-plus years ago.
Not Coltrane, but a Trane acolyte and bandmate, Archie Shepp. Shepp gets his groove on in Blues for Brother George, from the 1972 album ATTICA BLUES.
Earlier this year (July 2015) BBC radio in the UK broadcast a modern half-hour interview programme with Archie. For those able to access the site, here's the link as its long-term parked in the BBC Archive
This Coltrane-Eric Dolphy (and McCoy Tyner) live performance of "My Favorite Things" blew the young mind of young Jim Phelps some twenty-plus years ago.
Listening to this now for the first time since the above-quoted post and of course Trane's transformation of the Richard Rodgers melody is of course magnificent. This begs the question: What did Rodgers think of Coltrane's version of "My Favorite Things"?
Imagine my surprise when I searched and found a John Coltrane topic!
A Love Supreme, Pt. IV, Psalm.
One of the greatest things I've ever heard! It's the culmination of a longer work, but it can be heard on its own and remain just as powerful as it does alongside the rest of "A Love Supreme." It's as dramatic as any film music I've ever heard.
In 1972 I was 17 years old and after growing up on Barry, Schifrin, Goldsmith, and Quincy, grooving to their jazzy soundtracks, my older brother thought it was time to introduce me to "the real thing." Thus began my introduction to Miles, Monk, Mingus, and Coltrane.
The first thing I heard was Om--blasting saxes and an entire battering ram of musicians. My friend, who had introduced me to Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, was equally transfixed. Only difference was that he had a job and a $40 paycheck in his pocket, so we took off to the record store and he spent the entire paycheck on Coltrane Impulse albums--Village Vanguard, Love Supreme, Kulu se Mama, Ascension, and others.
A Love Supreme remains my favorite, though there are so many other great ones. Anything with the Tyner, Garrison, Jones group.
I was 11 or 12 when Coltrane died, so never saw him live. I saw Tyner's great early 70s group several times, and in 1979 I saw Elvin Jones' group in a Rush Street jazz club in Chicago. I have never been as awestruck by a single musician in concert as I was by Elvin Jones that night. I could not take my eyes off of him. It wasn't that he was fast or took great solos, it was his power, his propelling his band. I'll never forget that night.
villagegardens553, thank you for your reminiscences.
Since my last post, I must have listened to A Love Supreme 30 times. Coltrane's post-1964 music seems to be a restless exploration of what he could do with different sounds, approaches, and musicians. After A Love Supreme, Coltrane must have realized he reached an end point to what he could do with his great quartet. I am tentatively exploring his music, and I find that no matter the era or the band, it's all John Coltrane; the man was a genre unto himself!
As an avant-garde fiend in the early 70s I was first attracted to those later Coltrane Impulse albums, the ones with Alice Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders, Rashied Ali, and all the extra horns, drums, and bassists.
Later, I became fixated on that classic quartet from the early 60s.
His playing was special and connected with all kinds of listeners.
His short life with his increasingly intense music would make a great movie.
I'd have to look it up, but I wonder how the music world and music press reacted when such a titan as John Coltrane died. He died just before jazz artists started wearing those horrible hippie clothes and Indian/African affectations. Coltrane was such a singular individual that I doubt he would have ever exchanged his Brooks Brothers suits for what other jazz luminaries would later wear (I mean you, Miles "On the Corner" Davis!).
Since my first post here, I've found so much great post-A Love Supreme music, which many critics routinely dismissed, but which I now love nearly as much as I do the classic quartet music. In many ways, the Coltrane of 1961-1964 was as great a music as any artist any time and anywhere ever created, and I state this without an ounce of hyoerbole.
Indy, I agree that there is much to love from the post-A Love Supreme. On Kulu Se Mama there is a lengthy Coltrane/Elvin Jones duet that is magnificent.
The mod clothes didn't bother me. Miles may have been dressing for an audience he was hoping to capture, but his music from In a Silent Way through Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, Fillmore, Get Up With It, and that last tsunami of a band in 75 was definitely not faddish; just the opposite, a slew of highly original and uncompromising albums.
The Atlantic Records version of "My Favorite Things" came up in my YouTube playlist, and of course I love it, but it sounds like "easy listening" compared to the many incediary live recordings Coltrane did!
