So much has been written about John Coltrane and he's such a widely
acknowledged and worshiped figure - one of jazz's top two most iconic artists, along with his
once employer Miles Davis - that I don't feel I have anything new to bring to the
table. Asked to comment on a favorite Coltrane album, however, I comply, for what it's
worth. The first Coltrane album I purchased - a secondhand 1987 CD release - was Live at the
Village Vanguard Again, recorded May 28, 1966. Prior to this, I had only heard Coltrane on
Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.
Village Vanguard Again was a punch in the gut, a puzzle for the mind and
the record that won me over to free jazz for good, although it didn't happen overnight. I
initially didn't understand what was going on, what to make of it. But was soon repeatedly attracted by the
unhinged, torrential sounds unleashed on lengthy versions of "Naima" (a tender ballad
with exquisite chords, here exuding rage and sorrow) and "My Favorite Things" (a distinctly
lighthearted song from the movie "The Sound of Music", here given a terminally outrageous, or
wonderfully out there treatment, according to your inclinations) interspersed with a six-minutes Jimmy
Garrison bass solo. Each time I pressed the play button, I was unable to stop listening until the end of
the total running time. The album held some arcane truth I couldn't live without anymore. It was music I had
to sort out for myself, keep to myself, not music I could share with friends or relatives, let alone spin at
parties... The line up had Alice Coltrane on piano, Pharoah Sanders on tenor sax and flute, Rashied Ali on
drums, with Coltrane on tenor, soprano and bass clarinet. I was unaware there was a much-loved Coltrane
"classic quartet" then, and that this was not it! Some of the Impulse! catalogue was being reissued at that
time (the mid-90s), Sanders' "Tauhid" and "Karma" among the batch, both also expanding my musical
outlook. Coltrane's albums and archival releases were dropping in quick succession, each new one a
mandatory listen. I stumbled on small-priced, worn out LP copies of "Transition" and "Kulu Se Mama" (both
recorded in 1965). I was hooked, although none of those albums, and no other Coltrane record I heard
after the 1966 live set, had the same definitive, life-altering effect, or reached the same high as that
first exposure to the work.
Could it be that I had started with a peak, a logical conclusion to what had
come before? The music was
equal parts perplexing, intimidating, meaningful, dark, luminous, an
unrelenting war machine yet brimming with sensitivity, not quite inviting if you were not ready to surrender to
its revolutionary approach, but fully uplifting and cleansing if you were.
