John Coltrane 100: Interstellar Space

By Gary Chapin

Reading back into the reviews of this recording, from over the past decades, you encounter the word “relentless” a lot, probably more than for any other album in the history of albums. It’s interesting because, when I first heard Interstellar Space, “relentless” was the word that occurred to me — right after the introductory bells of track one faded. Till then, I hadn’t realized that “relentless” was a thing that music could be, and that relentlessness was awesome. Even transcendent.

It’s not a complicated record. You’ve got your tenor and drums. Each piece starts with a theme, enters the improvisation, and then winds down and restates the theme. Each improvisation travels a similar arc, beginning in a saner space, rising intensity and ecstasy, whipping us into a frenzy, then easing off into … well, not serenity, but you get close to it as you hear the shaken bells that begin the next piece.

The joys of Interstellar Space come not from structural intrigue, but from the cascadingly brilliant improvs. Coltrane and Ali were both ridiculously ON that day. (Ali actually felt he had underperformed because he didn’t know they were doing a duet session until he arrived at the session.) And the duet setting makes the music almost transparent. Aside from the beauty of Trane and Ali’s playing, you also get a sense of exactly what Coltrane was trying for. His insistent explorations (relentless) are laid bare. This is an excellent entry to Coltrane’s later works. His playing is like water moving through the ground, trying to find its way through a shelf of granite. Eventually, the water finds the crevices, freezes, expands, thaws, and breaks the stone to pieces. The water always wins. A force of nature.