[ad_1]
John Coltrane (left) and Eric Dolphy on stage at Village Gate in New York City in the summer of 1961. A recording of the performance, once thought lost, was recently discovered at the New York Public Library.
Herb Snitzer/Courtesy Impulse! Records
hide caption
toggle caption
Herb Snitzer/Courtesy Impulse! Records
John Coltrane (left) and Eric Dolphy on stage at Village Gate in New York City in the summer of 1961. A recording of the performance, once thought lost, was recently discovered at the New York Public Library.
Herb Snitzer/Courtesy Impulse! Records
A little over 60 years ago, the editor-in-chief of a magazine said, down beat The magazine asked John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy a seemingly simple question. what are you trying to do He restated a bit: what are you doing The two saxophonists sat for a long 30 seconds before Dolphy broke the silence. “That’s a good question,” he said.
of down beat Editor Don DeMichael published this exchange in the April 1962 issue as part of an interesting article headlined “John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy Answer Jazz Critics.” Regular readers of the magazine would have known exactly what prompted this behavior. It was a scathing review of the Coltrane and Dolphy quintet, denouncing “an anarchic direction in their music that can only be described as anti-jazz.”
1961 was a prolific and pivotal year for Coltrane. That spring, his sophisticated and interesting quartet version of “My Favorite Things” was released. music sound, It became a big hit. Later that year, however, he signed to a new label, Impulse. Records show that he did not value commercial success. Instead, he explored new sounds and compositions, often testing ideas on the bandstand. His one such idea was to add Dolphy, a close personal friend of his who has a very original voice on both lead and flute.
The bold depth of their musical relationship takes center stage in a stunning new archival release. Night at the Village Gate: John Coltrane with Eric DolphyImpulse will be released on July 14th. Tomorrow the label will unveil a preview track, “Impressions,” featuring Coltrane on soprano saxophone and Dolphy on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, all with drummer Elvin Jones, pianist McCoy Tyner and bassist Reggie Workman. I finished this song with an atmosphere like a runaway train. (Until then, you can listen exclusively here.)
Workman, who is just weeks away from turning 86, told NPR, “Every time I worked with John, I could always hear his musical transition.” Nothing could have been closer to the truth than this recording, recorded during his month-long stay in the late summer of 1961. village gate night In fact, the song begins with a version of “My Favorite Things” and ends with the drab, polyrhythmic melody of “Africa.” Coltrane was in the process of reinventing his own language, and thus the language of jazz.
“He had grown into a place where he didn’t want to be held back by stairs or changes dictated by any particular structure,” says Workman, adding, “He wanted us to sing the chant.” ‘ added.
Photograph of a marquee in New York’s Village Gate advertising a John Coltrane performance in the summer of 1961.
Herb Snitzer/Courtesy Impulse! Records
hide caption
toggle caption
Herb Snitzer/Courtesy Impulse! Records
Village Gate is a large basement that rose to fame in 1961 and was home to folk singers and comedians as well as artists like Nina Simone. Coltrane played there in August as part of Triple Bill with a group led by drummer Art Blakey and pianist Horace Silver. (A photo of the club billboard by Herb Snitzer shows Coltrane signed to the quartet, underscoring how recently Dolphy has joined the fray.)
The Gate had a state-of-the-art sound system installed by an ambitious young engineer named Richard Alderson. One night during a Coltrane performance, Alderson captured the band by using his single RCA ribbon microphone suspended above the stage and a reel-to-reel tape hooked up line to his recorder. I decided to test the system. This tape was never intended for the general public and was in no way authorized, so Alderson kept it. They ended up in the collection of the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts, recently rediscovered by Bob Dylan’s archivists.
Courtesy of Impulse!record
For Coltrane admirers, jazz historians, and anyone intrigued by the experimental demise of improvisational music, village gate night It represents not only welcome new discoveries, but also links in the chain. Coltrane and Dolphy’s forefront was short-lived, partly because of the strong opposition from the jazz world, but left important evidence: Coltrane “Live” at the Village Vanguard The song was recorded at another Greenwich Village club in November 1961, the same month when their ramshackle production shook the indelible phrase “anti-jazz.”
These Village Vanguard tapes would later spawn a monumental four-disc set, one of the most mysterious and thrilling documents in jazz history. A few years ago, author Ben Ratliff said, Coltrane: A Tale of Soundplaced the music in a cultural context of ‘ambivalent possibilities’, in a lively essay. washington post The title is “John Coltrane and the Essence of 1961”. He said, “The music sounds post-heroic and pre-cynical. Interestingly, there’s no hyperbole. There’s plenty of room for listeners to find their place in it and make up their own minds.” .
After listening to the version of “Impressions” last week, gate evening, Ratliff elaborated on the idea. “It’s very difficult to label or summarize, but it’s just so full of ferocious vitality,” he said of the performance. “Musicians know how great this is and how exciting it is. there are a lot of.”
Next came Coltrane’s most stable period of his career, a quartet of Tyner, Jones and bassist Jimmy Garrison, who can be heard on parts of the Village Vanguard Corpus. solidified and produced such respected albums as: crescent moon, ballad and supreme love. Saying goodbye, Dolphy refocused his visionary music and continued to speak forcefully until his tragic premature death of a diabetic coma in 1964. (Coltrane died of liver cancer just three years later). The last few years have seen a series of revelatory archive releases. Two saxophonists night at the gate This piece is a window into the early blossoming of their collaboration, and it must have felt like pure potential for everyone involved.
Herb Snitzer’s photo of Eric Dolphy (left) and John Coltrane during a performance at New York’s Village Gate in 1961.
Herb Snitzer/Courtesy Impulse! Records
hide caption
toggle caption
Herb Snitzer/Courtesy Impulse! Records
The 80-minute album will be released in physical format with enlightening liner essays by Workman, Alderson, Grammy-winning jazz author Ashley Kahn, and saxophonists Branford Marsalis and Lakesia Benjamin. , seems sure to rekindle conversations about Coltrane’s restless early stages of evolution. And it’s worth remembering some of the answers he finally gave DeMichael. downbeat.
“I think what musicians want to do most is give listeners an image of all the wonderful things they know and feel in space,” Coltrane said, sounding a little defensive. . “That’s what music is to me. It’s another way of saying that this is the big, beautiful universe we live in and it’s been given to us. This is how grand it is.” That’s what I want.” Musicians achieve that through music.”
[ad_2]
Source link
