THERE ONCE WERE GIANTS WHO WALKED THE EARTH. LOUIS ARMSTRONG. DUKE ELLINGTON. CHARLIE PARKER. MILES DAVIS.
And always, always John Coltrane.
The stratospherically talented saxophonist bridged multiple eras in jazz history, seemingly without breaking a sweat, in a career that spanned bebop, the modal music of Miles Davis’ classic quintets, the searching saxophone sounds of My Favorite Things to his later, spiritually inspired work, including the (literally) divine A Love Supreme.
While each of his predecessors were uniquely gifted, Coltrane had something else. Charlie Parker’s speed-of-light dexterity did not always afford his work the emotional depth that Coltrane was able to access, along with the “sheets of sound’’ he summoned, seemingly at will. And for all of Miles Davis’ protean shape-shifting, at the end of the day, the Prince of Darkness seemed to be daring you to appreciate his music, or risk forever being banished to the kingdom of the uncool.
Coltrane’s long lines expressed a more capacious faith – he was confident in his journey, wherever it might lead, and invited you to join him.
In his final album (not including the posthumous releases), he was accompanied on piano by his wife, Alice Coltrane. A master musician in her own right, her contributions are sometimes overshadowed by her husband’s fame, but she did enduring work as one of the very few harpists – along with the pioneering Dorothy Ashby – in jazz history.
Two events at this year’s 65th annual Monterey Jazz Festival provide the opportunity for new generations of jazz lovers – and those who are open to more popular art forms from hip-hop to rock – to appreciate the legacy, and continued relevance, of Coltrane.
In his brief life – he died in 1967 when he was only 40 years old – Coltrane brought fresh forms of inspiration, writing most of his compositions himself in his later years and incorporating spiritual themes with a perpetually swinging sound. While pioneers like Parker took on cult status, with fans and fellow musicians romanticizing his addiction instead of his music, Coltrane broke free from the heroin and alcohol addictions of his youth, proving that being hooked on music was a greater high. (Liver damage, ultimately, was the cause of his untimely death.)
That said, he is not immune to cult status – devotees founded a Church of Saint John Coltrane in San Francisco, which holds meditations on A Love Supreme on the first Sunday of every month. In 2017 he was awarded a posthumous special citation from the Pulitzer Prize committee for his “masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of music.”
FITTINGLY, IT IS YOUNGER MUSICIANS – many of whom dabble enthusiastically in other genres – who are leading the charge on the Coltrane events at this year’s Jazz Festival.
A “John Coltrane Birthday Celebration,” featuring the John Hanrahan Quartet with guest saxophonist Andrew Dixon, takes place on Friday, Sept. 23 – on what would have been the tenor great’s 96th birthday.
And on Sunday, Sept. 25 John and Alice Coltrane’s son, Ravi Coltrane, will offer a tribute to the couple’s album Cosmic Music, featuring award-winning jazz harpist Brandee Younger.
Coltrane devotee Hanrahan says his Monterey set will include A Love Supreme, and feature Andrew Dixon on Coltrane’s ballad “Naima” (named for his first wife), “I Want To Talk To You” and “Atlantis,” by piano great McCoy Tyner.
He says no superlatives do justice to the saxophonist. “He could do so many things,” Hanrahan says. “He’s my favorite ballad player in the world. He will actually rip your head off, then turn around and break your heart. No one could do that, except maybe Jerry Garcia – not even Jimi Hendrix.” If Coltrane had lived, Hanrahan thinks he might have moved in some of the directions Miles Davis did in later work like Bitches Brew.
The Oakland-based Dixon, meanwhile, who just dropped a new album of his own called Mind Noise, professes some skepticism about this idea.
“I don’t think Coltrane would have gone that way,” he says. “I can’t see him going into an electric period. He was getting heavier and heavier into Indian music, so I could see him playing with Ravi Shankar or tabla musicians, though.”
In any case, the immense impact of Coltrane’s work is very clear to Dixon. “Besides Charlie Parker, Coltrane’s the most important influence on all saxophonists,” he says. “He took the sax to a different place, farther than it had ever been before.”
BRANDEE YOUNGER’S CONNECTION TO BOTH OF THE COLTRANES GOES BACK TO HER GIRLHOOD GROWING UP ON LONG ISLAND.
“My parents gave me the compilations of Priceless Jazz. When I heard [Alice Coltrane’s] ‘Blue Nile,’ I thought – ‘I want my harp to do that,’” Younger says. “But there was also a cultural connection: Oh, it’s a Black harpist. This is music I can relate to.”
Ravi first approached Younger, a rising star whose work has been featured by everyone from Beyonce to Lauryn Hill and Kanye West, to perform at his mother’s memorial service at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in 2007.
“I played ‘For Turiya,’ a tune by the late bassist Charlie Haden that he and Alice played on Closeness, his 1976 album of duets,” Younger recalls. She and Ravi subsequently worked together on her 2003 album, Soul Awakening, which includes the Alice Coltrane track “Blue Nile.”
The influence of both Alice and John Coltrane can be heard running throughout her recent work. “Beautiful Is Black,” a Grammy-nominated tune from her latest album Something Different, summons the power of protest that was part and parcel of their music too, from spirituals like “Walk By Me,” to “Song of the Underground Railroad.” She takes special pride that the album is being released on Impulse!, their last label.
Younger is also enthusiastic about bringing attention to Alice’s musical mastery. “I’m really excited that her work is being more and more celebrated,’’ Younger says. She believes that the reason Alice Coltrane’s work has been underestimated in the past (Alice never played Monterey, for example) is “a combination of being a woman and being in the shadow of a giant.”
YOUNGER IS LOOKING FORWARD TO HER FIRST TRIP TO MONTEREY. The multi-talented musician recently contributed a track to 2018’s A Day In The Life: Impressions of Pepper, an offbeat selection of covers of the Beatles’ classic album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. “The [producers] picked the track – instead of ‘She’s Leaving Home,’ which already has a harp in it, they chose ‘For The Benefit of Mr. Kite,’” she says.
This selection, while perhaps unusual, worked for Younger. “I’ve always liked to play more than [just] what was in my method books as a traditional harpist,” she adds. “I once told one of my teachers I thought it was so cool that she appeared on a Britney Spears record, but she said she’d rather be known for her work with the New York Philharmonic.”
Younger takes a different approach than her teacher. “I have a very serious, ‘I don’t care’ attitude, and eventually I let it out,” she says. “I like to smoosh things together. I don’t like labels – it’s jazz, it’s classical. You know what, it’s authentic. I always say I’m a harpist – don’t put a word in front of it. Multi-genre, hybrid… whatever.’’
In this, she’s got company within her musical cohort – Ravi Coltrane, Hanrahan and Dixon are unafraid to reach out into contemporary genres, and audiences, rather than stick with dutiful, note-by-note renditions of the music created by the founding fathers – and mothers.
“I like the way Andrew put it,’’ Hanrahan says. “He told me, ‘Hey man, all these songs have a structure. That’s the head – the rest is improvisation.’”
The spirits of both John and Alice Coltrane, musicians who blew past boundaries to create a sound that was “beyond category,” as Duke Ellington put it, would surely approve.
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