A subdued Funky Friday, today. Many of my friends in South Africa are mourning the death of Anton Hammerl, who was killed over a month ago by Muammar Gadaffi's soldiers in Libya. News of his death came only yesterday. The Libyan government had consistently lied to South Africa about his whereabouts and condition. It's been a terrible ordeal for his family, friends, and colleagues. My heart goes out to them.
John Coltrane was one of the great artists of the twentieth century. He endured trials of his own. At this point in his career, he was searching for meaning, and finding it, in the music of African-American religious traditions.
The John Coltrane Quartet, 1963. "Spiritual." John Coltrane, tenor saxophone, McCoy Tyner, piano, Jimmy Garrison, bass, Elvin Jones, drums.
Anyone who's serious about music has pieces, composers, and musicians that he or she couldn't live without. I've got a short list. Handel's Messiah, Brahms' symphonies, Dvorak's Slavonic Dances, and Miles' births, blues, smiles, and brews are one it. So is everything that Duke, Strayhorn, and Beethoven ever wrote.
John Coltrane -- composer, instrumentalist, spiritual guide -- is at the top of my list, at least for today.
John Coltrane Quartet, Naima. In concert, 1965. Coltrane, tenor sax, McCoy Tyner, piano, Jimmy Garrison, bass, Elvin Jones, drums.
Many people associate Coltrane with sheets of sound. No doubt about it, that was part of his style. But so was something like Naima -- slower, softer, more inward-looking. Those are things that Roy DeCarava, the great African-American photographer, saw in him: "a true religion... the religion of work and the religion of selflessness; of giving oneself to what one does completely."
I found that DeCarava quote just the other day in Scott Saul's wonderful book Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties(which, very belatedly, I'm getting around to reading). DeCarava was a dedicated Coltrane fan and photographed him often. Eventually, they became close friends. "Thus was born," Saul writes, "one of the more remarkable collaborations between sound and image in the history of jazz." Both men, he continues, were "connoisseurs of the dark.... DeCarava's shadowy palette was a visual equivalent of the minor blues so beloved by the saxophonist...."
DeCarava's "atmospheric obscurity" and "love of understatement," Saul says (and I have to agree), allowed him to capture Coltrane in a variety of moods, "spiritualist of the bandstand, a worker studying his craft, and a member of a jazz community who bridged generations and styles of performance."
Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi, Dedication (To Daddy Trane and Brother Silver). From his 1968 album "Yakhal' Inkomo." Ngozi, tenor sax, Lionel Pillay, piano, Agrippa Magwaza, bass, and Early Mabuza, drums.
It's worth mentioning that Coltrane is an icon wherever jazz is played and heard. Although he never met the man, South Africa's Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi was a disciple. It would be easy to say that like so many other musicians in Africa and elsewhere in the Third World, he heard, in Coltrane's music, the sound of freedom, self-determiniation, and pride. That's true, but it's leaves too much out. Ngozi was also responding to the challenge of matching Coltrane's technical mastery, to the love that his music expressed, and to the sheer joy of musical performance.
Freedom, pride, joy, and love. Sounds good to me.
John Coltrane, born this day in 1926.
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PS I've stolen this post's title from Michael S. Harper. But you already knew that.
A link to this video showed up in my inbox, this afternoon. It's John Coltrane's monumental solo from his 1959 recording of "Giant Steps." The solo itself is magical, one of the most famous moments in the history of jazz. Now, Alberto Betancourt has both transcribed and animated it. The result is mesmerizing (and a lot of fun), even if you don't read music.
"Giant Steps," by John Coltrane, 1959. John Coltrane, tenor sax; Tommy Flanagan, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums.
Right below is one of my favorite photos of Coltrane, and it was made by one of my favorite photographers, Roy DeCarava, only a year or so after "Giant Steps" was released. There was nothing conventional about Coltrane's playing. He was a true revolutionary, making music that came from deep within his being. You can say something similar about DeCarava. He was an original -- never following the pack, never interested in doing what other photographers were doing. His vision was came from somewhere within his soul.
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