AOTW May 7 - May 13

[Guy Berger]

John Coltrane - Interstellar Space (click to buy)

1. Mars

2. Venus

3. Jupiter

4. Saturn

5. Leo

6. Jupiter Variation

Though it gets lumped with other "late", post-1965 or avant-garde Coltrane recordings, this album sounds very little like any other Trane recording. Even if you dislike Meditations or Ascension, there's a chance that you'll like this -- and vice versa. The absence of Pharoah Sanders makes this record easier on the ears, and a lot less ferocious. On the other hand people who love the hardcore intensity of stuff like Meditations or Sun Ship may find Interstellar Space to be a little too abstract or austere. The absence of piano creates a lot of space, which may be a good or a bad thing depending on your tastes.

The music is unbelievable. Trane just PLAYS on this album, with none of his abilities impaired in the least. I actually find a lot of Trane's playing to be "easy on the ears" relative to other albums in this genre. Rashied Ali is obviously not Elvin Jones, but he complements Trane perfectly and fuels his ideas.

It's interesting to contrast this with the duets Trane recorded with Art Taylor, Roy Haynes and Elvin.

Will post more comments later.

Edited May 8, 2006 by Jim Alfredson

[ep1str0phy]

This one is a perennial favorite of mine. 'Abstract' is a fine word... I almost feel as if you have to engage these later works on a different level than that of Trane's earlier discography--at the very least, in a different way. It's easy enough to confront the academic specifics--Trane's harmonic sensibility is, here, as advanced as anywhere on record, and his technical capacity is, of course, a sheer marvel--but far more difficult to apprehend the obliquely emotional aspects of the music. Rashied and Coltrane toy with something beyond technicality... and although it is difficult (if not impossible) to divorce such intellectualisms from the sound, the listener is invited, as nowhere before, to submerge--feel. I might go as far as to say that Interstellar Space is a 'feeler's' album; it plunges so far into abstraction (even for Coltrane, whose larger combos always provided some obvious musical context for his philosophical excursions) that the audience must surrender its 'ears'. I, at least, revel in this sense of esoteric consciousness--where all sounds, all emotions, themes, scales--all knowns are conflated--tenor and drums in perpetual, unyielding communion. Melodies, notes, timbres, colors rush, cascade into one another until all that's left is sort of infinite simultaneity; all tunes reach the same place, grasp the same heights. There's the sense that, notwithstanding the limitations of tape, this session would have gone on, and on, and on, and on... but that's sort of the point, no? It was, perhaps, Trane's greatest gift as an artist--as an apotheosis of human aspirations--to tease at something beyond ourselves.

Edited May 7, 2006 by ep1str0phy

[mikeweil]

Great choice! I remember it was one of my first Coltrane LPs - those vault issues were easier to find here as they were new releases than the older Impulse LPs.

Only tenor and drums, and on what level. I find the variety of moods astonishing. Venus and Mars played side by side make such a great contrast. Jupiter is my favourite - I wonder why nobody plays that theme - it would work even in a more conventional treatment.

To compare Ali with Elvin misses the point. Elvin couldn't have done this. He opened the path for free drumming, but pushed all the time, where Ali strikes a broad variety of moods to match Trane's vision. To me, Rashied Ali belongs into the jazz drummers hall of fame for these duets alone.

Too bad, found my favourite pic of Ali on the web, but it won't load ..... take this for starters:

Edited May 7, 2006 by mikeweil

[dave9199]

This was my first Coltrane (and jazz album) that was bought (my wife gave it to me for Xmas 2001) for my jazz collection which started with this album & began a flurry of activity on Amazon & Half.com. A few thousand dollars & numerous box sets later, my collection has, thankfully, slowed down to a crawl. The first album I heard was A Love Supreme then my wife and I went to the Newport Jazz Festival in 2001. It brought back memories of listening to my dad's records and I hadn't explored jazz at all at that time.

Cut to Xmas 2001 and listening to the first track, Mars, and chatting with my wife while listening, at about 3:40 in the song comes this flurry of notes like I've never heard before and I remember it stopping me in mid-sentence. That's when I knew I was about to spend a shitload of money very quickly...and I did. Though I don't listen to it too much, it is a favorite along with Ascension.

[felser]

I don't have the poetic words for this as the previous posters do, partly because I don't have the same warm feelings for the work. I do find it "interesting", as I do most of Coltrane's late work ('Expression' is largely lost on me and 'Om' is impossible to take at the beginning), but rarely listen to it. I agree with the previous comments of this music lacking "context" which makes it a stretch for me to truly enjoy. Trane's playing is technically marvelous indeed here, but to what end? I agree that Elvin Jones could not have done this (he and Tyner sounded lost to me on their final recordings with Trane), but I get much much more out of something like the sax/drum breaks in the various recordings such as "Afro-Blue" or "Your Lady" from '63 than I do from this. And also get much much more from contextualized works such "Alabama' and 'Transition' and, of course, 'A Love Supreme'. Those are what I go back to time and again, not this album.

[JSngry]

This is the Trane I listen to more than any other over the long haul.

Bar none, and it ain't even close.

[Michael Weiss]

When I was a freshman in college, I was curious and crazy enough to transcribe Trane on Venus, beginning to end. (Gee, it just doesn't sound the same on piano - oh well.)

His rapid fire harmonic movement isn't really that different from what he was doing in 1965, but his tone seems to have changed a lot.

Makes you wonder where he would have gone from here.

[7/4]

I love this album, a real classic.

[Stereojack]

Having been a Trane admirer since about 1964, by the time this came out in the 1970's, I had come to the conclusion that the later Trane, that is the post-classic quartet period, just didn't appeal to me. So I ignored this, assuming that it would be too "out" for my sensibilities. Over the years I kept hearing about this, however, and how special it was thought of by people. By the time I did catch up with it, in the 90's, I was astonished with it. It is very lucid, clear and focussed, and downright beautiful in places. It is a most inspired performance, and I wonder why it took so long for them to get this one out.

[Guy Berger]

It is very lucid, clear and focussed, and downright beautiful in places. It is a most inspired performance, and I wonder why it took so long for them to get this one out.

That is a puzzle, Jack. Not that I have anything against Expression, but I don't think it's as inspired as IS. I guess Trane thought differently.

I wonder who named the "tunes".

The bit where Trane and Rashied break into straightahead swing on "Saturn" is exhilarating.

One more thought: I picked this and Sun Ship up at the same time four or five years ago, and they were essentially converted me into a "Late Trane" fan. But these two albums are so far apart musically and conceptually that they prove the "Late Trane" moniker is only useful as a chronological demarcation, not as a useful description of the music.

Edited May 9, 2006 by Guy

[Larry Kart]

There was some spirited back and forth about "Interstellar Space" beginning at page 11 on this thread:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...%20space&st=150

[ep1str0phy]

It is very lucid, clear and focussed, and downright beautiful in places. It is a most inspired performance, and I wonder why it took so long for them to get this one out.

That is a puzzle, Jack. Not that I have anything against Expression, but I don't think it's as inspired as IS. I guess Trane thought differently.

I wonder who named the "tunes".

The bit where Trane and Rashied break into straightahead swing on "Saturn" is exhilarating.

One more thought: I picked this and Sun Ship up at the same time four or five years ago, and they were essentially converted me into a "Late Trane" fan. But these two albums are so far apart musically and conceptually that they prove the "Late Trane" moniker is only useful as a chronological demarcation, not as a useful description of the music.

I think the whole early/mid/late Trane thing is a semantic injustice--regardless. Moreover, it's a gross oversimplification of a process of continual development; the idea that periods can be broken up into portions suggests truly 'crucial' breaks (i.e., punctuated evolution) when, as anyone who's familiar with the Trane catalogue knows, there were indeed several. To be fair, Sun Ship is really in the sphere of 'tail end classic quartet'--that is, the musical relationships of the musicians involved go a long way toward apprehending the music. Interstellar Space is a whole other bag--but even that's different from Expression, etc.

In the final analysis, the whole 'late Trane' thing is sort of a categorical pigeonhole for listener limitations. The entire Impulse! oeuvre is better examined as a whole than in breaks; as M. Weiss said, the harmonic development from '65 to Interstellar Space isn't that severe--and it's more comprehensible with respect to the VV recordings in '61. I'm sure you'll find a lot more cats willing to say the Trane 'they can't handle' is in the 'late Trane' category than you will well-versed scholars who are willing to resort to such terminology.

[ep1str0phy]

And Guy--I hadn't noticed that you'd put the 'click here' to buy up near the album title. Way to proselytize, man.

[Guy Berger]

And Guy--I hadn't noticed that you'd put the 'click here' to buy up near the album title. Way to proselytize, man.

That's just Jim A using voodoo.

Guy

Edited May 9, 2006 by Guy

[JSngry]

Makes you wonder where he would have gone from here.

I think he went there.

[Stereojack]

In the final analysis, the whole 'late Trane' thing is sort of a categorical pigeonhole for listener limitations. The entire Impulse! oeuvre is better examined as a whole than in breaks; as M. Weiss said, the harmonic development from '65 to Interstellar Space isn't that severe--and it's more comprehensible with respect to the VV recordings in '61. I'm sure you'll find a lot more cats willing to say the Trane 'they can't handle' is in the 'late Trane' category than you will well-versed scholars who are willing to resort to such terminology.

Well, excu-u-u-se me for my limitations!

When I use the term "late Trane", I am referring specifically to the period when he added Pharoah Sanders to the band, beginning with "Meditations". The only time I saw Coltrane live was in late 1965 at the Jazz Workshop in Boston. At the time, the most recent records available featured the classic quartet ("Ascension" may have already been released, I can't remember, but that was a special record event, anyway), and we were surprised as we walked in the door and found that we were about to see the John Coltrane Sextet. Nobody was prepared for what happened that night, and I have relived that evening in my mind many times since then. When "Meditations" was released a few months later, I dutifully bought it, and I discovered that it had been recorded the week before I saw the band. Each of the subsequent releases that came in the following two years, and I valiantly kept up with them, confirmed for me (although it took years to admit it to myself) that the full-blown sonic assault of the band with Sanders just doesn't speak to me. By the time "Interstellar Space" was released many years later, I just wasn't interested, which is why it took so long for me to catch up with it.

It's easy to look back and evaluate things from a historical standpoint. We have far more pieces of the puzzle (or tapestry, if you will) now, and can get a much clearer picture of Trane's development. It's easy for some people to take what seems to me to be a position of intellectual superiority, but following things in real time as they are/were happening is quite a different ball game.

I now realize that to categorize "late Trane" with a broad brush stroke is oversimplification. I don't need that pointed out to me, thank you very much. I like "Expressions" and "Live at the Vanguard Again", but don't care for "Meditations", "Om", "Seattle Concert" , "Kulu Se Mama" or "Live in Japan" very much. That's just me.

[MartyJazz]

Well, excu-u-u-se me for my limitations!

When I use the term "late Trane", I am referring specifically to the period when he added Pharoah Sanders to the band, beginning with "Meditations". The only time I saw Coltrane live was in late 1965 at the Jazz Workshop in Boston. At the time, the most recent records available featured the classic quartet ("Ascension" may have already been released, I can't remember, but that was a special record event, anyway), and we were surprised as we walked in the door and found that we were about to see the John Coltrane Sextet. Nobody was prepared for what happened that night, and I have relived that evening in my mind many times since then. When "Meditations" was released a few months later, I dutifully bought it, and I discovered that it had been recorded the week before I saw the band. Each of the subsequent releases that came in the following two years, and I valiantly kept up with them, confirmed for me (although it took years to admit it to myself) that the full-blown sonic assault of the band with Sanders just doesn't speak to me. By the time "Interstellar Space" was released many years later, I just wasn't interested, which is why it took so long for me to catch up with it.

It's easy to look back and evaluate things from a historical standpoint. We have far more pieces of the puzzle (or tapestry, if you will) now, and can get a much clearer picture of Trane's development. It's easy for some people to take what seems to me to be a position of intellectual superiority, but following things in real time as they are/were happening is quite a different ball game.

I now realize that to categorize "late Trane" with a broad brush stroke is oversimplification. I don't need that pointed out to me, thank you very much. I like "Expressions" and "Live at the Vanguard Again", but don't care for "Meditations", "Om", "Seattle Concert" , "Kulu Se Mama" or "Live in Japan" very much. That's just me.

Hey, I caught Trane at the Vanguard in December '66 with a young woman I was trying to impress, having only just become familiar with Trane's recordings of "Star Dust" (Prestige) and "Coltrane's Sound" (Atlantic). Needless to say what I witnessed that night with Trane's band of Pharoah, Alice, JG and Ali, was an aural assault that I think I have finally recovered from. The date kept darting looks at me with a face that could only be interpreted as "I thought that you liked me, why are you doing this to me?" So Jack, I know from whence you come first hand. I deluded myself at the time thinking that one day I'll come to understand and love very late Trane - never happened.

[7/4]

The date kept darting looks at me with a face that could only be interpreted as "I thought that you liked me, why are you doing this to me?"

[ep1str0phy]

In the final analysis, the whole 'late Trane' thing is sort of a categorical pigeonhole for listener limitations. The entire Impulse! oeuvre is better examined as a whole than in breaks; as M. Weiss said, the harmonic development from '65 to Interstellar Space isn't that severe--and it's more comprehensible with respect to the VV recordings in '61. I'm sure you'll find a lot more cats willing to say the Trane 'they can't handle' is in the 'late Trane' category than you will well-versed scholars who are willing to resort to such terminology.

Well, excu-u-u-se me for my limitations!

When I use the term "late Trane", I am referring specifically to the period when he added Pharoah Sanders to the band, beginning with "Meditations". The only time I saw Coltrane live was in late 1965 at the Jazz Workshop in Boston. At the time, the most recent records available featured the classic quartet ("Ascension" may have already been released, I can't remember, but that was a special record event, anyway), and we were surprised as we walked in the door and found that we were about to see the John Coltrane Sextet. Nobody was prepared for what happened that night, and I have relived that evening in my mind many times since then. When "Meditations" was released a few months later, I dutifully bought it, and I discovered that it had been recorded the week before I saw the band. Each of the subsequent releases that came in the following two years, and I valiantly kept up with them, confirmed for me (although it took years to admit it to myself) that the full-blown sonic assault of the band with Sanders just doesn't speak to me. By the time "Interstellar Space" was released many years later, I just wasn't interested, which is why it took so long for me to catch up with it.

It's easy to look back and evaluate things from a historical standpoint. We have far more pieces of the puzzle (or tapestry, if you will) now, and can get a much clearer picture of Trane's development. It's easy for some people to take what seems to me to be a position of intellectual superiority, but following things in real time as they are/were happening is quite a different ball game.

I now realize that to categorize "late Trane" with a broad brush stroke is oversimplification. I don't need that pointed out to me, thank you very much. I like "Expressions" and "Live at the Vanguard Again", but don't care for "Meditations", "Om", "Seattle Concert" , "Kulu Se Mama" or "Live in Japan" very much. That's just me.

No--I'm not criticizing the opinion--and apologies for coming across as brusque. Again, there's no accounting for taste--nor is there any point in wanting to. There are some individuals who just don't dig some of the late stuff--fair enough. I've seldom, if ever taken genuine issue with differences in taste (growing up in a household where primary listening habits veered toward Michael Jackson and the Beatles, conciliation was a necessity).

But the whole early/mid/late Trane thing is an f'in nightmare--academically, theoretically, biographically, etc. The whole point is that, regardless of how you (and this is the general 'you,' by the way) define 'late Coltrane', you'll find dozens of other people willing to draw the line some place else (does it start after McCoy and Elvin leave the band? Maybe it starts after 'A Love Supreme'?). Perhaps the verbage is a bit extreme, but I've found that most people are willing to draw the line where they can't listen anymore. It could be a folly of my experience--and hey, I wasn't there, so my opinion is as much prolepsis as anyone else--but this very much seems to be the pattern (and patterns are simplifications in and of themselves, anyhow--but patterns still). It's all semantics in the final analysis, anyway.

Conversely--I don't really like 'Live... Again' that much, although I enjoy 'Meditations' and 'Kulu Se Mama' quite a bit. I really haven't listened to 'Om' at any length, 'Live in Japan' is uneven (but intermittently brilliant), and 'Seattle Concert' is one of the most bewildering entries (for me, anyway) in the Coltrane catalogue. I think we agree on 'Expressions'. We'll find a thousand other opinions on this board, across listeners and critics. Take it for what it is.

Edited May 9, 2006 by ep1str0phy

[Stereojack]

Conversely--I don't really like 'Live... Again' that much, although I enjoy 'Meditations' and 'Kulu Se Mama' quite a bit. I really haven't listened to 'Om' at any length, 'Live in Japan' is uneven (but intermittently brilliant), and 'Seattle Concert' is one of the most bewildering entries (for me, anyway) in the Coltrane catalogue. I think we agree on 'Expressions'. We'll find a thousand other opinions on this board, across listeners and critics. Take it for what it is.

One thing I'd like to add - it's never Trane's playing that bugs me, it's usually the setting, particularly Sanders' very aggressive caterwauling. I think I understand the intention to some degree. I've always felt that they were attempting to capture the free abandon associated with the santified church and the release that it accomplishes within those who participate, either as listeners or players. Trane's playing in every period is always thoughtful and engaging, even at its most extreme, but I'd rather hear it without the distractions. This is why I like "Interstellar Space" so much. It is pure and uncluttered, yet very intense.

For the record, I do like some of Sanders' other records, especially "Tauhid", "Karma", and the underrated ESP album, on which he most closely resembles Trane.

[ep1str0phy]

Conversely--I don't really like 'Live... Again' that much, although I enjoy 'Meditations' and 'Kulu Se Mama' quite a bit. I really haven't listened to 'Om' at any length, 'Live in Japan' is uneven (but intermittently brilliant), and 'Seattle Concert' is one of the most bewildering entries (for me, anyway) in the Coltrane catalogue. I think we agree on 'Expressions'. We'll find a thousand other opinions on this board, across listeners and critics. Take it for what it is.

One thing I'd like to add - it's never Trane's playing that bugs me, it's usually the setting, particularly Sanders' very aggressive caterwauling. I think I understand the intention to some degree. I've always felt that they were attempting to capture the free abandon associated with the santified church and the release that it accomplishes within those who participate, either as listeners or players. Trane's playing in every period is always thoughtful and engaging, even at its most extreme, but I'd rather hear it without the distractions. This is why I like "Interstellar Space" so much. It is pure and uncluttered, yet very intense.

For the record, I do like some of Sanders' other records, especially "Tauhid", "Karma", and the underrated ESP album, on which he most closely resembles Trane.

What's interesting--and this had been brought up elsewhere (a recent thread?)--is that Sanders recorded the ESP album well before his stint with Trane. As per my opinions--part of what makes 'Live in Seattle' so discomfiting for me is the fact that Trane lends so much space to his frontline cohorts. This isn't a bad thing per se--it's just that they're really, really incongruous with the rhythm section. On the slow burners (especially 'Out of This World'), Sanders is playing in such an odd rhythmic bag that Jones sounds positively nonplussed. Tyner at least sounds like he's trying, but there's a strange disconnect between Sanders and Jones that makes their later associations (e.g., 'Ask the Ages') all the more remarkable. It's notable, at least, that Sanders was playing in a much more straight-ahead 'Traneish' idiom on the preceding ESP date.

[Stereojack]

What's interesting--and this had been brought up elsewhere (a recent thread?)--is that Sanders recorded the ESP album well before his stint with Trane. As per my opinions--part of what makes 'Live in Seattle' so discomfiting for me is the fact that Trane lends so much space to his frontline cohorts. This isn't a bad thing per se--it's just that they're really, really incongruous with the rhythm section. On the slow burners (especially 'Out of This World'), Sanders is playing in such an odd rhythmic bag that Jones sounds positively nonplussed. Tyner at least sounds like he's trying, but there's a strange disconnect between Sanders and Jones that makes their later associations (e.g., 'Ask the Ages') all the more remarkable. It's notable, at least, that Sanders was playing in a much more straight-ahead 'Traneish' idiom on the preceding ESP date.

Obviously Sanders was a great admirer of Trane prior to becoming a member of his band, although the influence is more apparent on the ESP record than on any of his collaborations with Trane.

In regards to "Seattle", the points that you bring up demonstrate quite clearly why McCoy and Elvin left the band. They must have felt out of place in the new format, and I believe thay did confirm that in interviews at the time. The one time I saw Trane, as mentioned earlier, Elvin did not even appear until well into the first set. Rashied Ali was the only drummer when they began. Perhaps showing up late that night was just typical of Elvin's erratic behavior, and in some way this may have been, at least in part, why Trane felt it necessary to add a second drummer. Didn't want to fire Elvin, especially since he loved Elvin's playing, but Elvin had become unreliable. Just speculating here. The one duet Trane and Elvin made, "Vigil", might have become a whole album if things had been different. As for McCoy, and I've thought this for some time, the stripping down of the harmonic chord-oriented basis of the music that began years earlier may also have presented a challenge for him. As much as I love his playing, there are times on many quartet performances when I wish he would just lay out and let the others go free. Personally, I never thought that Alice added much to the group, although for obvious personal reasons, it must have been convenient for Trane to have her in the band.

[mikeweil]

Personally, I never thought that Alice added much to the group, although for obvious personal reasons, it must have been convenient for Trane to have her in the band.

I see your point, but on Stellar Regions I think she is a perfect counterpart - any other pianist of the time might have interferred with Trane's need for a self-effacing but present pianist. I wish he had lived and this band had played on for some more years - I find this to be some very concentrated music, just like the duets.

I also think we perhaps could appreciate Live at the Village Vanguard Again much better if we had a complete performance, or even a video. This certainly was new and exciting then, but much of what Trane recorded was experimental, like Miles' stuff since In a Silent Way, and most of it shows a little too much it is not a perfect artistic statement.

[Guy Berger]

Personally, I never thought that Alice added much to the group, although for obvious personal reasons, it must have been convenient for Trane to have her in the band.

I see your point, but on Stellar Regions I think she is a perfect counterpart - any other pianist of the time might have interferred with Trane's need for a self-effacing but present pianist. I wish he had lived and this band had played on for some more years - I find this to be some very concentrated music, just like the duets.

I agree with Mike about Alice. I feel she came up short on the live performances, when she had to solo at length. But on Stellar Regions she is indeed a nice counterpart.

I think the bells add a lot to the ritualistic mystery of Interstellar Space.

By the way if you haven't done an AOTW recently volunteer and pm JohnS -- I think we are close to running out.

Guy

Edited May 10, 2006 by Guy

[Cali]

I think of INTERSTELLAR SPACE and STELLAR REGIONS as bookends.