David Williams Posted October 24, 2003 Report Share Posted October 24, 2003 Nothing profound to say, but I bought this with birthday tokens a couple of weeks ago, and fucking hell! if this hasn't instantly become my favourite Coltrane. I've listened to almost nothing else for two weeks. To my ears it's a near perfect blend of Coltrane's later playing with Tyner and Garrison still providing a harmonic base - perhaps my favourite McCoy Tyner, and Garrison showing where William Parker sprang from - and Elvin's playing is beautifully varied. Well recorded too. Sorry to rave about a recording nearly 40 years late, but I was talking to a Coltrane fan today who'd actually never heard of it, so.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted October 24, 2003 Report Share Posted October 24, 2003 Great stuff, and a somewhat overlooked document in Trane's evolution. Well worth getting into, and at length. Some much music there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John B Posted October 24, 2003 Report Share Posted October 24, 2003 Sorry to rave about a recording nearly 40 years late, no need to apologize, this disc deserves all of the raves it gets! for some reason this one seems to slip under a lot of people's radar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WD45 Posted October 24, 2003 Report Share Posted October 24, 2003 There is a reel of outtakes out there somewhere from this session. I think Impulse! needs to get on that and put out one of those double-disc "Deluxe Editions" of this session. The album itself has become one of my favorite Coltrane albums. I always thought that mic on the cover was a goofy hat or something. oops! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Late Posted October 24, 2003 Report Share Posted October 24, 2003 (edited) David, I always list this recording as my "favorite" Coltrane session — and for the same reasons you describe. I think it was the last studio recording of the original quartet, and it has that wonderful tension between where Coltrane was going (with Pharaoh Sanders and Rashied Ali) and where he'd been (a la My Favorite Things and A Love Supreme), which, for me, makes this Coltrane's most rewardingly intense recording. I've always thought that later studio recordings actually had less intensity to them, though I'm sure others would certainly disagree. The band was on the verge of disbanding here, and their playing all seems, even if only on an unconscious level, to reach once more to whatever it was Coltrane always heard just out of his aural grasp. I don't think Elvin quite played on any other session the way he does here. The amount of space he leaves — whereas, to me, his playing is usually a rolling type of thunder — is not only attractive, but I think uncommon for him. It lets McCoy open up more, instead of bashing away his fourthy chords. This date wasn't recorded by Rudy, and I think it's shame, because I've always had some problems with how it came out, namely that the sheer volume of the playing seems to — I don't know what you call it — distort the reception of the tenor at times. I have two vinyl (not-first-pressing) copies of this album, an 80's Japanese reissue on compact disc, and the standard 20-bit American reissue. Strangely, the best sounding version I've heard, but was never able to acquire, was on an 80's German MCA reissue on compact disc. Alas, that one seems long gone. Did Universal Japan ever reissue this one recently? Edited October 24, 2003 by Late Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king ubu Posted October 24, 2003 Report Share Posted October 24, 2003 I absolutely love this album! It was an instant favorite of mine, too, from the day I bought it! Great great great! ubu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Berger Posted October 24, 2003 Report Share Posted October 24, 2003 An amazing album. Guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nessa Posted October 24, 2003 Report Share Posted October 24, 2003 I think it was the last studio recording of the original quartet.... Very close, but no cigar. One week later the quartet was back at Rudy's recording "First Meditations". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little High People Posted October 25, 2003 Report Share Posted October 25, 2003 yeah, those outtakes of sun ship really need to come out. does anyone know what impulse's next coltrane release might be? we certainly got a ton of stuff last year ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7/4 Posted October 25, 2003 Report Share Posted October 25, 2003 An old favortite... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bertrand Posted October 25, 2003 Report Share Posted October 25, 2003 There's going to be a deluxe 4-CD edition next year, and then, two weeks later, they'll discover a reel with four more tracks in Coltrane's bathroom. Bertrand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted October 25, 2003 Report Share Posted October 25, 2003 Ha ha. They aired the outtakes over the radio and tapes/cdrs circulate. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Late Posted October 25, 2003 Report Share Posted October 25, 2003 Ravi Coltrane's bathroom, or the bathroom of John's second cousin — Melvin "Sparky" Coltrane? Mustn't tease us with such ideas ... a 4-cd set? I want it to be true. Is it true? It isn't true. Is it true? It isn't true. Is it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nessa Posted October 25, 2003 Report Share Posted October 25, 2003 Ravi Coltrane's bathroom, or the bathroom of John's second cousin — Melvin "Sparky" Coltrane? Mustn't tease us with such ideas ... a 4-cd set? I want it to be true. Is it true? It isn't true. Is it true? It isn't true. Is it? This brings up the question of what Dookie has in his bathroom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Late Posted October 26, 2003 Report Share Posted October 26, 2003 (edited) Male Exotic Dancers' Digest? Edited October 26, 2003 by Late Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted October 26, 2003 Report Share Posted October 26, 2003 This brings up the question of what Dookie has in his bathroom. MORE DOOKIE THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Berger Posted July 18, 2006 Report Share Posted July 18, 2006 This is great music for a really, really hot summer day. Guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeweil Posted July 18, 2006 Report Share Posted July 18, 2006 FWIW, this was one of many posthumous releases. Expression was issued immediately after his death, with his consent, and it was his fifteenth LP, not counting multi-artist album of any kind. 17 posthumous releases were to follow (in the LP era, CD only releases not counted), Sun Ship being # 7 in that series. Does anyone here remember which year it was released and who did produce the LP? Was that Michael Cuscuna already? The CD doesn't mention this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stereojack Posted July 18, 2006 Report Share Posted July 18, 2006 FWIW, this was one of many posthumous releases. Expression was issued immediately after his death, with his consent, and it was his fifteenth LP, not counting multi-artist album of any kind. 17 posthumous releases were to follow (in the LP era, CD only releases not counted), Sun Ship being # 7 in that series. Does anyone here remember which year it was released and who did produce the LP? Was that Michael Cuscuna already? The CD doesn't mention this. Released in 1971, produced by Ed Michel. Recorded at RCA Victor Studios, New York, engineer not credited. I wonder why it wasn't recorded at Rudy's? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Berger Posted July 19, 2006 Report Share Posted July 19, 2006 According to AMG, this album went #186 on the Billboard pop charts, which is pretty mind-boggling. Guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ep1str0phy Posted July 19, 2006 Report Share Posted July 19, 2006 This one has, over time, become one of my favorite Coltranes. There's a sense of power and sheer ecstasy here that is, in my opinion, unsurpassed in the later Quartet recordings--matched, perhaps, by certain other 'later' albums (e.g., Transition, First Meditations), but hardly transcended. Coltrane here is already playing in the late Quintet mode--intensive and virtuosic use of harmonics, blurred riffs, and angular, rapid-fire attack... it's all there--but there's an added sense of tension here. It's interesting, as, although Trane just kept on improving (albeit on the same set of techniques) well into his final year, the decidedly 'freer' Quintet sides seldom reach this level of intensity. It has a lot to do, on the one hand, with the efforts of the rhythm section, which is doing its best to wrangle with the freer rhythmic and harmonic parameters of the music (as Late noted above, Jones is playing quite free on this session--sustaining a spacious, obscure feel on a lot of these later sides; Tyner registers some interesting work trying to match the leader's attack, although there's still a sense of discord when the soloists switch; Garrison, as best as he can, lays back and tries to feed the pulse). At the same time, there's a strong sense of motion--basic, elemental 'jazz' swing--to a lot of this music, and this quartet can't take it completely, out-and-out free; Jones was, at base, an extremely accomplished polyrhythmic 'time' drummer, and Tyner's approach has always favored more acid, 'open' lines anyway (none of the denser approach of your prototypal free jazz pianists--Cecil, for example). Garrison, at least, was an extremely adaptable voice (with a striking sense of dynamics) who could suit his approach to his rhythm mates. Even at this stage, the quartet is thinking within fixed metric parameters--they're there, once the improvisations get off the ground--and that's not something that Jones and Tyner, and Garrison with them, could abandon. The rhythm section throws in everything they can and--everything short, justshort of taking out the time. The summary approach is harder and more rhythmically dense then the earlier Quartet sides--which is not to say that the group is always playing a lot (e.g., increasing the 'impulse density,' to use one of Ekkehard Jost's terms), but rather increasing the superimposition of meters and feels--overall, upping the simultaneity of rhythms over a fixed metric base. The final quintet is marked by a decidedly more 'transparent' attack--not because the multiple rhythms are gone, but because there's no definitive 'metrical' center to revolve around. In all honesty, barring a couple of later Quintet sides (including the hotly recorded Olatunji concert and some other live sets), I find these final Quartet albums to be far more kinetic and, often times, more fun to listen to. But then there's Meditations, Interstellar Space... Final note--I was turned off to this album first time I heard it, and a big, big part of it was how distant Tyner sounds. Still sounds that way, although the best moments outweigh the technical problems. Is this just me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted July 19, 2006 Report Share Posted July 19, 2006 Tyner does sound a little distant, iirc, but it's one HELL of a record. Jeezus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Ayers Posted July 19, 2006 Report Share Posted July 19, 2006 It may be that this album was originally eclipsed a little by the more radical sounding releases of the post-Tyner bands. It is also the case that the original LP is horrible sounding. Yes you can follow the music but the mastering/ pressing is poor. I think it also became quite hard to find for a while. This helps explain why it has never been very acclaimed - CD release has given it more of a lease of life than it originally had as an LP, I suspect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trane_fanatic Posted July 19, 2006 Report Share Posted July 19, 2006 (edited) I am no audiophile, but the channel separation seems a little off to me too along with the "distant" sound issues. It is very noticeable on headphones, but not so much on speakers. Wonder why RVG wasn't in on this session? Doctor's appt. maybe? Edited July 19, 2006 by trane_fanatic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trane_fanatic Posted July 19, 2006 Report Share Posted July 19, 2006 Ravi Coltrane's bathroom, or the bathroom of John's second cousin — Melvin "Sparky" Coltrane? Mustn't tease us with such ideas ... a 4-cd set? I want it to be true. Is it true? It isn't true. Is it true? It isn't true. Is it? How about Roscoe P? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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