Ravi Coltrane signs with Blue Note

[relyles]

Spirit Fiction is a very good listen IMO. Caught Ravi in April with pianist David Virelles, bassist Noah Garabedian and drummer Nate Smith. One of the best live concerts I experienced this year.

[jlhoots]

Article from the New York Times. 'Spirit Fiction' has been getting some great reviews, must pick it up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/magazine/can-ravi-coltrane-live-up-to-his-fathers-legend.html

It's actually very good!!

[colinmce]

I liked what I heard on NPR. I plan to check it out as well.

[six string]

I just picked up Spirit Fiction the other day after reading that NYT piece from a couple of Sundays ago. I've only heard it twice so far but first impression is that it's very good. I think the success of the album is based as much on the other musicians on the album as it is Ravi's playing but he seems to have developed a bit more since the last time I heard him which was on someone else's album and not his.

The time I saw him was on his first tour with Elvin Jones and though I might be mixing Elvin Jones shows up I seem to recall that Sonny Fortune was also playing with the band as well. Ravi didn't impress me at the show though he was so young and inexperienced at the time that it's no surprise. The only reason for higher expectations was due to his father's name which is unfair. That has to be a huge weight to carry around when you're career is just beginning. Still, I didn't really keep up with him afterwards though I did hear a song here and there.

So I'm trying to approach Spirit Fiction on its own terms and trying not to place the John Coltrane yardstick up against it.

Like any other musician, the album should be able to stand on it's own without these other trappings that have little to do with it. I will say that both groups of musicians do a good job on the album and so far I give the edge to the more experienced quintet over Ravi's "regular" band.

[Guy Berger]

This album is quite good.

[Dave James]

I wanna go back to 1975 when Blue Note was still relevant.  

[Chuck Nessa]

'75??

[JSngry]

Good old George Butler, he really made things happen.

[Dave James]

1 hour ago, Chuck Nessa said:

'75??

I was thinking about the beginning of the CD era and all that came with it reissue-wise.

[Chuck Nessa]

I saw/heard Ravi with Jack DeJohnette and Jimmy Garrison's son at Big Ears a few weeks ago. All played well. In profile Ravi looked like his dad and the music was professional.

[felser]

5 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

'75??

Apart from maybe Bobby Hutcherson, tough to make an argument much past about 1972.   And a whole lot of rot had already set in even by then.

[Gheorghe]

Ravi Coltrane is a very fine player and I too saw him for the first time together with Sonny Fortune with a quite late Elvin Jones edition.

About mid seventies BN, I never purchased anything but saw the BN Discography and from the player´s list they all seem to be grossly overproduced, a lot of instruments...,

Once I bought a Lou Donaldson thing from 1974, because I had thought it´s a regular jazz record and what I heard was the dullest thing I ever heard. I actually threw it into a garbage can.

Another thing I remember from visiting a record shop when I was young and started to collect records. There was a record shop where the records where not after alphabetically order of artists, but after record labels and as a saw "Blue Note" I hurried to that section, hoping to find all those classic BN records I had heard about, but believe it or not, there was not even one of those records, all of it was mid seventies BN.

[sidewinder]

51 minutes ago, Gheorghe said:

Ravi Coltrane is a very fine player and I too saw him for the first time together with Sonny Fortune with a quite late Elvin Jones edition.

About mid seventies BN, I never purchased anything but saw the BN Discography and from the player´s list they all seem to be grossly overproduced, a lot of instruments...,

Once I bought a Lou Donaldson thing from 1974, because I had thought it´s a regular jazz record and what I heard was the dullest thing I ever heard. I actually threw it into a garbage can.

Another thing I remember from visiting a record shop when I was young and started to collect records. There was a record shop where the records where not after alphabetically order of artists, but after record labels and as a saw "Blue Note" I hurried to that section, hoping to find all those classic BN records I had heard about, but believe it or not, there was not even one of those records, all of it was mid seventies BN.

Elvin’s group in 1996? I remember seeing that Ravi/Fortune front line in London that year.

Would that Lou Donaldson album be ‘Sweet Lou’? That was a ubiquitous Blue Note cutout over here around the mid 1970s. To this day, I’ve never heard it !

[Gheorghe]

Yes might have been 1996. Saw Elvin only twice, one edition was 1979 but I don´t remember exactly the personnel.

Yes, the Lou Donaldson album might have been Sweet Lou. I want to say, I´m not deaf to electric jazz and have all of Miles´ 1970-75 albums, but this 74 Lou Donaldson album is just a shame. To record music that sounds like the background music you might hear in a commercial complex is just a no go for a famous jazz label and an artist who once recorded "Blues Walk", one of the most important hard bop records.

I think I had bought it because somewhere I read "2012" and thought it might be recorded in 2012 maybe with his road band which I saw. A terrible mistake.....

[sidewinder]

I saw Elvin in 1979/80 myself. The front line had Pat LaBarbera with Alan Skidmore. Chip Jackson I think, on bass. Next saw him in 1989 with Sonny Fortune, Willie Pickens and then 1992 at Carnegie Hall with Charles Lloyd and McCoy Tyner, I think. That one was a Coltrane Tribute as part of the NYC Festival.

[Gheorghe]

16 hours ago, sidewinder said:

I saw Elvin in 1979/80 myself. The front line had Pat LaBarbera with Alan Skidmore. Chip Jackson I think, on bass. Next saw him in 1989 with Sonny Fortune, Willie Pickens and then 1992 at Carnegie Hall with Charles Lloyd and McCoy Tyner, I think. That one was a Coltrane Tribute as part of the NYC Festival.

Yes I remember that Pat LaBarbera was on the 1979 edition. I think the actual album was "Remembrance" from 1978.

The Sonny Fortune version, I remember Willie Pickens on piano.

 

[sidewinder]

58 minutes ago, Gheorghe said:

 

The Sonny Fortune version, I remember Willie Pickens on piano.

 

I saw that group at a club in Toronto. Our table was right next to Elvin’s drums !  On that occasion I was most fortunate to meet and chat with Elvin and I still have the signed event flyer. 

With regard to the Carnegie Hall performance, I think Elvin played first with his group with Ravi, Fortune, Pickens and Chip Jackson followed by McCoy’s trio and then Charles Lloyd with his quartet.

Edited April 24, 2019 by sidewinder

[Daniel A]

3 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Yes I remember that Pat LaBarbera was on the 1979 edition. I think the actual album was "Remembrance" from 1978.

The Sonny Fortune version, I remember Willie Pickens on piano.

 

I traded Remembrance away very early in my record collecting days because I did not find it interesting then. A mistake? I seem to recall a faceless guitarist. 

[Gheorghe]

7 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

I traded Remembrance away very early in my record collecting days because I did not find it interesting then. A mistake? I seem to recall a faceless guitarist. 

Same mistake here. I think I had the same problem. Now it´s hard to find.