Did Trane ever screw up a tune?

[Dmitry]

Reading the Rahsaan thread and how people value his performances of the same tunes quite differently made me stumble upon a heretic thought - did Trane ever mock up a solo? Not in my listening experince..

Edited January 23, 2004 by Dmitry

[JSngry]

I suppose if you listen closely, you can hear moments of indecision (especially in the early, junkie years where often enough the "struggle" is pretty obvious; still, it's a struggle that never turns into outright mistakes being made) and brief fingering fumbles/miscues on blowing overtones, etc. later on, but BFD AFAIC. That kind of thing happens to everybody unless they play by rote, and even then, hey, shit happens...

The closet you'll hear to outright folding is on the earliest recordings, those done in Hawaii in the Navy band. There's some pretty awkward moments there. But by the time the guy started REALLY recording, he had already been a seasoned pro for close to a decade, and practiced regularly through even his darkest personal crises (if you can believe what you read). Professionalism was so deeply ingrained into him by then that totally folding was highly unlikely.

[mikeweil]

I suppose if you listen closely, you can hear moments of indecision (especially in the early, junkie years where often enough the "struggle" is pretty obvious; still, it's a struggle that never turns into outright mistakes being made) and brief fingering fumbles/miscues on blowing overtones, etc. later on, but BFD AFAIC. That kind of thing happens to everybody unless they play by rote, and even then, hey, shit happens...

Indecision, that term describes it very nicely, at least what I hear with my non-saxophonistic ears. And perhaps some moment of not feeling entirely comfortable in the musical context or groove, like on Wabash from the Cannonball Adderley Quintet in Chicago album.

Even when he experimented with new stuff, he did it in a highly professional fashion.

[mikeweil]

- did Trane ever mock up a solo?

Well, he almost missed one: He reportedly fell asleep during one of the tracks on the session for Monk's Music, missed his cue to start ofter Monk's solo - you can hear him shout "Coltrane, Coltrane" on the record. Trane didn't play one wrong note, just played somewhat faster until he caught up with the changes.

[jazzbo]

I've always wondered about that Monk date. Seems to me more as if Trane was being reminded it was HIS turn at bat. . . .

[JSngry]

"Popular Wisdom" has it that he was nodding out, but I don't know how true that really is. It would fit with the timeframe, though.

[tonym]

I don't have much of his early stuff, I think his early Prestige dates are as far back as I go, but apart from that indecision during his solos, how did he get that tag for being 'out of tune'?

And who was it that said that?

[Joe G]

Love For Sale, with the Miles Davis Quintet. Again, he doesn't play any clams, but next to Miles, Cannonball, and Bill Evans, who all turn in amazingly brilliant solos, Trane sounds a bit cautious to my ears.

[.:.impossible]

- did Trane ever mock up a solo?

Well, he almost missed one: He reportedly fell asleep during one of the tracks on the session for Monk's Music, missed his cue to start ofter Monk's solo - you can hear him shout "Coltrane, Coltrane" on the record. Trane didn't play one wrong note, just played somewhat faster until he caught up with the changes.

I thought that Coleman Hawkins was originally planned to open the album with the first solo, and as Hawkins was about ready to blow his first note, Monk called out on Trane at the last minute as a surprise to everyone. This caught Trane off-guard as Monk had planned and forced him out of the phrases that he had been rehearsing. This was Monk's double-entendre lesson, teaching the kid to stay on his toes and never get comfortable with his music, and teaching the elder to stay on his toes and never get comfortable with is music. Not a half-decade later, a guy could barely play tenor without being influenced by or compared/contrasted to Coltrane. Maybe Monk realized he was helping to usher Coltrane into the ranks.

Anyway, I like the sentiment of the story a lot better than imagining him nodding off beside Coleman Hawkins.

Maybe its just more of that jazz folklore.

[.:.impossible]

Love For Sale, with the Miles Davis Quintet. Again, he doesn't play any clams, but next to Miles, Cannonball, and Bill Evans, who all turn in amazingly brilliant solos, Trane sounds a bit cautious to my ears.

He was afraid of being punched in the stomach!

[mikeweil]

I don't have much of his early stuff, I think his early Prestige dates are as far back as I go, but apart from that indecision during his solos, how did he get that tag for being 'out of tune'?

And who was it that said that?

There was a description of the Miles Davis Quintet going somewhat like this:

A trumpeter that fluffs half of his notes, and out-of-tune tenor player, a cocktail pianist, a drummer that is too loud, and a teen-aged bassist.

No idea where this originated, I have it from the liner of the Prestige Miles box set.

[JSngry]

Trane did play on the high end of the pitch, which some people who don't get the concept consider "out of tune". Listen to him on the last notes of some of the Miles Prestige things, and you can definitely hear what I mean.

It's a tenor thing. Playing on the high end of the pitch gives your tone a certain quality you really can't get any other way. Charlie Rouse was another one who did it really noticably.

[Guy Berger]

Reading the Rahsaan thread and how people value his performances of the same tunes quite differently made me stumble upon a heretic thought - did Trane ever mock up a solo? Not in my listening experince..

I was listening to the first album the Miles Quintet recorded for Prestige (the one from Nov '55, with "Stablemates") and some of Trane's playing sounds a little tentative. I think this persisted on some of the '56 Prestige recordings, but I don't hear it on the Columbia recordings from the same period.

Guy

[couw]

Reading the Rahsaan thread and how people value his performances of the same tunes quite differently made me stumble upon a heretic thought - did Trane ever mock up a solo? Not in my listening experince..

I just wanted to add that I don't know of Rahsaan ever messing up a solo either. Kirk was a monster. The sameness of his later performances lies in his not always top of the bill sidemen.

[brownie]

About the Coltrane nodding incident at the 1957 'Monk's Music' recording session, this account by Ray Copeland, the trumpet player at the session, rings true.

This is from the 'Chasin' the Trane' book by J.C. Thomas.

'In 1957 I was on a record date with Coltrane and he was definetely high on junk, of that I'm sure. We were sitting near the rhythm section while the leader was taking a long piano solo. It was almost time for Coltrane's solo, and as I turned to look at him I noticed that he was nodding out, holding his horn in his lap. Before I could do anything, the leader happened to look up from the piano, saw Coltrane's condition, and screamed 'Coltrane...COLTRANE!' What happened next was so amazing I'll never forget it as long as I live. Trane was suddenly on his feet, playing in perfect cadence and following the piano solo as if nothing had happened. He played a pretty good solo, and when he was finished he sat down again and went back to nodding out'.

[mikeweil]

All of us board members together would make an unbeatable team to write up some definite critical musician biographies ...

[Larry Kart]

Seems to me that Coltrane gets a bit hung up/hesitant/confused (along the lines brought up in Jim Sangrey's post) on his own piece "Nita" on "Whims of Chambers." As Lewis Porter says in his Coltrane bio, "Nita" is a pretty complex structure for blowing, in terms of both form and harmony.

[l p]

I just wanted to add that I don't know of Rahsaan ever messing up a solo either. Kirk was a monster. The sameness of his later performances lies in his not always top of the bill sidemen.

[Larry Kart]

About Coltrane maybe getting hung up/confused during his solo on "Nita," the part I mean is the approximately five-second pause he takes beginning at 3:55. At that tempo five seconds is a pretty long time. I'd be curious, if I'm right, what the specific source of his confusion/indecision might have been.Did he lose track of the form? The changes? Or perhaps it was that he realized at that moment that the idea that was in his mind/fingers probably wouldn't fit. Of the other soloists (Byrd, Burrell, Silver) the one who sounds most at ease with the piece IMO is Burrell.

[JSngry]

A lot of the indecision I hear in those early Trane sides seems to me to be a matter of the proverbial reach exceeding the grasp. I think he had the things needed to play a "safe" solo under his fingers, but that's not what he wanted - he was hearing something else, and the conflict between what he wanted to play and what he knew he could play resulted in that little bit of hesitancy some of us sense. Although, consummate professional that he was, knowing that the tape was rolling and that he had a job to do, he didn't let it get to him to the point of outright folding. If he did, the tapes don't survive, not that I'm aware of.

Chalk it up to, in my opinion, the haze of the junk combined with the natural response to still-abstract musical ideas by somebody who couldn't fully get a handle on them. Both would obviously be resolved soon enough.

[Guy Berger]

Chalk it up to, in my opinion, the haze of the junk combined with the natural response to still-abstract musical ideas by somebody who couldn't fully get a handle on them. Both would obviously be resolved soon enough.

I think you hit the nail on the head. It may be just 20/20 hindsight, but Miles always claimed that he knew Trane was special by '55.

Guy

Edited January 25, 2004 by Guy Berger

[Nate Dorward]

A few things come to mind--

1) the abortive solo on the first half of "Alabama", before the other take is spliced in. Been a while since I listened to it, so I forget--why exactly was the performance called off?

2) I suspect that whatever lucky dog has The Heavyweight Champion can consult the alt.takes of tracks like "Giant Steps" to see them wrestling with that tune--not that there's any shame in stumbling on that tune!

3) Coltrane was less impeccable as a soprano player. I don't have his early stabs at it for Atlantic like the date with Cherry so I'd be interested to know how secure he sounded on it--I note that Cook/Morton are pretty unimpressed: "His soprano playing is not yet either idiomatic or nimble, and on 'The Blessing' he makes even Ornette's eccentric pitching sound dead centre."

4) He was constantly reaching for the notes & phrases even further than he could get--there's an instance in the solo on Interstellar Space discussed by Lewis Porter in his book, where Trane keeps reaching for higher & higher false notes until finally there's one he misses.

Edited January 26, 2004 by Nate Dorward