John Coltrane 1953 Nestor Records (James "Coateville" Harris)

[Mark Stryker]

My friend, trumpeter Jeff Helgesen, just hipped me to this. I didn't remember the reference from Porter and no time to do any research. But folks will want to hear this.

https://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/nestor-records-early-john-coltrane-content/

 

Edited October 8, 2015 by Mark Stryker

[John L]

Very interesting.  Thanks.  It certainly does sound like Coltrane.

[Joe]

Yeah, kind of an eerie experience listening to that solo. I can certainly believe it's Coltrane.

[AllenLowe]

sending Lewis Porter the link.

[JSngry]

Anybody got the flip side?

[clifford_thornton]

Huh. 

Oh yeah, his solo just started - wow. Definitely sounds like Trane.

[Mark Stryker]

Assuming it is Trane, there still is a lot of Dexter in his playing.

[JSngry]

And some Jimmy Oliver as well?

[king ubu]

intriguing!

[Caravan]

Anybody got the flip side?

The flip side is entitled Ham Hocks And Hominy, it also has Coltrane. I have ivr.files of both sides (which I could play on my old computer, but not on my new - anybody any idea what an ivr.file is and how to deal with it? I know nothing about those things).

[Dan Gould]

Anybody got the flip side?

The flip side is entitled Ham Hocks And Hominy, it also has Coltrane. I have ivr.files of both sides (which I could play on my old computer, but not on my new - anybody any idea what an ivr.file is and how to deal with it? I know nothing about those things).

It's supposed to be related to Real Player files. Here's one link I found, looks like you just need Real Player to open them.

http://file.org/extension/ivr

 

 

[l p]

info from the miles list, Both tracks here

http://jazzdocumentation.ch/coatesville/coatesville.html

[JSngry]

Fascinating...

[ombudsman]

It's a great solo, and based on the sound it seems plausible that it could be Coltrane, but it's really not enough evidence at this point. Priming is a strong effect; we might not all have thought it sounded like Coltrane if we hadn't been tipped that way before hearing it. Also we can only evaluate the positive side of the assessment; there is no way to temper that with a measure of how many other players it could have been that we are not aware of.

I've seen things a few times over the years where pretty much unknown local players delivered great performances that could have been quite misleading to other people if they were heard as unidentified recordings with no context. Nobody ever says "that sounds like someone I've never heard of" - we pick the closest candidate. Also as a bit of a recording engineer I've seen people misidentify performances by themselves or their bandmates, confuse upright with electric bass, vocals with organ, and effected saxophone with bassoon.

Another thing that comes to mind is conventional wisdom among guitarists about "On the Corner" by Miles - I've heard/seen McLaughlin credited (sometimes in condescending terms !) as the only player on that record many times based on the sounds - despite more of the tracks having David Creamer on guitar, who was correctly identified in some of the press when it came out. And they do have fairly similar sounds on that record; which goes to show that players with very distinctive styles can sometimes be confused with others.

I haven't heard it in a long time and can't recall which one it is, but there is a Can live recording that has a passage played by Irmin Schmidt on some sort of keyboard with effects where he gets a sound that is dead nuts on Miles' trumpet sound circa '73 with the wah and amp. A snippet of that section, faded in and out, could IIRC absolutely fool people into believing there is a newly unearthed Miles concert tape or guest appearance, and it's not even a trumpet.

[Caravan]

It's a great solo, and based on the sound it seems plausible that it could be Coltrane, but it's really not enough evidence at this point. Priming is a strong effect; we might not all have thought it sounded like Coltrane if we hadn't been tipped that way before hearing it. Also we can only evaluate the positive side of the assessment; there is no way to temper that with a measure of how many other players it could have been that we are not aware of.

I've seen things a few times over the years where pretty much unknown local players delivered great performances that could have been quite misleading to other people if they were heard as unidentified recordings with no context. Nobody ever says "that sounds like someone I've never heard of" - we pick the closest candidate. Also as a bit of a recording engineer I've seen people misidentify performances by themselves or their bandmates, confuse upright with electric bass, vocals with organ, and effected saxophone with bassoon.

Another thing that comes to mind is conventional wisdom among guitarists about "On the Corner" by Miles - I've heard/seen McLaughlin credited (sometimes in condescending terms !) as the only player on that record many times based on the sounds - despite more of the tracks having David Creamer on guitar, who was correctly identified in some of the press when it came out. And they do have fairly similar sounds on that record; which goes to show that players with very distinctive styles can sometimes be confused with others.

I haven't heard it in a long time and can't recall which one it is, but there is a Can live recording that has a passage played by Irmin Schmidt on some sort of keyboard with effects where he gets a sound that is dead nuts on Miles' trumpet sound circa '73 with the wah and amp. A snippet of that section, faded in and out, could IIRC absolutely fool people into believing there is a newly unearthed Miles concert tape or guest appearance, and it's not even a trumpet.

It's Coltrane, no doubt. When I first heard these sides years ago I was not tipped, but knew it was him right away. Not really hard if one knows his early work with Dizzy and Hodges (check his solo in Castle Rock with Hodges ' band, live 1954). The Coltrane Reference (DeVito et al.) lists the Coatesville Harris sides as Trane's only (known) recordings from 1953 ("date unknown, but most likely 1953") and comments: "Coltrane is identified by aural evidence only, but we consider the evidence overwhelming".

 

[JSngry]

The live stuff with Hodges is critical, and will hopefully be made "legitimately" available at some point.

[ombudsman]

It's a great solo, and based on the sound it seems plausible that it could be Coltrane, but it's really not enough evidence at this point. Priming is a strong effect; we might not all have thought it sounded like Coltrane if we hadn't been tipped that way before hearing it. Also we can only evaluate the positive side of the assessment; there is no way to temper that with a measure of how many other players it could have been that we are not aware of.

I've seen things a few times over the years where pretty much unknown local players delivered great performances that could have been quite misleading to other people if they were heard as unidentified recordings with no context. Nobody ever says "that sounds like someone I've never heard of" - we pick the closest candidate. Also as a bit of a recording engineer I've seen people misidentify performances by themselves or their bandmates, confuse upright with electric bass, vocals with organ, and effected saxophone with bassoon.

Another thing that comes to mind is conventional wisdom among guitarists about "On the Corner" by Miles - I've heard/seen McLaughlin credited (sometimes in condescending terms !) as the only player on that record many times based on the sounds - despite more of the tracks having David Creamer on guitar, who was correctly identified in some of the press when it came out. And they do have fairly similar sounds on that record; which goes to show that players with very distinctive styles can sometimes be confused with others.

I haven't heard it in a long time and can't recall which one it is, but there is a Can live recording that has a passage played by Irmin Schmidt on some sort of keyboard with effects where he gets a sound that is dead nuts on Miles' trumpet sound circa '73 with the wah and amp. A snippet of that section, faded in and out, could IIRC absolutely fool people into believing there is a newly unearthed Miles concert tape or guest appearance, and it's not even a trumpet.

It's Coltrane, no doubt. When I first heard these sides years ago I was not tipped, but knew it was him right away. Not really hard if one knows his early work with Dizzy and Hodges (check his solo in Castle Rock with Hodges ' band, live 1954). The Coltrane Reference (DeVito et al.) lists the Coatesville Harris sides as Trane's only (known) recordings from 1953 ("date unknown, but most likely 1953") and comments: "Coltrane is identified by aural evidence only, but we consider the evidence overwhelming".

 

I understand your viewpoint but that is not enough to remove doubt for me.

[Dan Gould]

You can harbor as much doubt as you wish. I think most of the rest of us have a different opinion.

[flat5]

I have no doubt it is John Coltrane. On both tunes and the Hodges session.