Coltrane: Both Directions At Once (lost album)

[John L]

I don't hear in late Trane a lot of "panic and rage," although I could be wrong.  It sounds more to me like a continual effort to push forward into that next spiritual dimension. 

[Scott Dolan]

7 minutes ago, John L said:

I don't hear in late Trane a lot of "panic and rage," although I could be wrong.  It sounds more to me like a continual effort to push forward into that next spiritual dimension. 

And those things aren’t mutually exclusive, right? 

12 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Fear and courage, no sense in having the one if you can't have the other.

No sense? I suppose. Human nature doesn’t always work in that fashion. 

[JSngry]

It did in Trane. Heroically.

Now in some schmuck like me....probably not. But I'm no hero.

13 minutes ago, John L said:

I don't hear in late Trane a lot of "panic and rage," although I could be wrong.  It sounds more to me like a continual effort to push forward into that next spiritual dimension. 

Which, as it turned out, was death.

Surprised?

[Scott Dolan]

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

It did in Trane. Heroically.

Did it? Why? Because he kept doing the one thing he truly loved to do? Is that heroism, or simply retaining a sense of normalcy for mental health sake? 

[Chuck Nessa]

Sigh, as someone who saw/heard him multiple times in the last 4 years of his life, and spoke to him (on the phone) while he was in the hospital....

This thread bothers me for some reason. Not sure why. 

[JSngry]

24 minutes ago, Scott Dolan said:

Did it? Why? Because he kept doing the one thing he truly loved to do? Is that heroism, or simply retaining a sense of normalcy for mental health sake? 

Hold on now, if I read you right, you're claiming he was more or less overwhelmed by fear (and let's play you for a second and ask what factual evidence you have to support that, all I've heard simply suggest that he had a "worried soul", which is a burden all its own, but is not really fear/panic/whatever).

If so, "doing the one thing he truly loved to do" is a choice, no? And it's not a cowardly choice, nor is it a neutral choice, especially not the way he kept going ahead. LSD or no, fully realized or not, that's some all-in music exhibiting a determination to neither retreat from nor nor merely maintain the status quo. Choosing to retain a sense of normalcy (and where the LSD figures into normalcy, you tell me) is a pretty brave choice if you ask me.

You can have your own heroes, but to me, anybody that proceeds like that is a hero, and anybody who refuses to buckle under the pressure of a fear like that, especially so.

[Scott Dolan]

14 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Hold on now, if I read you right, you're claiming he was more or less overwhelmed by fear...

Rest assured, you could not be reading me anymore incorrectly. 

I don’t know, you don’t know. 

All I’m saying is that I think the observation made by mjzee does make a lot of sense. 

It’s also not a disparagement of Coltrane. He was human, with the same emotions, fears, and anxieties that have gripped humans since time began. 

[JSngry]

Yes, he was human, but a special human with special capacities and abilities. He's not my "favorite tenor player" (hell on any given day, he could be, but so could Fred Jackson). I totally feel the whole "heroic" thing with him, totally. Some people just get that about life, he was one of them. He's not the only one, but people talk about "what if Trane had lived" and I'm like, no, that a diversion, let's look at what he did while he did live, that's the lesson.

[Scott Dolan]

The problem with “what if he lived” is that I don’t know that he could take his music any further, unless he went the European Free Improvisation route. 

50 years later players are still doing what Coltrane was doing before some of them were even born. 

I fear there would have been a dilution of his catalog and overall legacy. 

[JSngry]

Exactly. I think he died right on schedule. Sorry if that sounds harsh, I don't mean it to. Culturally, it was a real gut punch from everything I hear, Everything. And like the man said, do you hear the voices you left behind? But that's a bit selfish, really, unless you're family and like, you need a father or a husband or some such. Then, yeah, that's devastating. Fortunately, Alice seems to have picked up and got those jobs done in an exemplary manner.

That's another reason he's a hero to me - he died on time. Most people don't, they either go what seems to be "too soon" or "too late" (arbitrary projection both, in my mind).

But the people who sense what they gotta do, do it, and then check out once it's done, not by self-infliction, but just by being in sync with their natural patterns...this is going to sound horrible, but it's a thing of beauty, reall, to watch an arc complete itself so fully, so totally.

[Scott Dolan]

I understand and concur with every word of that. 

[felser]

2 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Sigh, as someone who saw/heard him multiple times in the last 4 years of his life, and spoke to him (on the phone) while he was in the hospital....

This thread bothers me for some reason. Not sure why. 

Maybe because of the projections of what was going on in his mind and heart during the last 12-18 months of his life, when we don't really know.  

[paul secor]

2 minutes ago, felser said:

Maybe because of the projections of what was going on in his mind and heart during the last 12-18 months of his life, when we don't really know.  

Right.

[Scott Dolan]

None of which is disparaging. 

I didn't make my son's middle name Coltrane because I didn't think much of the man. 

[felser]

2 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

None of which is disparaging. 

I didn't make my son's middle name Coltrane because I didn't think much of the man. 

Understood.  No one except the initial quoted author has made any disparaging remarks, it's just that we don't know.   BTW, my first male cat was Mingus,  and our current cat is Aisha.

[mjzee]

12 hours ago, JSngry said:

Exactly. I think he died right on schedule. Sorry if that sounds harsh, I don't mean it to. Culturally, it was a real gut punch from everything I hear, Everything. And like the man said, do you hear the voices you left behind? But that's a bit selfish, really, unless you're family and like, you need a father or a husband or some such. Then, yeah, that's devastating. Fortunately, Alice seems to have picked up and got those jobs done in an exemplary manner.

That's another reason he's a hero to me - he died on time. Most people don't, they either go what seems to be "too soon" or "too late" (arbitrary projection both, in my mind).

But the people who sense what they gotta do, do it, and then check out once it's done, not by self-infliction, but just by being in sync with their natural patterns...this is going to sound horrible, but it's a thing of beauty, reall, to watch an arc complete itself so fully, so totally.

That's like saying "live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse."  That's great for dramatic affect: image, marketing, and leaving an impact, but...  Can we transpose this with the recent Sonny Rollins thread, and wonder whether Sonny (God-forbid) should have died after his Impulse contract ended...you know, "right on schedule?"  It might have kept a tighter focus on his achievements to that point, but we would have been bereft of all that great music on Milestone and in his concerts from the '70's onwards.  We simply can't know what Coltrane might have produced had he survived.  It might have been great, it might have been mediocre, it might have been somewhere in between...one thing that's guaranteed, it would have been older.  An older Coltrane might have had important value, much as an older Satchmo or Dylan have had.  Also, his music might have reverted to something more traditional.  I sometimes think, for some people, that was their real beef with Rollins's music from the 70's onwards: it was pretty, it was song-form, it was tuneful and melodic.  He wasn't trying to break new ground; he just wanted to play pretty for the people.  I think that rankled some core jazz listeners, who wanted more "political" statements.

[mjazzg]

1 hour ago, mjzee said:

That's another reason he's a hero to me - he died on time. Most people don't, they either go what seems to be "too soon" or "too late" (arbitrary projection both, in my mind)

Good to hear one of the greatest artists of twentieth century died to a timetable of which you approve, just culturally of course.  Heaven forbid he should have lived longer and disappointed you...

edit to add: above quote is actually of JSngry's text not mjzee. Apologies for error using quote function

Edited August 28, 2018 by mjazzg

[JSngry]

14 minutes ago, mjzee said:

That's like saying "live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse."  

No, it's saying "live your life like every day will be your last, if only because one of them will be!"

As for Sonny, I made a mixtape of 70s-and-beyond Sonny for a good buddy and titled it "Survival - Not Always The Best Career Strategy!"

2 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

Good to hear one of the greatest artists of twentieth century died to a timetable of which you approve, just culturally of course.  Heaven forbid he should have lived longer and disappointed you...

 

Hey, that was me that said that. And it's nothing I "approve" of, my god, what a silly notion. Just saying, it worked out in a way that happens for very few people.

[mjzee]

15 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

Good to hear one of the greatest artists of twentieth century died to a timetable of which you approve, just culturally of course.  Heaven forbid he should have lived longer and disappointed you...

 

Just to be clear, the "quote" function makes it seem that I said the quote beginning "That's another reason..."  Didn't come from me.

[mjazzg]

14 minutes ago, mjzee said:

Just to be clear, the "quote" function makes it seem that I said the quote beginning "That's another reason..."  Didn't come from me.

Yes, sorry mjzee. I'll see whether I can edit it so you're not misrepresented by my post. Those are JSngry's words.

That was my error for taking the quote from your quote of JSngry

Edited August 28, 2018 by mjazzg

[Teasing the Korean]

Late to the party.

I have listened to this a few times today - the one-disc, 47-minute version.  I have most or all of the classic Coltrane Quartet albums, and this seems like a very solid, if not exactly earth-shattering, addition to the catalog.  The 11-minute blues doesn't do much for me.  Was this a warm-up?  If you get rid of it, you end up with a 35- or 36-minute album, with two 18-minute sides, ideal for LP length.  

Very worthwhile.  

[Rooster_Ties]

On 8/28/2018 at 8:25 PM, Chuck Nessa said:

Sigh, as someone who saw/heard him multiple times in the last 4 years of his life, and spoke to him (on the phone) while he was in the hospital....

Had a hunch your call to/with Trane when he was in the hospital was maybe related to the two recordings of ASCENSION -- and a little searching confirmed it...

Thus spaketh Chuck here on this very board, nearly 17 years ago!

• "While working at the Jazz Record Mart, a customer asked to hear ASCENSION and I put it on the turntable. I noticed it was a different take than the one I knew. I grabbed the record and ran to the Down Beat office to see Don DeMichael. Don was the editor and a good friend. He'd heard nothing of the two takes and said "Lets call John". He placed the call, got the news Coltrane was in the hospital, and placed a call to JC there. We were both on the phone and mentioned the discovery. Coltrane said the change was at his request - he thought the others played better on the "new" take. I said I thought his solo was better on the other one and he said that didn't matter. After talking to Coltrane, DeMichael called Leroi Jones and told him of my discovery. Jones (then a regular DN columnist) asked for an exclusive, and he subsequently produced a story. "

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