Showing posts with label Alice Coltrane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alice Coltrane. Show all posts

Sunday, February 12, 2023

John Coltrane - Live at the Village Vanguard And Live At The Village Vanguard Again!

Album: Live at the Village Vanguard

Styles: Hard Bop, Avant-Garde Jazz
Year: 1966
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 36:37
Size: 84,0 MB
Art: Front

(13:48) 1. Spiritual
( 6:40) 2. Softly as in a Morning Sunrise
(16:09) 3. Chasin' the Trane

Review: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltrane_%22Live%22_at_the_Village_Vanguard

Personnel: John Coltrane — soprano and tenor saxophone; Eric Dolphy — bass clarinet on "Spiritual"; McCoy Tyner — piano on side one; Reggie Workman — bass on side one; Jimmy Garrison — bass on side two; Elvin Jones — drums

Live at the Village Vanguard

Album: Live At The Village Vanguard Again!

Styles: Hard Bop, Avant-Garde Jazz
Year: 1966
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 41:41
Size: 97,1 MB
Art: Front

(15:11) 1. Naima
( 6:08) 2. Introduction To My Favorite Things
(20:21) 3. My Favorite Things

Live at the Village Vanguard Again! is one of the more hotly contested albums in John Coltrane's catalog. Released less than a year before his death, the original recording showcased his new quintet with Alice Coltrane, piano; Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophone; Jimmy Garrison, bass; and Rashied Ali, drums. Additional percussion on the date was provided by Emanuel Rahim. The three selections here are what survive from a much longer tape. Coltrane's signature ballad "Naima" opens the album and goes on for over 15 minutes.

One of the most iconic tunes in his repertoire, the treatment it is given here is radical. While the melody is referenced in the beginning, Coltrane moves it aside fairly quickly to concentrate on improvisation. His tenor solo (heard in the left channel) begins in earnest a minute-and-a-half in. He gradually deconstructs the various phrases in the lyric to blow passionately through them. By the time Sanders begins his (overly long) tenor solo (right channel), the abstraction becomes total. His intensity and ferocity are simply more than the ballad calls for. Even when Coltrane returns to solo again, and gradually winds it down, he has to begin at that hot peak. "Naima" is a different tune when all is said and done. "My Favorite Things" is in two parts. The first six minutes belong to a gorgeous, imaginative solo by Garrison.

The tune's familiar theme is not stated by Coltrane until after the mode is introduced; then bits and pieces of the melody are brought in until they become however briefly the whole head line. It disappears quickly even though referenced occasionally throughout Coltrane's solos. His soprano solos are intense but utterly beautiful. His playing is pure passion and creative imagination, ever aware of the shimmering block chords played by Alice.

Ali skitters propulsively around them, driving insistently until he's allowed to let loose when Sanders and his tenor begin their violent wail that simply disregards the entire tune save for one quote near the end to bring Coltrane back in. Sanders screams through his horn throughout his solo, and when Coltrane rejoins him, it's to meet him and try to rein him in; it leaves the listener exhausted after its 25-minute run. Live at the Village Vanguard Again! is certainly not for Coltrane newcomers, and may indeed only hold value for his most ardent followers despite its many qualities.By Thom Jurek
https://www.allmusic.com/album/live-at-the-village-vanguard-again%21-mw0000652602

Personnel: John Coltrane – soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, flute; Pharoah Sanders – tenor saxophone, flute; Alice Coltrane – piano; Jimmy Garrison – bass; Rashied Ali – drums; Emanuel Rahim – percussion

Live At The Village Vanguard Again!

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Roland Kirk - Left & Right

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1968
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:55
Size: 101,2 MB
Art: Front

( 1:18)  1. Black Mystery Has Been Revealed
(19:36)  2. Expansions
( 3:48)  3. Lady's Blues
( 3:41)  4. I X Love
( 3:24)  5. Hot Cha
( 4:13)  6. Quintessence
( 2:54)  7. I Waited For You
( 3:57)  8. A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing

The title of this album, Left and Right, no doubt refers to the sides of Rahsaan Roland Kirk's brain, which were both heavily taxed in the composing, arranging, conducting, and playing of this recording. For starters, the band is huge 17 players plus a 16-piece string section, all of it arranged and conducted by Kirk, a blind man. None of this would matter a damn if this weren't such a badass platter. Along with Kirk's usual crew of Ron Burton, Julius Watkins, Dick Griffin, Jimmy Hopps, and Gerald Brown, there are luminaries in the crowd including Alice Coltrane on harp, Pepper Adams on baritone saxophone, and no less than Roy Haynes helping out on the skins. What it all means is this: The man who surprised and outraged everybody on the scene as well as blew most away was at it again here in "Expansions," his wildly ambitious and swinging post-Coltrane suite, which has "Black Mystery Has Been Revealed" as its prelude. While there are other tracks on this record, this suite is its centerpiece and masterpiece despite killer readings of Billy Strayhorn's "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing" and "Quintessence." "Expansions" has Kirk putting his entire harmonic range on display, and all of the timbral extensions he used in his own playing are charted for a string section to articulate. There are subtleties, of course, which come off as merely tonal variations in extant harmony with the other instruments, but when they are juxtaposed against a portrayal of the entire history of jazz from Jelly Roll Morton to the present day then they become something else: the storytellers, the timbres, and the chromatic extensions that point in the right direction and get listeners to stop in the right places. This is an extreme for Rahsaan  extremely brilliant and thoroughly accessible. ~ Thom Jurek https://www.allmusic.com/album/left-right-mw0000661555

Personnel: Roland Kirk: tenor saxophone, manzello, stritch, clarinet, flute, organ, narration, thumb piano, celesta; Jim Buffington, Julius Watkins: french horn; Frank Wess: woodwinds;   Richard Williams: trumpet;   Dick Griffith, Benny Powell: trombone;   Daniel Jones: basoon;  Pepper Adams: baritone saxophone;  Alice Coltrane: harp;   Ron Burton: piano;  Vernon Martin: bass;  Roy Haynes: drums;  Jimmy Hopps: drums;  Warren Smith: percussion, vocals;  Gerald "Sonny" Brown: percussion;  Gil Fuller: arranger

Left & Right

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Joe Henderson - The Elements

Styles: Saxophone And Flute Jazz
Year: 1974
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 41:52
Size: 97,0 MB
Art: Front

(11:07)  1. Fire
( 9:58)  2. Air
( 7:32)  3. Water
(13:13)  4. Earth

This is one of the odder Joe Henderson recordings. The four lengthy selections not only feature the great tenor-saxophonist but the piano and harp of Alice Coltrane (during one of her rare appearances as a sideman), violinist Michael White, bassist Charlie Haden, percussionist Kenneth Nash and Baba Duru Oshun on tablas. The somewhat spiritual nature of the music (Henderson's compositions are titled "Fire," "Air," "Water" and "Earth") and the presence of Alice Coltrane makes these Eastern-flavored performances rather unique if not all that essential: an early example of world music in jazz. This recording has been reissued as part of Henderson's eight-CD Milestone box set. ~ Scott Yanow https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-elements-mw0000087334 

Personnel:  Joe Henderson - tenor sax, flute, alto flute;  Alice Coltrane - piano, harp, Tambura, harmonium;  Charlie Haden - bass;  Leon "Ndugu" Chancler - drums (1, 4);  Kenneth Nash - narrator (4), flute (3), congas, North African Sakara Drum, bells, gong, percussion;  Baba Duru Oshun - percussion, Tabla;  Michael White - violin

The Elements

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Alice Coltrane - Lord of Lords

Styles: Harp And Piano Jazz
Year: 1973
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:18
Size: 97,9 MB
Art: Front

( 9:04)  1. Andromeda's Suffering
( 6:11)  2. Sri Rama Ohnedaruth
( 5:45)  3. Excerpts from the Firebird
(11:17)  4. Lord of Lords
( 9:59)  5. Going Home

Lord of Lords, released in 1973, was Alice Coltrane's final album for Impulse! It was the final part of a trilogy that began with Universal Consciousness and continued with the expansive World Galaxy. Like its immediate predecessors, the album features a 16-piece string orchestra that Coltrane arranged and conducted, fronted by a trio in which she plays piano, Wurlitzer organ, harp, and timpani with bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ben Riley. Riley was familiar with the setting because he had been part of the sessions for World Galaxy. The first two pieces, "Andromeda's Suffering" and "Sri Rama Ohnedaruth" (titled after the spiritual name for her late husband, John Coltrane), are, in essence, classical works. There is little improvisation except on the piano underneath the wall of strings. They are scored for large tone clusters and minor-key drone effects, but also engage in creating timbral overtones. They are quite beautiful, yet have little or nothing to do with jazz except for the seemingly free passages toward the end of the latter track, but even these feel scored, because of the control of tension and dynamic. "Excerpts from The Firebird," which uses the organ to open the piece, features the strings playing almost (because with Alice Coltrane, she interpreted in her own way) directly from Igor Stravinsky's score. The droning organ is so gorgeous underneath those reaching strings that it's breathtaking. As to why she chose this piece as the centerpiece for her own album, she claimed that Stravinsky came to her in a vision and passed something on to her in a glass vial, a liquid that she drank!

Riley and Haden appear in earnest on the title track, a long modal piece where drones, rhythms, and time signatures are registered through the direction of Coltrane's piano and harp, creating a blissful kind of tension and dynamic. It cracks open at about six minutes, and Coltrane (on the organ), Haden, and Riley engage in some lively improvisation, with the strings offering trilling high-end swooping in the background. The set ends with Coltrane's transformation of a gospel hymn called "Going Home." Her harp introduces Riley's brushes and the strings, which in turn offer a root chord for her to play the melody and improvise upon it on the organ. Here the blues make their presence known. It offers a kind of understanding for the listener that Coltrane, no matter where this musical direction was headed (even as it went further toward the Cosmic Music she and her late husband envisioned together), continued to understand perfectly where her musical root was. The interplay between the three principals is lively and engaging, based on droning blues chords, and her soloing even amid flurries of notes comes right back to the root, and she quotes quite directly from Delta blues riffs and other gospel songs. Haden's bass is a beautiful anchor here (although mixed a bit low), and the strings offer a lovely response to her organ and harp. Riley's cymbals are shimmering shards of light throughout, ending Lord of Lords on a very high note. While it's true that Alice Coltrane's later Impulse! music may not be for everyone, even those who followed her earlier, more jazz-oriented recordings on Impulse!, it was obvious from the beginning that she was seeking to incorporate Indian classical music's drone center into her work, and was literally obsessed with the timbral, chromatic, and harmonic possibilities of strings. She succeeds here, in ending her Impulse! period with elegance, grace, and soul. ~ Thom Jurek http://www.allmusic.com/album/lord-of-lords-mw0000470434

Personnel:  Alice Coltrane : harp, piano, organ, tympani, percussion;  Charlie Haden : bass;  Ben Riley : drums, percussion

String Orchestra - Murray Adler (concertmaster), Nathan Kaproff, Lou Klass, William Henderson, Ronald Folsom, Leonard Malarsky, Gordon Marron, Janice Gower, Gerald Vinci, Sidney Sharp, James Getzoff and Bernard Kundell : violins; Myra Kestenbaum, Rollice Dale, Leonard Selic, David Schwartz, Samuel Boghosian and Marilyn Baker : violas; Jesse Ehrlich, Jerry Kessler, Jan Kelly, Anne Goodman, Edgar Lustgarten, Ray Kelley and Raphael Kramer : cellos

Lord of Lords

Monday, January 23, 2017

Alice Coltrane - Eternity

Styles: Piano Jazz
Year: 1976
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 36:38
Size: 84,2 MB
Art: Front

( 2:58)  1. Spiritual Eternal
( 3:09)  2. Wisdom Eye
(11:25)  3. Los Caballos
( 9:40)  4. Om Supreme
( 3:25)  5. Morning Worship
( 5:59)  6. Spring Sounds from Rite of Spring

Within the first 30 seconds of "Spiritual Eternal," the opening track on Alice Coltrane's final studio album, Eternity, the listener encounters the complete palette of Alice Coltrane's musical thought. As her organ careens through a series of arpeggiated modal drones, they appear seemingly rootless, hanging out in the cosmic eternal. And they remain there ever so briefly until an entire orchestra chimes in behind her in a straight blues waltz that places her wondrously jagged soloing within the context of a universal everything  at least musically in that she moves through jazz, Indian music, blues, 12-tone music, and the R&B of Ray Charles. This is the historical and spiritual context Alice Coltrane made her own, the ability to open up her own sonic vocabulary and seamlessly enter it into an ensemble context for an untold, unpredictable expression of harmonic convergence. While many other players have picked up on it since, Coltrane's gorgeous arrangements and canny musical juxtapositions never seem forced or pushed beyond the margins. Perhaps, as evidenced by "Wisdom Eye," "Om Supreme," and the "Loka" suite, it's because Coltrane already dwells on the fringes both musically and spiritually, where boundaries dissolve and where everything is already inseparable. But this does not keep her music from being strikingly, even stunningly beautiful check out the killer Afro-Cuban percussion under her soloing on "Los Caballaos," which is rooted in a harmonically complex, diatonic series of whole tones. In numerous settings from orchestra to trio, Ms. Coltrane finds the unspeakable and plays it. Nowhere is this more evident than in "Spring Rounds" from Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," which closes the album. Her faithfulness to the material with a complete orchestra under her control is one of shimmering transcendence that places the composer's work firmly in the context of avant-jazz. Her control over the orchestra is masterful, and her reading of the section's nuances and subtleties rivals virtually everyone who's ever recorded it. Eternity is ultimately about the universality of tonal language and its complex expressions. It is an enduring recording that was far ahead of its time in 1976 and is only now getting the recognition it deserves. ~ Thom Jurek http://www.allmusic.com/album/eternity-mw0000217533

Personnel : Organ, Timpani, Cymbal – Alice Coltrane;  Bass - Charlie Haden;  Bass, Percussion [Drum], Gong – Ben Riley;  Bassoon – Don Christlieb, Jack Marsh;  Cello – Anne Goodman, Jackie Lustgarten, Ray Kelley;  Clarinet – Jackie Kelso, Terry Harrington;  Clarinet [Bass] – Julian Spear;  Contrabassoon – Jo Ann Caldwell;  English Horn – Ernie Watts;  Flute – Fred Jackson, Hubert Laws;  Flute [Alto] – Jerome Richardson;  French Horn – Alan Robinson, Art Maebe, Marylin Robinson, Vince De Rosa;  Oboe – Gene Cipriano, John Ellis;  Piccolo Flute – Louise Di Tullio;  Trombone – Charlie Loper, George Bohanon Trumpet – Oscar Brashear, Paul Hubinon;  Tuba – Tommy Johnson;  Viola – Mike Nowack, Pamela Goldsmith, Rollice Dale;  Violin – Gordon Marron, Murray Adler, Nathan Kaproff, Polly Sweeney, Sid Sharp, Bill Kurasch

Eternity

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Alice Coltrane - A Monastic Trio

Styles: Harp And Piano Jazz
Year: 1968
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 57:15
Size: 131,5 MB
Art: Front

(7:34)  1. Lord, Help Me to Be (bonus track)
(4:04)  2. The Sun (bonus track)
(7:53)  3. Ohnedaruth
(6:48)  4. Gospel Trane
(6:46)  5. I Want To See You
(6:55)  6. Lovely Sky Boat
(4:21)  7. Oceanic Beloved
(5:56)  8. Atomic Peace
(6:55)  9. Altruvista (previously unreleased bonus track)

Alice Coltrane's 1968 solo debut on Impulse still stands tall in the artist's excellent discography. Coltrane had already gained a considerable education playing in the band of her late husband John during one of his boldest and most exploratory periods. The searching quality underpinning the saxophonist's last albums is also present on A Monastic Trio, as are the Eastern modalities and the balance between density and expansiveness often associated with Trane.  But to consider Coltrane's debut a mere offshoot of her late husband's inventions is to do her a great disservice. Coltrane distinguishes herself as a composer (all the tunes on the album are hers), and as an instrumentalist (her harp playing, in particular, is noteworthy). A Monastic Trio also benefits from a superb personnel list, including Rashied Ali on drums, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and the irrepressible Pharoah Sanders on saxophone, flute, and bass clarinet. This recording remains one of the landmark debuts in avant-garde jazz. ~ Rovi Staff http://www.allmusic.com/album/a-monastic-trio-mw0000601109

Personnel: Alice Coltrane (harp, piano); John Coltrane (spoken vocals); Pharoah Sanders (tenor saxophone, flute, bass clarinet); Jimmy Garrison (bass); Ben Riley, Rashied Ali (drums).

A Monastic Trio