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Coltrane in the Temple

The final period of John Coltrane’s career is the great unresolved topic of jazz, and the arguments over its meaning and value will probably never cease. How could someone who in 1964 had reached the plateau of apparent artistic perfection represented by Crescent and A Love Supreme then make such a radical transition into the area of turbulence and uncertainty that he occupied in the period until his death in 1967, and which is embodied in a new two-CD set titled Offering: Live at Temple University?

I suppose the answer is that Crescent and A Love Supreme did not represent a plateau at all. That was just an illusion created by the fact that Coltrane went into a recording studio on those particular days, laid down the music on which he had been working, and then saw the results released by his record company, subsequently to be reviewed by critics, bought by his fans, and slotted neatly into a narrative of one man’s artistic evolution. The jazz public, particularly in Europe, has always seen the history of jazz as a progression from one recorded artefact to another; that is not, in general, how the musicians experience it. Whereas we think of A Love Supreme as one of the great music’s pillars, to Coltrane it may have been nothing more than a milestone that had already disappeared from his rear-view mirror by the time of its appearance in the record stores.

Offering is a complete and official release of a 1966 concert previously available only in partial and bootleg form. The combined production staff of Impulse Records, Coltrane’s label at the time, and Resonance Records, who specialise in unearthing previously hidden gems, have restored the tapes originally made by WRTI-FM, the radio station at Temple University in Philadelphia, during an event that was by all accounts poorly attended and received a mixed response from those who did turn up. Ashley Kahn tells the fascinating story in his sensitive and erudite sleeve note, piecing together the details of an evening on which three members of Coltrane’s regular band — Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane and Rashied Ali — were joined by Sonny Johnson, depping for Jimmy Garrison. More significantly, the leader was happy to welcome a platoon of auxiliary percussionists (Robert Kenyatta, Algie DeWitt, Umar Ali and perhaps others) and to give space to solos by a couple of spirited young alto saxophonists, Steve Knoblauch and Arnold Joyner, whose impromptu appearances that evening represent the only mark they made on jazz history. 

Indistinct as the sound of the rhythm section might still be on the restored recording, the acoustic effect is probably very much as the audience experienced it that night. More important, the solo voices come through with great clarity, and none to better effect than that of Coltrane, whose tenor improvisations on the long, free-associative versions of “Naima” and “Crescent”, which constitute the first of the two discs, are strong in tone, wonderfully poised and — as Kahn points out — dense with closely argued motivic development. The title track is one of his lovely prayer-ballads. But during “Leo”, on which he is heard on soprano, tenor and flute, and on the closing “My Favourite Things”, he also uses his voice, chanting and apparently thumping his chest in an attempt to produce the sound he was after: trying to get closer, it seems, to speaking in tongues.

We know that he was strongly influenced by the music of Albert Ayler, who used his saxophone as a tool with which to attain spiritual transcendence. It has often been said, too, that the use of LSD was a factor in the creative decisions underlying Coltrane’s final years. Had he lived beyond his 41st year, he might one day have sat down and explained his thinking in detail. Since that won’t happen, we’re left to work it out for ourselves. Offering can’t answer all the questions, but it’s a big chunk of priceless evidence. And it contains some incontestably majestic saxophone-playing.

* The photograph is a cropped version of one that appears in the booklet with Offering: Live at Temple University (Impulse/Resonance), where it appears by courtesy of the University of California’s Special Collections and Archives and the Frank Kofsky Archives.

Postscript: A benefit for Kenny Wheeler

The concert organised for the benefit of Kenny Wheeler in East London on Friday night ended with an astonishing set from the Reuben Fowler Big Band. The 22-strong outfit played three of Wheeler’s compositions — “The Jigsaw”, “Sea Lady” and The 2005 Suite — and mastered their complexities with a verve and precision that would have delighted the composer, had his health permitted his attendance at the old Dalston Odeon cinema, now known as Epic.

Fowler, only 24 years old, left his trumpet in its case on this occasion but proved to be an adept conductor, exerting a degree of control that allowed the music to breathe. He began his musical life in brass bands in his native Yorkshire, which may be why he responded at an early age to Wheeler’s music, with its love of brass sonorities (here articulated by five trumpeters, all doubling flugelhorn, and four trombones). 

Wheeler’s role was played successively by Steve Fishwick, Martin Shaw and George Hogg, all of whom performed with distinction, as did Brigitte Beraha, singing the parts originally written for Norma Winstone. Evan Parker’s soprano saxophone introduction to “Sea Lady” was even more striking than on its original appearance as part of Wheeler’s 1990 ECM album, Music for Large & Small Ensembles. The suite, written by Kenny for his 75th birthday tour and originally featuring Lee Konitz, has never been recorded; that oversight should be rectified as soon as possible, preferably with the musicians who did it such justice on Friday.

The evening also included a remarkable set by the Alison Blunt Ensemble, in which the violinist led her dozen musicians — all strings, with the exception of Mark Sanders on drums and Neil Metcalfe on flute — produced striking interpretations of some of Wheeler’s compositions, with the benefit of a mere hour’s rehearsal but much empathy and spirit. 

A lot of people had taken considerable trouble to make this a memorable event, not least Parker, the principal organiser, and Blanca Regina, whose projections on a side wall provided a constant reminder of the evening’s subject. All the money raised will go towards defraying the costs of health care for Kenny and his wife, Doreen. When I wrote a piece on this blog in advance of the concert, some readers abroad asked how they could make a contribution. There is now a PayPal account for that purpose; its email address is friendsofkennywheeler@gmail.com. Go to http://www.paypal.com and click on “Send Money”.

A benefit for Kenny Wheeler

Few important musicians have made more noise with less fuss than the trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer and bandleader Kenny Wheeler. A vital figure on the British scene since his arrival in London from his native Canada in 1952 at the age of 22, he emerged from early employment with dance bands to create a reputation that flourished despite a temperament for which such words as “modest” and “retiring” seem entirely inadequate.

Kenny is a musician of immense range. I’ve been listening to some of his early work lately, with the saxophone-playing racing driver Buddy Featherstonhaugh’s excellent pianoless quintet of 1956, which recorded a couple of EPs for Pye, and also to his classic ECM album of 1997, Angel Song, with a fabulous quartet completed by Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell and Dave Holland. In between he contributed to any number of great records, among which I particularly cherish two classics of the early British avant-garde, as nurtured at the Little Theatre Club: the Spontaneous Music Ensemble’s Karyobin (Island, 1968) and Tony Oxley’s The Baptised Traveller (CBS, 1969). 

Problems with his own and his wife’s health have meant that, at the age of 84, Kenny has been unable to play for some months. For his benefit, his old friend and colleague Evan Parker has organised a concert tomorrow night — Friday, August 15 — at a place called Epic, 13-15 Stoke Newington Road, London N16 8BH (admission £12-£10). A stone’s throw from the Vortex and Cafe Oto, the gig will feature the altoist Ray Warleigh’s quartet, a group with Parker, Steve Beresford, Olie Brice and Mark Sanders, the Alison Blunt Ensemble (including the violinists Dylan Bates and Phil Wachsmann), and Reuben Fowler’s big band playing some of Kenny’s charts.

Kenny won’t be playing, but John Coxon of Spring Heel Jack — with whom he also recorded to great effect — will be at the turntable between the sets, playing some of his records and reminding us of his audacious imagination, as well as the purity of tone and elegance of articulation that put him alongside Booker Little in a line of trumpeters stretching from Joe Wilder to Ambrose Akinmusire. 

* The photograph of Kenny Wheeler was taken by W. Patrick Hinely (Work/Play) for the booklet accompanying Angel Song (ECM 1607).

Rubén Blades: time and tango

Rubén Blades is one of the most interesting survivors of the salsa explosion of the 1970s. Born in Panama City in 1948, the son of a Cuban mother and a Colombian father, he moved to New York in his mid-twenties, joining Jerry Masucci’s stable of emerging stars at Fania Records, he had started work in the classic manner, with a job in the company’s mail room.

Barely on the radar at the time I was trying to get a British audience interested in salsa via a couple of Island compilations of Fania material in the mid-’70s, he would soon be enjoying success via collaborations with Larry Harlow, Ray Barretto and Willie Colón, and through regular appearances with the the hugely popular Fania All-Stars. His song “El Cantante”, recorded by the brilliant but ill-fated Hector Lavoe, became a massive hit, and his 1978 album with Colón, Siembra, was for a while the most successful album in the history of salsa, said to have sold 25 million copies.

With a great-uncle who had fought against Spain in Cuba’s war of liberation, Blades’ compositions often displayed a strong political consciousness. In 1984 the A&R people at Elektra Records saw his potential to reach a wider audience. Soon after moving from Fania to his new home he recorded Escenas, with a new band called Seis del Solar, winning a Grammy for best Latin album. There was another one in 1988 for Antecedente, one my favourite albums of that decade.

While making these records he followed up his law degree from the University of Panama with a masters from Harvard. He also pursued an acting career, appearing in Robert Redford’s The Milagro Beanfield War, Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues, and several other films. In 1994 he stood for the presidency of Panama, winning 18 per cent of the vote, and 10 years later he served a term as the country’s minister of tourism.

But he never stopped making music, and now he has released a new album, which sees him exploring the music of one of the countries of Latin American with which he does not, so far as I know, have ties of blood. Tangos consists of well known Blades songs recast in the Argentinian idiom by the arranger and conductor Carlos Franzetti, using a variety of means: a group of four bandoneon players accompanied by a string orchestra, a classic tango nuevo quintet (à la Astor Piazzolla), and the City of Prague Symphony Orchestra. 

Familiar pieces such as “Juana Mayo”, “Pablo Pueblo” and “Pedro Navaja” fit perfectly into this new format. “Perhaps these tunes were always tangos,” Franzetti remarks in his brief sleeve note. In some cases, like gorgeous opening “Paula C” and closing “Tiempos”, they gain in drama from the elegant orchestrations, which inspire Blades to a series of exceptional vocal performances, his tone and phrasing beautifully controlled. Almost 80 years after the great Carlos Gardel died in an air crash in Medellín, Rubén Blades unexpectedly presents himself as a thoroughly credible heir.

* The photograph of Rubén Blades is taken from the cover of Tangos and was taken by Vincent Soyez.

Charlie Haden 1937-2014

The night before Barack Obama’s first US presidential election, back in November 2008, Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra opened a week’s residency at the Blue Note on West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village. It was 40 years since the ensemble had begun its mission of performing politically conscious music, and before the first set began Charlie told the audience about a remark made by Joe Daley, the band’s long-serving tuba player, in the dressing room while they were readying themselves. “If Obama gets elected,” Daley asked Haden, “can we call it a day?”

Everyone laughed, not least the band. And when I went back the following night, with Obama’s success assured, the set was infused with a special sense of joy. But there was no question of calling it a day. Six months later most of them were in London, chosen by Ornette Coleman to appear during the Meltdown festival at the Festival Hall, where their numbers were rounded out by Jason Yarde (alto), Andy Grappy (tuba), the incandescent young Shabaka Hutchings (tenor) and Robert Wyatt, who sang Silvio Rodriguez’s “Rabo de Nube” and played cornet on a spellbinding version of Haden’s “Song for Che”, first heard on the band’s self-titled debut album, which is one of the great classics of large-ensemble jazz (or any kind of jazz, for that matter). 

Both in New York and London they concentrated on material from what I guess will turn out to be their final album, 2005’s Not in Our Name, with which they brought their protests home in pieces like Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays and David Bowie’s “This Is Not America”, Ornette’s “Skies of America”, a sardonic treatment of “America the Beautiful”, a wonderful recasting of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for strings, and Bill Frisell’s “Throughout”, which at the Blue Note featured the tenors of Chris Cheek and the amazing Tony Malaby. As ever, the music was arranged by Carla Bley.

Charlie Haden died on Friday, aged 76. For more than 50 years he was one of the most important musical figures in my life, ever since I first clapped eyes on him as the skinny white kid over on the right hand side of the Lee Friedlander’s photograph on the cover of Ornette’s This Is Our Music. It’s still probably the coolest picture of a group of musicians ever taken, but there was much more it than that. I loved his sound on the double bass, which was dark without being heavy, the resolute economy (probably no great modern bassist played fewer notes) that sometimes gave way to dark strummed solos, and the way he seemed to be able to follow the improvisations of Ornette and Don Cherry so closely despite the absence of formal guidelines. (If you want to know how that happened, read Ethan Iverson’s fascinating 2008 interview with Haden here.)

Mostly, however, it was the sheer weight of emotion he conveyed in every note he played and in everything played by any band he led or with whom he performed. The Atlantic recordings of Ornette’s 1959-60 quartet are up there with Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Sevens and Parker’s Dials and Savoys, of course. But I also loved the way his Quartet West delved into the noir moods of post-war Los Angeles (particularly on Haunted Heart in 1991 and Always Say Goodbye in 1993), his collaborations with pianists such as Paul Bley, Hampton Hawes, Hank Jones, Chris Anderson, Kenny Barron and Keith Jarrett (notably on the recently released Last Dance), and the albums by Old and New Dreams in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

And, of course, there are the Liberation Music Orchestra’s five albums, four made in the studio and one live, essential documents reflecting current and historical liberation struggles in Spain, Central and South America, South Africa, Portugal and its colonies Mozambique, Angola and Guinea, and elsewhere. Here were the songs and hymns of the International Brigade, the Sandinistas, the MPLA, the ANC: this was music that mattered, its attention firmly fixed a greater scheme of things. It was an attitude that got Haden arrested by the Portuguese secret police while on tour with Coleman in 1971.

He was unique, absolutely, but he was also completely emblematic of the very best of America’s musical gift to the world. Born in Shenandoah, Iowa, he spent much of his childhood singing country and folk songs with the Haden Family Band, a background he revisited six years ago in Ramblin’ Boy, a well received album that featured his son, Josh, who leads the band Spain, his triplet daughters, Rachel, Petra and Tanya (whose own bluegrass album appeared a few months ago), and many other guests, including Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas and Bruce Hornsby. From those beginnings he made his way to the leading edge of jazz at a very early age.

He had a wonderful life and a marvellous career, despite health problems that began with childhood polio, and he left so much for us to enjoy and to contemplate. I suppose if any single performance sums him up, it must be his playing on Ornette’s “Ramblin'”, recorded in October 1959 and released the following year on Change of the Century. Haden had just turned 22, and no one had heard anything like this before: the daring combination of harmonically free 4/4 walking and a powerful strumming that seemed to carry the echoes of all sorts of folk music. That combination of sophistication and deep soulfulness turned out to be typical. Thanks, Charlie, for all of it.