Coltrane John - Beyond a love supreme: John Coltrane and the legacy of an album

Beyond A Love Supreme

John Coltrane and the Legacy of an Album

Tony Whyton

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Whyton, Tony.

Beyond A love supreme: John Coltrane and the legacy of an album / Tony Whyton.

p. cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-19-973323-1 (alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-19-973324-8 (alk. paper)

1. Coltrane, John, 19261967. Love supreme. 2. Coltrane, John, 19261967Criticism

and interpretation. 3. JazzHistory and criticism. I. Title.

ML419.C645W59 2013

788.7165092dc23 2012042053

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

For Fiona, George and Owen

Trane was... music beyond what we conceive music to be.

Readers who believe that records make themselves and that horn players are fed by ravens sent down from heaven, like the prophet Elijah, are advised to pick themselves a less earthbound music to admire. Jazz musicians are professionals. The prejudice against commercialism among a large section of the jazz public makes it necessary to repeat this obvious truth.

John was a Buddha and we were his disciples.

I had polio as a young person; that certainly was influential in personal ways but from the standpoint of a human being, developing as a man and as a human being, I really give it to Coltrane, because what that made me see was that there is more than meets the eye, beyond the surface, beyond what you see.

Considering the profound impact of Coltranes work on musicians, writers, and audiences alike, choosing to write a book about A Love Supreme was not an easy decision to make, and I had an early conversation with Coltrane authority Lewis Porter about the idea. In many ways, Lewiss comprehensive study of the life and work of Coltrane makes any subsequent writing appear insignificant, and yet his encouragement and support from the outset was crucial to the development of this studythank you, Lewis! I would also like to thank my colleagues at the University of Salford for providing me with a stimulating environment for interdisciplinary thinking. George McKay and members of the Salford Jazz Research Group need a special mention, as our regular gatherings and discussions helped to shape some of the themes and approaches within this study. The late David Sanjek was also a keen supporter of this project, providing me with a number of interesting sources and cross-disciplinary takes on Coltrane and the political hotbed of the 1960s. I am particularly grateful to Nicholas Gebhardt, whose enthusiasm for this project, creative ideas, and perspectives on American culture proved invaluable to me at every stage of the writing process.

Over the last few years, Ive been fortunate enough to have had informal conversations with distinguished writers and researchers who continue to write groundbreaking scholarship on jazz, including Paul Berliner, Lee Brown, Chuck Hersch, Michael Jarrett, Tom Perchard, Brian Priestley, Alyn Shipton, Alan Stanbridge, Catherine Tackley, and Walter van de Leur, to name but a feweach of these conversations helped to refine some of the ideas within this text. Since 2010, Ive also been fortunate to have been working with a distinguished group of European scholars as part of the Rhythm Changes: Jazz Cultures and European Identities project, which looks at the role of jazz within different European settings. The research team continually remind me of the need to treat music as a cross-disciplinary practice, and this ethos has certainly fed into the working methods for this study.

Some of the ideas for individual chapters were enhanced as a result of invitations to conferences and academic events. Therefore, I would like to thank Vincent Cotro for setting up the Coltrane Colloquium at the University of Tours in 2007; in many ways, the Tours event demonstrated the breadth of current Coltrane scholarship and helped reinforce the need for this book. Mine Dogantan-Dack deserves a special mention too, not only as a strong advocate of studies into recorded music but also as a supporter of my work over the past few years. I would also like to thank Bjorn Heile for inviting me to participate in the Watching Jazz Conference in Glasgow, and Louise Gibbs, who invited me to present a keynote at the Leeds International Jazz Conference, both in 2011. These conferences provided me with the opportunity to test ideas with different audiences and refine several of the themes that run throughout this study.

The late John Tchicai was incredibly generous with his time, as was Yashuiro Fujioka. I am indebted to friends and colleagues who provided resources, experiences, informal feedback, and snippets of information along the way. In particular, Jeremy Barham, Andrew Beck, Ben Bierman, Andrew Dubber, Krin Gabbard, Jonathan Goh, Russ Hepworth Sawyer, Nick Jones, Wolfram Knauer, Paul McIntyre, Dale Perkins, Tim Wall, and Robert Wilsmore. I would like to thank Suzanne Ryan for being so enthusiastic about this project from the start, and Adam Cohen, Erica Woods Tucker, and the team at Oxford University Press for their patience and professionalism. I would particularly like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers who offered valuable and constructive feedback at every stage of the publication process. Finally, Id like to thank my family for their continued support and encouragementin particular, Fiona, who maintains a perfect balance between fantastic wife and critical ally.

Beyond A Love Supreme

J azz recordings are powerful objects. The legacy of recorded jazz functions as the backbone of the musics history and shapes our understanding of the past. Historically, recordings were crucial to the spread of jazz culture, enabling the music to develop into a global phenomenon. Within the early decades of jazz history, entering the recording studio not only provided musicians with an opportunity to document their music for posterity but also encouraged new ways of working and perceiving performance practice. This balance between viewing recordings as a form of historical documentation (capturing music as it would have sounded) and understanding recording as a creative medium (developing sounds that are unique to the studio) points to potential frictions that emerge when jazz is placed on record. Jed Rasula, for example, describes jazz records as a seductive menace; they are oxymoronic in that they are, on the one hand, essential to our understanding of the past and, on the other hand, problematic, in that they offer a limited take on the historical process.