John Coltrane, Prophet and Seer
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- Опубліковано 4 лис 2018
- This is the latest installment in a series of informal, unscripted videos featuring music historian Ted Gioia. In this video, Gioia talks about the legacy of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. For more information on Ted Gioia, visit his website at www.tedgioia.com or follow him on Twitter at / tedgioia .
John Coltrane and second wife, keyboardist / harpist Alice, were both attuned to ancient multi-traditional cosmic spirituality. After his untimely death she actively pursued the spiritual path with her music and otherwise....eg. she actually led an Ashram near Santa Monica for many years. Alice was an equally inspired composer and musician. In interviews she always spoke of John with deep love and awe! Some good clips of her are on UA-cam.
and their tradition lives on through their family like Ravi Coltrane and Flying Lotus!
Coltrane & Bach had a lot in common. Both were primarily focused on spirit and explored that through a profound dedication to music. Both had extraordinary discipline. Both created highly influential & innovative music and were unique.
To compare Coltrane to Bach is just plain silly .
Why?
Who influenced Bach?
This guy gets it.
@@leonardoiglesias2394so you’re saying Bach had no influences?.. 6:42 lol How silly, you’re definitely not a musician… and yes they are comparable…
I don't have faith in a higher power but I do have a lot of faith in humanity. The most spiritual experience I ever had was at the Church Of John Coltrane when it still existed in San Francisco in the 90s. Time stopped. Anyone was welcome to play along and participate. It was just respect and reverence for St John Coltrane. A very beautiful and humbling experience. It was also a time when San Francisco would accommodate something that special and unmarketable. Change is unfortunately the only constant....
I equate Coltrane to Picasso. Picasso was an accomplished artist before his Cubist period which most people know him by. He took familiar subjects, dissected them and put them back together in surprising and to many people, shocking ways. Those paintings produced a visual dissonance. Coltrane's musical legacy is legendary and early on fairly mainstream in it's acceptance. But then he chose to provide an musical dissonance, even to previously recorded tracks that many people couldn't digest. He was breaking boundaries of what music was supposed to sound like yet there was always an undertow of melody. You just had to weather the storm to see/hear/feel the redemption on the other side.
🎨🎶🌟 right on
Thanks, Ted. I just discovered you through Ric Beato's interview. I've been "ODing" on 'Trane's music for over 40 years and it's great to hear him being talked about in a broader, more universal way instead of an "intellectual, technical, music snob" way. Great stuff. 👍
Thank you. There's a great need to reevaluate Coltrane's life and values in these trying times.
Bert Wilson played with Trane and was deeply moved. Loving Coltrane was contagious. Bert wrote several cycle tunes similar to Giant Steps. Bert had the same personal style, pushing accepted boundaries, always striving . I miss him
Well said Ted, so true about Coltrane being ahead of his time. In his last recording, Expression, I feel he was reaching higher to another level, he started to add a vibrato to his tone, reminiscent of classical saxophone music, he was incorporating all the elements of music, improvisation, group improvisation, composition, continuing his pursuit of new sonic sounds on his saxophone, with harmonics, multiphonics, alltissimo. Many of the rock groups that came after Trane's passing started to take extended solos, "jamming" and I know they were infuenced by Trane, as I was out in the Bay Area in the early 1970's and he was a legend amongst the hippies as well as the jazz aficionados. He wasn't just a jazz saxophonist, although he is probably is the greatest of all time, but like you said, a spiritual influence for good, for world peace, harmony, love and you can feel this in his music, without knowing anything technically about music! He was fierce, strong, but at the same time gentle!
A Love Supreme is my favorite jazz album. There is much to admire about John Coltrane on both a musical level and personal level. Spiritual perfection and bringing joy to people through music were his ultimate goals and his life's work. Had he lived longer, Coltrane would have continued on his path of discovery and ultimate self-development. We are blessed to have his recordings to not only feel joy, but to also feel moved to spiritual enlightenment.
This is great, Ted! Just started watching your interview w Rick Beato. Really enjoy your perspective.
He is still ahead of his time today. thank you Ted.
Wonderful thoughts, Ted. Thank you. I first discovered you and your insights on Rick Beato's channel.
Thanks, again. Subscribed.
beautiful words on a beautiful man. great work as usual
I am jealous of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and so on. Because at least they were not lonely. It's really hard being a musician in this day and age. It was always hard, but now it's hard and lonely.
Goosebumps.
I just caught you on Rick Beato mate , and your insights had me in for the whole interview . Thank you for your knowledge .
I agree. Evan though I have drawn my stylistic inspiration from many other sources, his perseverance, and work ethic remain a guiding light for me.
If you could get him talking freely, Ben Riley used to allude to a conversation or conversations he had with John close to the end of his life about the formation of a “standards” quartet.
There's a fantastic video about John Coltrane's life that is narrated by Denzel Washington. Well worth watching for anybody wanting to learn about this colossal Giant of music. When he was in Japan he made a point of visiting a memorial to honor those who died from the hydrogen bombs that were dropped. I believe spiritually he was influenced by Buddhism and honoring the truth.
Hydrogen bombs were not dropped on Japan.
Sounds like Coltrane was trying to tell people "I'm dying" during his solos at the Temple University concert.
Agree. I find it unlistenable.
Absolutely spot on. He was a saint! Thanks for posting this, Ted.
At the Church of John Coltrane in San Francisco there were religious-type portraits of Saint John Coltrane. Sadly, don't think that church still exists. Lots of great clips on UA-cam though.
Totaly agree. For whatever my personal experience may matter, i was a convinced atheist in my teens, and it was my encounter with the music of Coltrane, that produced the first crack in that wall and put me on a spiritual search that eventually culminated with embracing Islam 10 years after.
Also hearing Elvin, made me knew i had to play drums, which i've been doing for the past 36 years...
Coltrane is my most beloved musician, a role model and a spiritual father.
great talk, perfectly summed up John Coltranes spirit and essence enough for me to discover him for myself.
Excellent thoughts on this most impressive of musicians, bravo!!!
Music is spirtually fullfilling, and your discussions are very satisfactory! Thank you very much.
I agree with this and have thought about this a lot myself. Coltrane is one of my heroes, a term that really shouldn't be used for anyone but someone like him.
Greatful I found uour channel
Thank You
The Indian musician and Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan talked and wrote extensively about music as a spiritual path long before John Coltrane. I wouldn't be surprised if some of Khan's books were among Coltrane's collection.
I think they definitely were, as in the back cover of the English edition of The Mysticism of Music there's a quote by W.A. Mathieu, a composer who studied Indian music who was a friend of Coltrane
I feel the same way about Paul Desmond’s music and the more I learned about Bach, the more I felt Desmond was the Bach of jazz. Listening to both always expanded my consciousness about beauty, creativity, and freedom. -Lucky to be alive when they came our way in time and place.
I have never been so moved by a musician than Coltrane. Nobody else had the ability to transmute emotional realitys using the vehicle of music. Naima comes to mind and also Alabama. It's like I can literally feel the collective sorrow of victims of the civil rights movement. I believe this was possible for Coltrane because of his own personal connection to the music which allowed him to portray that to others. It's more than music. He is playing life itself.
You made me think about Arthur C. Danto idea of pluralism in contemporary art: in music if someone can be named a real pluralist artist it is John Coltrane. Thank you for your thoughts about him.
I HAVE been warming up with Countdown changes every day for a couple years. it's the happiest chord progression, ever. so damned fun! saint coltrane, indeed! he left JOY in the world, in the form of notes and chords and magical horn tones and transcribable musical feelings...
I think Coltrane would have ended up in some mental institution like Buddy Bolden or Charlie Parker. That's what Elvin Jones (who was to the quartet what Ringo was to the Beatles, i.e. the anchor to reality) thought at the time he left, though he expressed himself not in such rough terms. When somebody tell you:"My next step is being a saint" what is left to be thinking of? I hadn't listened to the Temple concert before watching this video. And that proves Coltrane wasn't thinking in musical terms anymore, at least not all of the time.
Great explanation of what made him so special, thank you!
hi . greetings from rio the janeiro .thank you for your amazing insights. merry christmas everyone ☮️
You offer wonderful content. Thank you Sir!
such humanity to his sound and pure spirit of the music what a master. Ironic he loved thelonius so much I think of coltrane as a monk. A visionary for sure. The "universal scale "was certainly discovered by this man in his lifetime. You can hear it not to sound cliche but some concerts are almost experiences. Can't imagine the sensation of his sound in person would be bliss.
Mr. Gioia, I'm you're biggest Dutch fan. You should really consider to translate all you're books into Dutch.
Love this!
Excellent.
I enjoyed this very much, though it's very difficult to see such transfers, probably depending on your musical tastes to claim e.g. sainthood for Charlie Parker, Mingus, Bob Marley, etc. The one thing you can say for certain is that he could play the sax really well.
Im pausing this video
to listen to Giant Steps.
Brilliant Ted. Thank you 🙏 Perhaps Coltrane was ahead of his time because he was time-less; he transcended it. Also much appreciated your analysis and sharing of his driving values; he exemplified what I call VIP3-Values Inspire Purpose, Performance & Potential. Kudos.
I don't know of anything or anyone espousing that we should try to emulate the characteristics of "jazz musicians" . Their musical abilities and ideas of music, yes maybe but where do you feel somewhere that it has been said that we should try to "act like them"?
What I learned from Coltrane is this: No one is ahead of their time, but a lot of people are behind theirs. Sad but true.
exact
Fascinating. I tried to visit your web site. But, it’s unsecured. No https, where the s indicates security. For your information.
I can say A LOVE SUPREME was his way to say when I'm done i will go more into the spiritual side and find really myself there and i feel like that's why some people were SHOCK! Long live trane
Thanks for this.
I think you're great Ted
Yessir!!!
Jordan Peterson once said (and I paraphrase) it is the artist who supersedes the scientists, architects, and philosophers associated with every great advancement of humanity. Some call it being a prophet. I just call it being an artist.
What is it for an accent you have got Ted? Sounds to me that some of your sentences Sounds German! Is that true? Anyway Good video!
Great reminder !!
Do you like those last recordings?
< ! BEAUTIFULL¡>
Un genio
NIce video and essay.
We can only use our imaginations as to what direction he would have gone had he lived. Would he follow Miles into fusion territory? Classical? Funk? Metal? Production? Or maybe transcend the West entirely and retire to Nepal or Tibet? I'm sure he's well out of the galaxy by now on the Sun Ship dining with Sun Ra.
I agree!
An acute observation.
I have run across a few musicians who were difficult but successful. It’s a lot easier to be successful as a freelance musician if you are a really charming easy going person. If you are difficult you are have to be SO much better. So no, you don’t want to be difficult unless you are trane, miles or einstein.
🙏🏽💛
Exactly
Art vs Entertainment!
From everything I've read, the same thing goes for Eric Dolphy.
He hasn't aged well at all. It's total entropy.
nope
@@rinahall The only defence people offer for him and others like him is a conceptual one, everyone knows that as music it's unlistenable.
@@morkus26 I was responding to Robert Slagle. If I answered you, your name would be tagged in blue just before my comment. You don't know how to use the comment section of youtube?
Saint John! Love this.
John Coltrane once said, "I bow to no one except Edgard Varese".
source? You are a lier! Trane never said that!!!!!
source? You are a lier! Trane never said that!!!!!
source? You are a lier! Trane never said that!!!!!
Interesting.Frank Zappa was also an admirer of Varese.
@@michaelroach4219 this quote is false you idiot
AGREED!!!
well gee, its too bad humanity and the following generations seem to fall further away from caring a lick about intelligently depth music like his. Unless someone finds a clever plan to make it appealing to the masses once again, especially the youngsters. Today's music reflects and foretells the kind of world society we're headed towards and the kind of people that will be changing our diapers in the future? And will WE even make it that far in age knowing that the "left-brained" Cookie Cut Caveman music and mentality closes in on us that feel it urgent to address. This fascination about music and inspiring musicians may no longer exist because of simple-minded a-musement (or de-musement). Jazz in general, may no longer exist and the true meaning of "aesthetic" will be extinct. The powers that be do not want our children to think at this level! They lose money once people become wise enough to their game. Music is now fashion trend and about how to dress up. Funding for music and instruments have been discontinued in lower-class neighborhoods and those curious to learn are also discouraged by formal curriculum by the"formally" trained. Those who autodidactically by ear acquire and teach instrumental abilites are frowned upon and ridiculed for not being sheet music literate. Has anyone noticed? MUSIC ISN'T FOR EYES BUT FOR EARS, PROVIDED BY OUR SOULS.
But umm hey, what I meant to say was this and the "music crisis" are great videos!👍 THANKS
MR. GIOIA i thought i was alone on pointing out the culprits. You should do one about the Sinti Gypsies or Django Reinhardt. for them , MUSIC IS OFF LIMITS for the "left-minded" world.
I thought that artistic people were "left-brained."
@@michaelroach4219 logic is from the left. emotion in the right hemisphere. Right handed people mostly use the left hemisphere which is more than 90% of the human population.
@@7thson341 Do you have any proof for that?
@@michaelroach4219 if you research studies yourself, maybe you'll find the better answer.
@@7thson341 Too bad that you have such a condescending,superior attitude.
Coltrane, like many others, had to immerse himself in endless practice sessions to develop his ability. You cannot dismiss his use of heroin to overcome the boredom of repetition even though it is ultimately poisonous to creativity. In fact, Bop and modern jazz probably wouldn't exist without drugs.
Spoken like either an addict - or someone who has never used hard drugs...RIDICULOUS!
He said “Krishnamurti”
well put. and of course, st coltrane is not deified in the church of coltrane
Never let a “crisis” go to waste!
And If there’s no crisis there is a cadre of over educated, over thinkers
ready to create one!
What does that have to do with this video?
@@michaeljorfi2394 nothing lol my mistake. Was responding to the video “why you are ashamed of the music you like”
Actually this one is Gioia at his best. When he sticks to music history. However, he too often sets up straw men and gets lost in the weeds when he gets away from historical perspectives like this one.
@@JohnLnyc oh I see
John Coltrane was a very. talented and adventurous musician ...but a prophet ( of what ?) .and a seer ( of what ?) .... I have many Coltrane albums but the almost deification of Cotrane in recent years is becoming ridiculous. He rarely smiled in his photographs which gave the impassion of great seriousness but in actual fact he was embarrassed about his teeth which were slightly crooked .
You mentioned a year before Coltrane died he was visiting Japan, when a jazz critic asked him, "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" Then you mention Coltrane was dead two months later. How does that work? Your time-frames don't match up!
Who made you an expert on Jazz & I’m speaking for all the great Jazz musicians that played on The Avenue in Indianapolis.
In order for him to become a Saint, he would first have to become a Catholic.....
All Christians (of which I am not one, incidentally) believe in saints. A saint is simply a person who through death has ascended to Heaven to dwell with God in eternity. Roman Catholics stress the added benefit of a saint having the ability to intercede with God on behalf of humans still embodied on earth.
I do not agree in assessing Coltrane as a prophet. He was more of a constant searcher, never satisfied with what he found, ever looking for other possibilities. Constantly exploring. Digging deeper and deeper. But, his approach seemed to be more bottom-up. By crawling through the endless ocean of possibilities he finally reached new terrain after a while. This is the approach of an explorer, without fear moving on for the unknown. But without knowing where he will end.
On the other hand Miles was a prophet and a seer. Developing a clear vision where to go, destroying old habits at will and gathering young and hungry talents around him who will follow him on his path. So this approach is more top-down. Looking from above onto the world and defining new far out targets.
I'm not picking on Coltrane's exceptional importance for jazz in general and improvisers specificially. That's without a question the case.
And the quote "I want to be a saint." is the one from a man knowing about his death to come and not wanting to be be forgotten. Sorry, "I want to be a saint" is not humble at all.
The problem with Coltrane's post-Love Supreme music is that essentially he was praying, and not many people want to pay to go hear someone else pray. His path lead him out of jazz, so now what are we supposed to do with him? There were the people in San Francisco with the Church of John Coltrane, but unless you're willing to go in with them, John had nothing left for jazz fans. He clearly thought he had more important things to do.
i think he would have finished his career playing music in a temple or achram like his wife Alice
Very interesting comment.Sonny Rollins was supposed to have said that the Golden age of jazz ended when John Coltrane died.
His wife was his mentor...
We can learn from John Coltrane to stop fawing over "jazz" musicians. Don't be bamboozled by jazz "music". Don't let your friends chastise you for not being "sophisticated" enough to appreciate jazz.
For you to honor Coltrane is great; but for you to NOT mention upfront and as a major contribution to the world, that he was a GREAT COMPOSER when introducing him to your audience as a great saxophonist, is in my opinion, just plain ignorant (or lazy?). This is surprising and disappointing, given all the praise that you heap on him, without recognizing one the main reasons for his fame and huge influence on all jazz that followed him: his COMPOSITIONS, which are numerous and BRILLIANT, as are his recordings, that allow him to reach from the grave to inspire and teach. MUSIC that is... the rest is just CLICKBAIT.
wow man in almost 7mins you managed to say almost nothing i genuinely thought this was a shit post.
Oh…..religion again……..
He just went crazy. Spirituality is only religion. Nothing to do with music. Krishnamurti was in fashion then….a charlatan.
Alice Coltrane's Lps are much better than John's, yet rarely mentioned outside of Jazz circles.