Coltrane Stories
I’ve been reading the book Coltrane: The Story of a Sound by Ben Ratliff. Every few pages I’ve come across something that is said that just sets off light bulbs. This paragraph is one of them.
Coltrane started bringing new members into the band in 1965. The reception to this experiment had been chilly enough when he tried it with Eric Dolphy; this time his audience was even less forgiving, and as a result he undermined his own credibility. Most of his fans could go with his new music as long as band members of repute were playing it. With new members of less objectively measurable talent, some felt they were being conned.
Think about that. Musicians playing the same notes can be accepted differently depending on how much faith the audience has on the credibility of the musician playing them. Why is it we must have trust and faith, in where the musician might take us before we even hear the first note played? What does that say about the musician-listener relationship? I’m sure it’s why fans will go buy an album by their favorite artist the minute it is released without ever reading the first review. How does that trust get earned? Does a critic have to give us the OK before some of us are willing to take an artist seriously?
…at the Village Vanguard with Coltrane in 1966 [Ali]being asked by Coltrane in the club’s backroom before the gig what he thought about Frank Wright, the young free jazz tenor player. He knew that Ali and Wright were friends, and Wright, who had come to the club that night, had independently approached Coltrane about the possibility of sitting in with Coltrane’s band at the club. Ali reacted skeptically.
I said, “Aw, man, he ain’t playing shit.”
He looked at me. I said, “He ain’t playing shit.”
We go out on the bandstand, and the first thing he does is say [to Wright],
“Hey, man, come on up.”
In the dressing room after it was over, he said something I never forgot.
He said, “I don’t care what a cat plays. If you’re into music, there’ll
be something you hear [in that musician] that you might like.
One note, one sound, that you might like.”
Coltrane started bringing new members into the band in 1965. The reception to this experiment had been chilly enough when he tried it with Eric Dolphy; this time his audience was even less forgiving, and as a result he undermined his own credibility. Most of his fans could go with his new music as long as band members of repute were playing it. With new members of less objectively measurable talent, some felt they were being conned.
Think about that. Musicians playing the same notes can be accepted differently depending on how much faith the audience has on the credibility of the musician playing them. Why is it we must have trust and faith, in where the musician might take us before we even hear the first note played? What does that say about the musician-listener relationship? I’m sure it’s why fans will go buy an album by their favorite artist the minute it is released without ever reading the first review. How does that trust get earned? Does a critic have to give us the OK before some of us are willing to take an artist seriously?
…at the Village Vanguard with Coltrane in 1966 [Ali]being asked by Coltrane in the club’s backroom before the gig what he thought about Frank Wright, the young free jazz tenor player. He knew that Ali and Wright were friends, and Wright, who had come to the club that night, had independently approached Coltrane about the possibility of sitting in with Coltrane’s band at the club. Ali reacted skeptically.
I said, “Aw, man, he ain’t playing shit.”
He looked at me. I said, “He ain’t playing shit.”
We go out on the bandstand, and the first thing he does is say [to Wright],
“Hey, man, come on up.”
In the dressing room after it was over, he said something I never forgot.
He said, “I don’t care what a cat plays. If you’re into music, there’ll
be something you hear [in that musician] that you might like.
One note, one sound, that you might like.”
posted by jambander at
5:23 PM
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