John Coltrane – Meditations

Meditations

John Coltrane – Meditations Impulse! AS-9110 (1966)

Meditations features one of the unusual line-ups of Coltrane’s post-Ascension recordings. Coltrane plays exclusively on the left channel with the talented Rashied Ali, a fiery and highly abstract drummer. The right channel features a young Pharoah Sanders blasting his aggressive and abrasive-but-warm saxophone, along with veteran Elvin Jones on drums. McCoy Tyner on piano and Jimmy Garrison on bass then bring balance to both channels.

John Coltrane had the most fully formed and beautiful tone of just about any saxophonist. His technical perfection was only surpassed by his unfathomable improvisational style. Coltrane could effortlessly assimilate any influence. More than simple imitation, Coltrane drew the very essences of these influences and developed them into new forms. Here, the abstract rhythms of Rashied Ali and the rough texture of Pharoah Sanders combine in this journey away from conventional structure. John Coltrane is generally the last word on anything he has attempted. Listening to him play reveals the all the joy and beauty of the universe. The limitless possibilities of a loving, peaceful existence unfold with the clarity of prophets. Here, he explores the most basic elements of humanity; however, he connects living elements to divine pursuit of Truths (yes, with a capital “T”), as explicated through his music.

“The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost” sounds forced into unnecessary structure. The solos, particularly Coltrane’s, at times seem to lose sight of their original goals, and yet, the passion and faith never waiver. Coltrane had a gift for shrewd commentary. A serious and deeply spiritual person, he could reaffirm his faith while simultaneously criticizing the church (he believed in all religions).

“Love” begins the last three movements. The dissonance of Coltrane’s melodic line resolves to a three-note consonant line. Jimmy Garrison begins the song with a moving solo. Coltrane broke jazz conventions as he dove completely into free jazz. The first two songs are continuous performances, as are the last three. Songs begin with solos, only revealing a defined statement much later. On “Consequences,” the two saxophonists blur the beginnings and ends of their solos beyond identification.

Traditionalists generally jump ship after A Love Supreme (more precisely, before Ascension) and ignore all late-period Coltrane. Yet, the most rewarding material comes from his final years. Meditations features John Coltrane at his most intense (at his most passionate, Coltrane is not casual listening). It is a foolish thing indeed to attempt to explain what Coltrane achieved with this album.

Slavoj Žižek on Hegemonic Ideology

Slavoj Žižek quote from “Democracy’s Fascism Problem”:

“Of course, no privileged political agent knows inherently what is best for the people and has the right to impose its decisions on the people against their will (as the Stalinist Communist Party did). However, when the will of the majo[r]ity clearly violates basic emancipatory freedoms, one has not only the right but also the duty to oppose that majority. This is not reason to despise democratic elections — only to insist that they are not per se an indication of Truth. As a rule, elections reflect the conventional wisdom determined by the hegemonic ideology.”

Bonus links: “Draft Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” and Footnote Four of Carolene Products

Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming

Slow Train Coming

Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming Columbia FC 36120 (1979)

I’ve developed a theory that Dyan’s “christian” phase that began with Slow Train Coming was less about him converting to a particularly dogmatic strain of pentecostal christianity and more about him implicitly moving into the same camp as French academic charlatan Michel Foucault (maybe the “new philosophers” like André Glucksmann could be thrown into the conversation here too).  The reasons some people are skeptical of this part of Dylan’s career are the same reasons some people are skeptical of Foucault’s neoliberal historicist/”identity politics” theories, which are complete bullshit and evidenced a questionable kind of pandering and opportunism (not to mention a huge over-reliance on revenge fantasies).  But, anyway, this album was recorded in Muscle Shoals, and it has a smooth disco R&B/soul sound, like a mellower, less emotional counterpart to Bowie‘s Young Americans or even a more intellectual counterpart to the lily-white blues rock of Eric Clapton.  It’s a little too easy listening for its own good, but it still manages to be decent with a few good new songs.  The album benefits tremendously by having Dylan actually trying throughout, and having active involvement of producers other than Dylan.

John Coltrane – Stellar Regions

Stellar Regions

John Coltrane – Stellar Regions Impulse! IMPD-169 (1995)

Stellar Regions was recorded on February 15, 1967. The recording masters were kept by Alice Coltrane for decades before release. What makes Stellar Regions an essential ‘Trane disc (it is phenomenal, perhaps the better of even A Love Supreme) is the dramatic changes evident in his music. His vibrato shifts from the wide style of John Gilmore and Albert Ayler to a quicker, gushy style resembling Ben Webster. He jumps from a rumbling low register to a smooth, clear higher one, like the vocals of Rev. Claude Jeter.  Of course, tempos of the songs are much slower than as heard on Interstellar Space, recorded slightly earlier. In a sense, it is clear on hearing these recordings that Coltrane was dying. But this is without sadness. Coltrane’s music is completely at peace. While in his music he perhaps sees in the distance some great horizon yet uncrossed, there is also a total acceptance of what is within his reach. Jimmy Garrison is at his peak on “Jimmy’s Mode” with a solo tender but hip, questioning but aware, fluid but crisp. His solo finds where a delicate swing fits into Coltrane’s vision. As an artist, Coltrane was still in motion. As his battle alternated from confidence to uncertainty he added new perspective. He used every defilement to see clearly, and from there collected his many views and assembled, regrouped for further toils. This is the start of a new life. It is complete rebirth. Such a thing seems possible here. Stellar Regions is like a musical accompaniment to Arthur Rimbaud’s Les Illuminations [The Illuminations]. It is a spiritual recognition of the vast possibility beyond that grasped in the present. Yes, Stellar Regions communicates about all that needed be said before Coltrane went silent upon his July 17, 1967 death. This album is, along with Interstellar Space, Music. By that I mean this is the culmination of everything music — and Coltrane — was and is. What a wonderful thing.

Prince and The Revolution – Purple Rain

Purple Rain

Prince and The Revolution – Purple Rain Warner Bros. 25110-1 (1984)

In the All Music Guide, Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that David Bowie‘s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars had a “grand sense of staged drama” and that “Bowie succeeds not in spite of his pretensions but because of them . . . .”  The same could very well be said about Prince’s most acclaimed and best-selling album (over 20 millions copies), Purple Rain.  This was the soundtrack to a movie of the same name, which some say was inspired by Samuel R. Delany’s novel Dhalgren.  Some of the songs were recorded live (“I Would Die 4 U”, “Baby I’m a Star” and “Purple Rain”), with later overdubs.

Purple Rain just appeals to so many people.  There is something for the freaks, something for the squares (aside from the prudes).  That wide appeal should not come as a surprise.  This is basically a perfect album.  Sure, it might be hard to find anyone picking “The Beautiful Ones” as his or her favorite, on an album that also boasts “Let’s Go Crazy” (a rock-gospel party anthem), “When Doves Cry” (an abstract, minimalist pop stunner without a bass line), and “Purple Rain” (a monster ballad to end monster ballads).  Not only is there is no filler here, every song is great.  It certainly helped that Prince was a prolific songwriter.  He had about 100 songs lined up for the film, according to director Albert Magnoli, who had to cull that down to what worked best.  The photographer Robert Mapplethorpe once mentioned in a 1977 interview, “It takes me a good week really to decide what negatives and that’s half of taking pictures, is the selection.  *** And the framing is very important.”  These are analogues to song selection and album sequencing for music.  These things do put in perspective what it takes to make something like Purple Rain.  A handful of decent songs is simply not enough.

Prince wasn’t exactly an unknown before this album and the movie — from 1979 to 1983 he had even appeared on television a few times — but they were what made him a worldwide superstar.  His band The Revolution also played a significant role, with Wendy & Lisa noted for making key contributions.  Prince became something of an egomaniac as a result of his fame.  Mapplethorpe also said in that interview that all artists he knew were egotistical.  This perhaps says something about what it takes to want to put one’s self in the spotlight.

There isn’t much to say about the music itself that hasn’t already been said so many times over.  But this album still holds up decades later.

Albert Ayler – New Grass

New Grass

Albert Ayler – New Grass Impulse! A-9175 (1968)

A divisive album from a figure who seemed divisive in other ways from the start.  Ayler rose to some level of renown among jazz heads as a pioneer of free jazz.  But he got his start in R&B bands, and New Grass is an early attempt, of sorts, at jazz/R&B fusion.  The album opens with typical Ayler free jazz wailing, then a brief spoken introduction, in which he states with radical earnestness that he hopes listeners like the album, and then it is on to the real surprise: R&B tunes laced through with solos far more skronky than any sort of King Curtis or The 5th Dimension mainstream R&B/soul track.  The real problem with the album is how it gets going.  “Message From Albert/New Grass” implies the album is something other that what it turns out to be — some kind of misguided attempt to ease listeners expecting “conventional” free jazz into the album.  But “New Generation” and “Sun Watcher” really do get the album going, with great grooves, shimmering keyboards (on the latter), and what are actually smoking performances on sax by Ayler.  Everything finishes strong with the sublime rave-up “Free at Last” too.  But it is hard not to think that the album would have been much improved by dropping the first track and squeezing in the outtake “Thank God for Women” (posthumously released on the Holy Ghost box set).  Anyway, while the album sequencing is too awkward to be entirely successful, this album deserves much credit for its radical concept alone.  Jazz, and free jazz especially, was generally a pretty elitist musical form by the late 1960s, while lite R&B/soul was on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, with more plebeian appeal.  Ayler throws them together without any regard for the social distinctions erected between those highbrow/lowbrow genres.  While Miles Davis gets more credit for his approach to jazz/rock fusion, it is worth keeping in mind the way Miles leaned on esoteric and elitist forms of rock (not to mention the work of avant garde European composers).  So, while some people saw this album as Ayler selling out to commercial tastes, a different, perhaps better, way to look at it is as an attempt to transcend the social confinement represented by narrow genre categories.  And Ayler approaches that challenge with his usual open-hearted, emotive, and guileless version of what everybody typically expects to be purely cerebral, technically and conceptually challenging virtuoso performance.  Contrary to its reputation, New Grass is slowly gaining more currency as a pretty decent album.  It isn’t Ayler’s best.  Yet it works.  Anyone who does dig this should also check out Archie Shepp‘s similar effort For Losers.