In the beginning…sound.
Reeds bend and reveal the modal Moses come to take the chillun to the Promised Land — the C’s part — 2-5-1.
BC. Before Coltrane. You say you want an Evolution? Well…You know…welcome to The Way of… JC. John Coltrane. Traveling cross sound in cycles, dizzying to musician and listener alike. Trane. Woooooo. Woo. Equilibrium between superelevation and centrifugal force. How did he get there from the scale diatonic? He’s weigh heavy, man.
Trans –continental — Blue Trane: The masterful conductor breaking the constraints of the Yard. Chasin’ the trane through contemplation — a way station to a dimension less traveled. Faster faster faster you bbbb leavin’ the axon terminal at the junction…to turnaround on a tangent to watch rain slide across the pane directed by the wind at play. Hear the moisture breathe. Released from a ballast of lung — split — supertonic dominant tonic. The essence seeps out.
Coltrane changes the way you face music. No steppin’ on the cracks — it’s the Ladder — in GIANT STEPS to feel the burn, skip. The c(OM)mon den(OM)inator… for unc(OM)mon reharmonization.
SAINT TRANE — SANTU, in the African Orthodox religion. The venerable, exemplary Coltrane saw the light and made religion through a cornucopia of sound… a simple horn. Elation. Elegance. Exaltation.
AC. After Coltrane. Trans-Universal. The Coltrane Triangle — manifest destiny for sax players proving their mettle in thirds — major — minor— augmented — all. It is grounded territory wrought by JC’s ascension. Wholly triads. B G Eb major. Skips and starts. The measure of a soloist is the ease with which the raindrop follows the heart of the musician in tune with the wind.
We’re pilgrims carried on harmonic device… acclimate your ear so you can hear” that mo’ lyrical is mo’ beautiful. He raised the bar on 8 to the bar. Unnervingly accurate and logical, we hear the synopsis of synapses projected through tempered brass. The symmetry of serpentine soul ssssssoars as soprano sax hypnotizes and beckons. With McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones…supremely…one… of the ultimate quartets — the genesis of a new era. A whirl of sound completely measured thorough bursts of molecular intensity looking for the source. Coltrane broke it down to a particle driven wave — applied every scale, every pattern to create “sheets of sound”. Sheer technique. An envelope of feeling provoked whole by thought.
The man had will. Hodges, Parker, Heath. Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon all strengthened the roots of his carefully chosen reeds. Monk – Miles — Coleman instilled and shaped his will to continue breaking the ground where they walked to drive in the signposts to new directions.
Flexibility was Coltrane. His genius ran the tracks of every scale building an underground railway with a methodical patterning that connected everything before and after. Pedagogy as art: harmony, freedom in the structure of applied cycles as chordal progressions in melodic composition — didacticism removed.
Spared the rod, split the reed — practice and intention begat his creed. Known as the J.S. Bach of jazz, he ruled through meticulous mastering of building blocks with which he constructed the inimitable pyramid known as the Coltrane Changes — with no genuflection to style. Nicolas Slominski was a fractile in the tactile world of Coltrane. He turned and tuned a phrase, antonym and synonym, methodology complete, using every substitution and inversion spoken with serpentine-forked tongue, honing in on his meditative prayer. Naima. Afro-Blue. My Favorite Things. One Down, One Up. Brasilia –- all 4 major 3rd cycles — all 12 major keys inhabited, tipping each scale.
Chromaticism is not for the meek to inherit. JC challenges musicians to play the kodachrome kaleidoscope. INfrared. Infrapolation. Full spectrum. Ultraviolet. Ultrapolation. Done without respect to the music being the reflection of the universe, it is done, duly noted, in vain. Done with the infinite expansionism of universal thought — it is undone, set free to roam, through every vein.
Heroine. He kicked it. Cold — in key. Not without a connection to the core does one take on such a mountain. But, mountains are made of sediment — metamorphic and igneous rock — changed through cataclysm… through devotion of thought… sheered and leveled with will…culminating in a homage to God, he transcended and heralded it on the mountain he brought …
A Love Supreme. A4 part suite. 33 minutes long. Conversion and liberation told through conversion and liberation.
Ego lost and found, e rogo, a fluid, multiphonic flood and torrent of tone, cycling through his experience…
Acknowledgement
Pursuance
Resolution
Psalm…
“God breathes through us so completely . . .
so gently
we hardly feel it . . . yet,
it is everything.
Thank you
God.
ELATIONS—ELEGANCE—EXALTATION
All from God. Thank you God. Amen.”
Where else to go, but — up? He ascended at 40. With that horn, he beckons a new pilgrimage to follow. <
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Internalize A Love Supreme. Leave behind the judgement call of your pedagogical ear.
Born of breath and the wind of change.
Coltrane…ever… even …Miles…apart…stood he.
*John Coltrane