Den tollen Post von Jim Sangrey über Alice Coltrane und „A Monastic Trio“ wollte ich schon gestern hier rüberholen (nicht im Zitat-Format, weil die Komplettkursivierung graphisch ein Totalschaden ist) – einige sehr interessante Punkte, die da zur Sprache kommen, finde ich:
The real „Post-Coltrane“ music might well be looked at in terms of the music made after Coltrane died and everybody was left to go their own ways…and that meant figuring out a lot of technical/theoretical/structural specifics that Coltrane himself was still discovering. Not just the „spiritual“ thing, (which whether or not one buys into some, none, or all of it was part of the general vibe/attraction of Coltrane, there was definitely some kind of force at work in his music), but what, specifically, do we play now…what DO we play now? Alice carried a burden not particularly of her own making. If not exactly a „burden“ at least a no-win proposition of what she was doing relative to how she was being looked at by…damn near everybody.
Alice Coltrane has been significantly reappraised over the years, and rightly so, imo. But conversely, I sometimes see a lot of gushing about the „spiritual“ thing, and if you want to deal with the music first, then its not a bad idea to take that „spiritual“ thing away and see what’s left. Still of a mixed mind about a lot of Alice Coltrane’s work in that regard.
However, here, there is a lot of music on this record (and yes, OCD factoidists, Cosmic Music content noted here), not all of it necessarily „successful“, but none of it trite, insincere, or naive. I once heard a guy say rather…aggressively that it had to have been McCoy brought in for Expressions, that Trane was fed up with Alice’s no-playing ass by that time, and besides, there’s no way that Alice had those chops, ALICE COULDN’T EVEN PLAY THE RIGHT CHANGES, etcetcetc, and…no. Sorry. Alice could play, Alice was not some noodler who Yoko-ed her way into and then reigned over John Coltrane’s Jazz Eden. There’s plenty of piano playing here that is very fluent, and the harp playing shows some real understanding of Trane’s later, „rhapsodic“ ambitions. The piano playing particularly has some real flavor to it. „Gospel Trane“ is only OMG-ish until it’s not, and the less Trane Worship Fetish you have in your ears, the more interesting it becomes. IMO, of course.
What’s not here, though, is the depth of knowledge, the hard-won vision forward that, really, nobody except John Coltrane could have had, at least not in his world. So trying to move „ahead“ without really being sure what/where/how „ahead“ really was….well, good luck on that, and history has pretty much proven (to my satisfaction, anyway) that, musically, there was no „ahead“ in Coltrane’s way, that he had taken that particular route as far as it could be taken. And then, of course, he died, do you hear the voices of the ones you left behind and all that, but…what’re you gonna do, keep waiting, marking time just so as to be ready when he comes back to show you the next place to go? Again, good luck on that.
But in the immediate aftermath of Coltrane’s death, yeah, there was a lot of investment in that force, and I can’t begin to imagine how hard that gut punch must have landed. Cannot even begin. And those who would minimize Alice’s harp playing, consider that Alice had a helluva lot more than an abstract investment in it, she had three kid’s return on that investment, and we’re talking about a level of intimacy between those two that nobody can rightly estimate. Alice’s harp playing reflecting those most intimate moments and rhythms, while neither provable nor relevant to any objective musical evaluation, is still something to consider, at least at this stage of the game.
Now, speaking of investment, the liner notes to this one are borderline sickening, given the Pauline Rivelli-to-Jazz And Pop-to-Bob Theile-to impulse-to-ABC line that cannot helped but be followed. And Baraka,while trying to do the right thing in setting a proper perspective of how this music is not as much a continuation as it is a regrouping, ends up paying that most wickedly backhanded of musicianly „compliments“ – hey man, I really dig what you’re trying to do, while at the same time feeding the Sainthood Of John Coltrane marketing angle, the whole oh shit, Trane’s dead, we need a new angle now thing that ended up getting some good new music out, but also created some really cynical hype that, as that fellow’s rant attests to, really set up a Alice As Insincere Opportunistic Fraud vibe that was as unfortunate as it was unfounded. Hell, she says it herself – she does not posses her husband’s talent or genius. But she was deeply moved by his purpose, and she wants to carry that part of it forward as best she can. That’s pretty much all she said, all, afaik, that she ever really said.
Problem, officer? If so, keep in mind that words like „mystic“ and „prophet“ mean one thing in a culture where such quantities in humans are a given, matter-of-fact possibility, quite another in a culture that views such things as being „supernatural“. The dichotomy between real-life purpose and marketing opportunity is…yeah, that’s what it is.
Alice Coltrane here seems anything but a fraud. Nor does she seem at all clueless about what she was playing. She sounds unsure of how to put the pieces she has been left with back together, never mind move them ahead, but hell, who didn’t, at least amongst those for whom that was a concern? If this record would have been released on some indie label out of…somewhere, especially the piano parts…it wasn’t, but listening to this piano playing thinking it might be somebody like, say, Hassan Ibn Ali, somebody who you know about more than you actually know, compare that to knowing in advance that it’s Alice Coltrane…I wonder how much of perception is then already realized before the music even begins to play?
As is – 5 stars (since this is all about The Universe) for a realistic musical starting point and sincerity of purpose, 3.5 stars for desire vs. actualization (no, DON’T catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, that shit gonna be hotter than hell, no way not to get burned), Negative Infinity stars for marketing, and Infinite Infinity stars to Ms. Coltrane for ultimately neither giving up nor giving in. To any of it.
Again, time afforded Alice Coltrane an opportunity to be reappraised. But why was any reappraisal needed to begin with? Seems more likely that people bought into (or were repelled by) an idea that was more about what they felt was happening in life than what was actually happening in the music. Of such things are fortunes, delusions, and resultant rants (including this one about a record of music which is ultimately more interesting than it is substantial) made.
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #159: Martial Solal (1927–2024) – 21.1., 22:00; #160: 11.2., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba