Miles Davis und John Coltrane 1966 oder 1967 erneut zusammen im Studio? RCA war wohl ziemlich lost, die haben um die Zeit kaum noch was Gutes rausgebracht, oder (und davor ja auch viel brave Nettigkeiten) – aber krasses Kopfkino!
Now here’s where it really gets interesting. Miles had told Townsend that RCA had offered him a lot of money if Columbia would loan him out to make an album with Coltrane! (I wonder who was behind that offer? Producer George Avakian had left RCA around 1964, but he was still doing freelance projects, and was still friendly with both Miles and Trane. Could he have been involved?) This is of interest to Townsend mainly for financial reasons—he doesn’t say anything about the exciting artistic potential of this! He wants to put it into their loan agreement, something like this: “When you get your money from RCA, you agree to pay back to Columbia a certain amount”—maybe $5,000—”of the money that we will loan to you.” He also notes that it would be better for them if they could do the Miles and Trane reunion on Columbia, but RCA has more money and they would not be able to compete with RCA’s offers.
Doch es kommt noch besser: der Plan ging so weiter, dass die beiden Label (also Impulse und Columbia) lieber gleich zwei Alben – je eins, damit keine Kosten anfallen, um die Leader aus den jeweiligen Exklusiv-Verträgen freizukaufen („release“) – machen würden:
Via Lewis Porter, der das auch alles im Detail kommentiert:
https://lewisporter.substack.com/p/coltrane-projects-that-never-happened-8b5
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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, #151: Neuheiten aus dem Archiv – 09.04., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba