Ascension (album)

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Ascension
Studio album by John Coltrane

Publication
(s)

1965

Label (s) Impulses! Records

Format (s)

CD, LP

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

2

running time

79.26

occupation

production

Bob Thiele

Studio (s)

Van Gelder Recording Studio, Englewood Cliffs , New Jersey

chronology
Transition
(1965) 		Ascension Kulu Sé Mama
(1965)

Ascension is a jazz album by John Coltrane recorded in 1965 and released in 1966. Ascension is counted among the milestones of free jazz ; Many critics consider the album to be John Coltrane's most important recording alongside A Love Supreme from 1964. This is the first time that large orchestral representation in free jazz is tried out.

The music

This album was an "experiment" with its free collective improvisation . It is often referred to as an album of transition, since the Coltrane recordings of his quartet with McCoy Tyner , Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones before that could still be located in their structures rather “conventionally” in the field of modal jazz . In the recordings that John Coltrane made after Ascension , such as Interstellar Space (1967), the forms become even more free and even dissolve.

Also new at Ascension was the departure from the “classic” quartet format. Until then, Coltrane had “sounded out the perspectives in quartet play, but now he was looking for a freer concept that would do justice to both his growing religiosity and the need for unlimited creativity.” He saw the recording in a radio interview as a “ big band thing” “, A musical concept that Ornette Coleman had already used with his octet ( double quartet ) in his recording Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation , which, like Ascension , is a continued forty-minute improvisation alternating between free ensemble and solo play without Interruptions is.

Ensemble playing and solos alternate on Ascension ; Coltrane did not give the musicians any instructions for their solo play, except that they should end the improvisation on the simple basic motif with a crescendo . The ensemble passages seem rather structured. Filtgen and Auserbauer write about this: “The ensemble parts in Coleman were still very limited and notistically recorded, whereas on Ascension the group and interplay is only based on a tonal center, a chord that can be approached differently. The piece begins with a high level of energy and intensity, which other performances only achieve - if at all - towards the end ”.

Compared to Coleman's Free Jazz , Coltrane's formation on Ascension had an extended "front line", with two alto saxophones , three tenor saxophones and two trumpets . His wind section consisted mainly of young jazz musicians, who soon became some of the most respected players on the American free jazz scene , such as John Tchicai , Pharoah Sanders , Archie Shepp and Marion Brown . Contributor Marion Brown said, "To portray the intensity of 'Ascension', 'You could make an apartment hot on a cold winter's day with that music [...] the people who were in the studio were really screaming.'"

Ascension in jazz criticism

Filtgen and Auserbauer wrote in their Coltrane biography about the recording of Ascension : “What was created here was the complete emancipation of sound in jazz, a texture that was no longer tonally organized, which in its intensity, although it found successors ( Sam Rivers ) , is almost unmatched. With Ascension has verified that free jazz is also großorchestral feasible and loses nothing of its spontaneity. " Joachim-Ernst Berendt wrote in 1973 in his" Jazz Book ": " With 'Ascension' Coltrane had reached a harmonic freedom that Coleman for many Owned years ago. But how much more overwhelming, more gripping, more aggressive is the freedom of 'Ascension'! It is what the title means: an ascent, an ascension - from people to God, both - God and people, the whole world - including. " He sums up his impression pointedly: " It is a hymn-ecstatic music of the violence of the forty-minute orgasm ” . Richard Cook and Brian Morton note in the Penguin Guide To Jazz for the album, There is nothing else like "Ascension" in Coltrane's work; Indeed there is nothing quite like "Ascension" in the history of jazz.

The music magazine Jazzwise added the album to The 100 Jazz Albums That Shook the World list ; Keith Shadwick wrote:

“ Still an unruly, flawed, controversial and divisive album forty years after it was first released, 'Ascension' set the pace and tone of the avant-garde debate in the late 1960s and soon became a frontline milestone in of art - even John Lennon said in interviews 'of course I heard Ascension' when he gave his intellectual letter of recommendation at Yoko's side in the late 1960s . To this day the music remains difficult, the hellish fire and chaos of Trane's accompanying musicians clearly shows the times in which this was recorded, now it is a gigantic date that changed jazz forever. "

Rolling Stone magazine voted the album 29th on its list of The 100 Best Jazz Albums in 2013 .

Edition history

Two takes of the title were recorded on June 28, 1965 . First the second take was released ( Impulse! Records AS-95); but finally, after 1000 copies of the first edition, mainly at Coltrane's insistence, the first take (which had been left in the studio due to neglect of the non-labeling) under the title "Ascension, Edition I" (Impulse 254 745-2) as the " final version "published.

The similar takes can only be distinguished by the different solo sequences and the missing drum solo by Elvin Jones on Take 2, which is now called "Edition II" in the now complete 2 CD edition (Impulse 543413-2) . Ascension Editions 1 & 2 also appeared on the 2-CD compilation The Major Work of John Coltrane (Impulse! GRP 21132)

The titles

  1. Ascension - Edition II - 40:23
  2. Ascension - Edition I - 38:31

Order of solos

Edition II

  1. (opening ensemble)
  2. Coltrane solo
  3. Johnson solo
  4. Sanders solo
  5. Hubbard solo
  6. Tchicai solo
  7. Shepp solo
  8. Brown solo
  9. Tyner solo
  10. Davis, Garrison duet
  11. (concluding ensemble)

Edition I

  1. (opening ensemble)
  2. Coltrane solo
  3. Johnson solo
  4. Sanders solo
  5. Hubbard solo
  6. Shepp solo
  7. Tchicai solo
  8. Brown solo
  9. Tyner solo
  10. Davis, Garrison duet
  11. Jones solo
  12. (concluding ensemble)

literature

  • Joachim-Ernst Berendt and Günther Huesmann: Das Jazzbuch Frankfurt / Main, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 1992
  • Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
  • Gerd Filtgen, Michael Auserbauer: John Coltrane - His life, his music, his records. Oreos, Schaftlach (Collection Jazz) 1989
  • Ashley Kahn: A Love Supreme: The Creation of John Coltrane's Classic Album. Granta Books, London 2003, ISBN 1-86207-602-2 .
  • David Wild: liner notes (1992) for The Major Work of John Coltrane (Impulse! GRP 21132)

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ cit. according to Filtgen / Auserbauer, p. 180
  2. ↑ a b Ralf Dombrowski : Basis-Diskothek Jazz (= Reclams Universal-Bibliothek. No. 18372). Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-018372-3 , p. 51f.
  3. ↑ An exception is the trumpeter Dewey Johnson, who played the first solo on the record after Coltrane. Suffering from mental illness, Johnson made only a few professional recordings afterwards (including with Jimmy Lyons and Paul Murphy) and disappeared from the scene in the 1980s. Because Johnson is comparatively unknown, his solo - because of the prominent place right behind Coltrane - was mostly mistaken for one of Freddie Hubbard's .
  4. ↑ a b Joachim Ernst Berendt & Günther Huesmann, p. 160
  5. ↑ quoted from Filtgen / Auserbauer, p. 181
  6. ↑ Berendt, Das Jazzbuch. Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 111
  7. ↑ to which they give the highest grade of four stars (out of four) with the addition of the "crown"
  8. ↑ cit. after Cook / Morton, p. 320
  9. ↑ In the original: " Still an unruly, flawed, controversial, and deeply divisive album 40 years after its initial release, Ascension set the pace and the tone of the avant-garde music debate right through the back of the 1960s, quickly becoming a cutting -edge touchstone across the arts - even John Lennon told interviewers “of course I've heard Ascension” when asserting his late 1960s intellectual credentials alongside Yoko. Today, the music remains testingly difficult, the hell-hot fire and chaos from Trane's supporting musicians a clear indication of the times it was made in, yet it's a titanic date that changed jazz forever. ".
  10. ^ The 100 Jazz Albums That Shook The World
  11. ↑ Rolling Stone: The 100 Best Jazz Albums . Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  12. ↑ In a 1968 interview with Coda Magazine, then-producer Bob Thiele expressed his version of the events surrounding the release of the takes: After the first take, we listened to the recording, and John Coltrane said it was definitely the master . Then he said you should record a second take. We discussed the two takes afterwards and both agreed that the first would be the one to be released. Now a few months passed and impulses! released the first take. When the album came out, John called me and said, "This is not the master!" Coltrane had taken the copy (of the second take) home with him after the session and listened to it often. After all, he firmly believed that this was the better version of "Ascension" and wanted it released as soon as possible; so it was published as "Edition Number 2". Quoted from David Wild, liner notes
  13. ↑ who had left the studio
  14. ↑ Coltrane wanted to record a third take , but Elvin Jones angrily refused, threw the snare drums on the wall and stormed out of the studio.
  15. ↑ The edition also contains the titles Om, Kulu Se Mama and Selfnessless