Interstellar space

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Interstellar space
Studio album by John Coltrane

Publication
(s)

1972

admission

February 22, 1967

Label (s) Impulses! Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

Free jazz

Title (number)

6th

running time

54:06

occupation

production

Bob Thiele

Studio (s)

Van Gelder Studio Englewood Cliffs

chronology
Stellar Regions Interstellar space The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording

Interstellar Space is one of the last studio albums by saxophonist John Coltrane . It was composed on February 22, 1967, just under six months before his death in 1967, in a duet with drummer Rashied Ali. It was created in 1972 by Impulse! Records released posthumously on LP. The album contains a four-part suite interpreted by the duo, the pieces of which are named after the planets of our solar system.

The recordings from the Coltrane estate

After Coltrane's death on July 17, 1967, Impulse began ! Records sequentially releasing albums of Coltrane's music; Expression (AS 9140) was released in late 1967, followed by the album Om in the summer of 1968 . During this time, Bob Thiele noticed another track on the market, Cosmic Music , appearing on Coltrane's widow's new, short-lived Coltrane Records label, which included two Coltrane recordings from 1966 and two quartet pieces by Alice Coltrane were directed. Discussions within the management of ABC-Paramount then led to the Coltrane widow being offered a compromise: Cosmic Music and other unpublished material by the deceased saxophonist would be on Impulse! appear; at the same time, Alice Coltrane could publish her albums under her own name on Impulse! Publish records ; their first album on the label was A Monastic Trio (AS-9156) in 1968 .

Subsequently, a series of previously unpublished material from the estate appeared until the end of the original Impulse label in 1977, such as 1970 Transition (AS-9195), 1971 Sun Ship (AS-9211), 1972 Infinity (AS-9225) and finally in September 1974 the duo album Interstellar Space (ASD 9276).

The music of the album

Rashied Ali

The recordings for Interstellar Space are among Coltrane's last studio sessions; In the period after the recordings in February / March 1967, which were later published on Expressions , Coltrane was still in the studio several times until his death in July 1967. To date, only the live recordings of his concert in New York's Olatunji Center from April 1967 have been published ( The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording ).

The album contains saxophone-drum duets named after the names of the planets. The intention of the saxophonist was "a stronger emphasis on the rhythmic element and a game that is free from harmonic and tonal constraints," said Coltrane biographers Filtgen and Auserbauer about these late recordings.

"Mars" is a "battlefield among the cosmic giants, with wide-ranging wind tones and a dense playing of the percussionist." It is played "with a speed" that makes it impossible to "distinguish individual tones," said Filtgen / Auserbauer, The result is "a mixture of sounds that gives the impression that it is an instrument that offers the possibility of both rhythmic and melodic play".

The following “Venus” is laid out comparatively more calmly; after a prelude by Rashied Ali, Coltrane blows a long melodic line that clearly refers to the title. His play in the next title, "Jupiter", is as turbulent as in "Mars"; Ali plays here, however, more cautiously, "but with a technical brilliance that certainly places him among the elite of jazz drummers."

The last track on the album "Saturn" begins with a drum solo; Coltrane “here builds his solo more on melodic lines, interrupted by occasional rhythmic interjections, always reaching for a higher note. To create structure, he uses the sequence principle here, i. That is, he plays tone sequences at different pitches, shifts phrases as a whole by intervals in order to illuminate them melodically and tonally from several sides. After his unleashed tenor solo, the piece ends, as it began, with Rashied Ali. "

title

  1. "Mars" - 10:41
  2. "Venus" - 8:28
  3. "Jupiter" - 5:22
  4. "Saturn" - 11:33
  5. "Leo" (*) - 10:53
  6. "Jupiter Variation" (*) - 6:44

(*) only on CD

Evaluation / impact history of the album

After its publication in 1974, the work became exemplary for other percussion / saxophone duos that have since been recorded; Avant-garde jazz musician Andrew Cyrille in particular is heavily influenced by these recordings. The critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton, who gave the album the highest rating in their Penguin Guide to Jazz , call it “one last masterpiece” and the “purest sound experiment among all of his albums”. Coltrane biographers Filtgen and Auserbauer sum up that Coltrane played “music of high maturity and expressiveness” with Interstellar Space .

In 1998 guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Gregg Bendian recorded the four pieces in the suite for Atavistic ( Interstellar Space Revisited: The Music of John Coltrane ).

Editorial notes

Cook and Morton note that Interstellar Space was long out of print on the Impulse label and its various owners. The titles Leo and Jupiter Variations , which were created during the same session, were recorded in 1978 on the Coltrane compilation The Mastery Of John Coltrane, Vol. 3 - Jupiter Variation (Impulse IA 9360) , which was supervised by Michael Cuscuna , with additional material from March 1967 ( Number One ) and published in February 1966 ( Peace on Earth ). On the CD edition of Interstellar Space , all titles that were recorded on February 22, 1967 were combined for the first time.

Quote

“ The way Rashied Ali plays allows the soloist maximum freedom. I can take any direction at any time and be sure that it matches what he's playing. "

- John Coltrane

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Stellar Regions in Rolling Stone
  2. ↑ Information on the edition history of the recordings from the estate is taken from the book by Ashley Kahn: The House that Trane Build - The Story of Impulse Records .
  3. ↑ a b See Coltrane discography
  4. ↑ Quoted from Cook & Morton, p. 322.
  5. ↑ Quoted from Filtgen / Auserbaue, p. 202.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Filtgen / Auserbaue, p. 202 f.
  7. ↑ cf. Cook & Morton, p. 322.
  8. ^ Coltrane, quoted from Ashley Kahn, p. 262.