Live at Birdland (John Coltrane album)
| Live at Birdland | ||||
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| Live album by John Coltrane | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Impulses! Records | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
6th |
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running time |
40:47 |
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Live at Birdland is a jazz album by John Coltrane . The recordings made with his quartet in late autumn 1963 were published on Impulse in 1964 ! Records .
background
The album was recorded at Club Birdland , New York City, on October 18, 1963 and at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs , New Jersey, on November 18, 1963. Temporally it lies between the recording of Coltrane's quartet with the singer Johnny Hartman , which preceded the recording, and the album Crescent (Impulse, 1964) with the Coltrane quartet, which followed him.
"On the tightrope walk between contemplation, innovative sound design and commercial success, Coltrane has the record company Impulse! and whose producers can win over Bob Thiele to document music in this nascendi status , ”wrote Bert Noglik in the jazz newspaper . After the Live at the Village Vanguard performance, recorded two years earlier , Live at Birdland becomes a sequel in which the ambience of New York jazz bars plays an important role in shaping the music. Noglik refers to the artistic claim of the album: "That affects the entire production - primarily the music and the recording aesthetics, but also the design of the record sleeve and the text on the cover, which is of particular interest here."
The liner notes for "Coltrane Live at Birdland" were written by LeRoi Jones - a writer and music critic associated with radical Afro-American aspirations for emancipation, who became known through books such as "Blues People: Negro Music in White America", so Noglik went on, later stripping off his slave name , since then called himself Amiri Baraka and constantly intervenes in the cultural and political debates of America with statements provoking controversy.
What counts as political or historical background knowledge is assumed by the reader of the liner notes, wrote Bert Noglik: “On September 15, 1963 , four black girls were killed in a racially motivated bomb attack on a Baptist church in Birmingham , Alabama . ”LeRoi Jones reports on a conversation the producer had with John Coltrane. Bob Thiele asked him whether the play had any relation to the current problems. Coltrane replied: “There is something musically about what I saw down there, translated into music by myself.” JC Thomas writes in his Coltrane biography: “John Coltrane heard the bad news on the radio that afternoon. Not anger but melancholy descended on him. Killing someone for whatever reason outraged and shocked him as much as if he were a devout Buddhist in whose presence someone stepped on an ant. "
The album contains three tracks recorded live at Birdland, New York; Coltrane played with his quartet in the line-up with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums, known as Coltrane's "classic quartet". The album was supplemented by two pieces that were created in a subsequent studio session in November 1963. Nenad Georgievski wrote the remaining two pieces, "Alabama" and "Your Lady", cannot be separated from the times when they were made. "Alabama" is a complaint about the lives of the four children who were killed in the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, and a civil rights declaration for a right to equality. "It's a sad and gripping melody that is musically and emotionally breathtaking."
Track list
- John Coltrane: Live at Birdland
- Afro Blue ( Mongo Santamaría ) 10:49
- I Want to Talk About You ( Billy Eckstine ) 8:10
- The Promise (John Coltrane) 8:07
- Alabama (John Coltrane) 5:08
- Your Lady (John Coltrane) 6:37
reception
Scott Yanow gave the album the highest rating of five stars in Allmusic . The reviewer wrote: “This recording is arguably John Coltrane's best all-round album and contains brilliant versions of 'Afro Blue' and 'I Want to Talk About You'. In the second half of the latter piece, Coltrane breaks into the piece on an unaccompanied tenor, without losing sight of the fact that it is a beautiful ballad . The rest of this album, 'Alabama', 'The Promise' and 'Your Lady' are almost on the same high level. "
Nenad Georgievski wrote in All About Jazz : "As time has shown, Coltrane's music is timeless and the knowledge that it was published 50 years ago does not date the effect, nor, more importantly, the music in the least". Live at Birdland was a recording of the transition, an overture to excellence that would soon follow.
According to Bert Noglik, Coltrane confessed himself with the album, also verbally, “to the club feeling and to communication with the audience. In an atmosphere that does not appear to be comparable to the traditional Euro-American concert hall, it is nevertheless about a claim to art. ”Noglik counts the album among the“ fascinating snapshots in the history of modern jazz ”and also emphasizes the function of the concept of progress; In the life and music of John Coltrane, this term took on a meaning that it later seemed to lose for art in many places, Noglik judged. "It is worth considering that Coltrane, after whose death the world of jazz felt in a vacuum, confessed that he wanted nothing more than to become a better person."
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Nenad Georgievski: John Coltrane: John Coltrane: Live at Birdland. All About Jazz, December 6, 2013, accessed April 18, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g Bert Noglik: A Seeker - John Coltrane Live at Birdland. Jazzzeitung, September 1, 2006, accessed on April 18, 2020 (English).
- ^ Review of Scott Yanow's album on Allmusic . Retrieved April 18, 2020.