The John Coltrane Quartet Plays

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The John Coltrane Quartet Plays
Studio album by John Coltrane

Publication
(s)

1965

Label (s) Impulses!

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

4/7

running time

37:42 (LP) / 59:20 (CD)

occupation

production

Bob Thiele

Studio (s)

Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs , New Jersey

chronology
A Love Supreme
(1964) 		The John Coltrane Quartet Plays Ascension
(1965)

The John Coltrane Quartet Plays is a jazz album by John Coltrane , recorded by Rudy Van Gelder in Englewood Cliffs , New Jersey on February 17th and 18th and May 17th, 1965 and published on Impulse! Records .

The album

The first recordings for the studio album The John Coltrane Quartet Plays were made in May 1965, just two months after the A Love Supreme album was finished. John Coltrane's intention was to record another album with standards material; When the recordings were complete in May, however - in addition to the Disney classics "Chim Chim Cheree", "Feelin 'Good" and "Nature Boy" - Coltrane's compositions "Brazilia" and "Song of Praise" were created, which with its hymn-like character refers to the saxophonist's late work. Coltrane first played Brazilia at his concerts at Village Vanguard in November 1961; "Song of Praise" was already included in a head arrangement for the Crescent album that preceded the A Love Supreme , but was not included in it.

In the opinion of jazz critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton, the Plays album - despite a noticeable burn out after the Love Supreme recordings - was already pointing in new directions. The recordings from the first session on February 17, 1965 did not find their way onto the original record. Here a first version of the title "Feelin 'Good" and also of " Nature Boy " in a quintet (with two bassists); The following day, the master version of "Nature Boy" was recorded, which was used on the later album. At the same time two other versions of "Feelin 'Good" were created here, which were not released on the original LP. On this day, Art Davis also played as an additional bass player. The remaining tracks were not recorded until May 17, 1965; in the meantime Coltrane's quartet (without Davis) had played "Nature Boy" live on March 28, 1965 at the New York jazz club The Village Gate .

The obligatory “show title” of the album was “Chim Chim Cheree” from the then current film musical Mary Poppins , with Coltrane on the soprano saxophone. The treatment of the song, which has just won an Oscar , is reminiscent of Coltrane's versions of the Broadway classic My Favorite Things ; Coltrane plays it in high register and creates melody lines so that one forgets the banal subject, write the Coltrane biographers Filtgen and Auserbauer.

The original composition "Brazilia" begins with a drum roll by Elvin Jones, into which Coltrane blows his introduction. “Coltrane's solo contains everything from ecstatic blowing technique to calm runs that only he could play inimitably.” What is impressive for the authors is the correspondence between McCoy Tyner and the saxophonist in his chordal playing. During Coltrane's second solo, drummer Elvin Jones drummed rhythmic figures, some of which had a ritual voodoo character, and let the piece end with a thunderous drum roll. On the piece "Nature Boy" Coltrane worked - as he did at the Village Vanguard Concerts in 1961 - with two bassists, here with the classically trained Art Davis, who contrasts his archery with the medium-paced rhythmic play of Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison. Coltrane placed his powerful tenor saxophone playing over these sound fields.

The last track of the original LP, "Song of Praise", begins with a long bass introduction by Jimmy Garrison, which Filtgen / Auserbauer reminds of flamenco guitarists . Coltrane himself then plays "a solo of bursting intensity".

The John Coltrane Quartet Plays was the last album on which John Coltrane used foreign compositions, and the last album of the classic John Coltrane Quartet released during the saxophonist's lifetime.

Rating of the album

Richard Cook and Brian Morton, who gave the album the highest rating in their Penguin Guide to Jazz , describe it as a great and very important album. In the second edition of their book, the authors mention the simple title “Plays”, which suggests that after the “sky-storming game of A Love Supreme , the band would have gone back to a more basic jazz style of playing, themes, choruses, standard Title. ”Despite the occasional division into themed and solo play, the quartet is already playing in the direction of the collective experiments of Coltrane's recent years. There is also a line leading from the mighty “Song of Praise” to the preceding “Psalm” (on A Love Supreme ); the addition of a second bass player suggests Coltrane's desire to break the rhythm section's conventional role as a simple time keeper . The writer and critic LeRoi Jones addressed the subversive role of John Coltrane by referring to material from mass culture (such as "Chim Chim Cheree" on this album, My Favorite Things (initially on the 1960 album of the same name) or "The Inch Worm" the album Coltrane ) changed and deconstructed through radical improvisations.

Elvin Jones (1977)

The titles

  • John Coltrane Quartet - The John Coltrane Quartet Plays (Impulse AS 85/254 619-2 / 051214-2)
  1. Chim Chim Cher-ee ( Richard M. Sherman / Robert B. Sherman ) (6:56)
  2. Brazilia (J. Coltrane) 12:54 (May 17, 1965)
  3. Nature Boy ( Eden Ahbez ) 8:01 (Master take, February 18, 1965)
  4. Song of Praise (J. Coltrane) 9:56 (May 17, 1965)
  5. Feeling Good (Leslie Bricusse / Anthony Newley) 6:22 (Bonus track, February 18, 1965)
  6. Nature Boy 7:03 (alternate take, studio version, February 17, 1965)
  7. Nature Boy 8:18 (alternate take, live version ( Village Gate ), March 28, 1965)
  • The titles 5–6 appeared for the first time when the CD was released; track 7 had already been published on the record The New Wave In Jazz (Impulse A 90) with contributions from other musicians from the same concert. The cover photography is by Lee Tanner

literature

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ The full title of the original LP is The John Coltrane Quartet Plays: Chim Chim Cheree, Song of Praise, Nature Boy, Brazilia .
  2. ↑ Heard on the album The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings .
  3. ↑ Partially published posthumously on The Mastery Of John Coltrane, Vol. 1 - Feelin 'Good (Impulse IZ 9345-2)
  4. ↑ The track was finally included as an alternate take in the new edition of the album.
  5. ↑ Filtgen and Auserbauer, p. 176 f.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Filtgen / Auserbauer, p. 177.
  7. ↑ Only the title "Welcome", recorded on June 10, 1965 with the quartet (at their last studio session), was still published - on the album Kulu Se Mama . At the Newport Jazz Festival on July 2, 1965, the quartet's recordings were finally made, which were released on the album New Thing At Newport (Impulse A 94), which John Coltrane shared with Archie Shepp .
  8. ↑ See Cook / Morton, 1994, p. 274.
  9. ↑ Quoted from Cook / Morton, 1994, p. 274.

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