On Sept. 15, 1963, four black girls were killed when a bomb went off during Sunday services at a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, in the deadliest act of the civil rights era. (NYT)

Inspired by the disgraceful 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963, Coltrane said of his elegy: “It represents, musically, something that I saw down there translated into music from inside me.” It is one of Coltrane’s enduring and devastating performances. Recorded with the “classic quartet” (McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, Jimmy Garrison on bass), Coltrane, already considered one of jazz music’s most emotional and sensitive players, managed to articulate the grief and the rage the occasion called for. A deeply spiritual man, Coltrane also conveyed the immutable senselessness of violence instigated by ignorance, but also, miraculously, managed to hint at the redemption of peaceful power through unified awareness. If Mingus’s “Haitian Fight Song” in part predicted the turmoil around the corner, “Alabama” was directly inspired by an actual event that demanded an outraged reaction. As only he could, Coltrane crafted a solo that is angry, somber, and somehow hopeful; a subdued epitaph for the innocent dead, but also a rallying cry for the not-so-innocent bystanders who needed to join the cause. The Alabama bombing was a tipping point in the civil rights movement, and Coltrane captured that moment where confusion and rage inspired an outpouring of solidarity.

I had the opportunity to deliver the eulogy at my mother’s funeral (which, incredibly, occurred only a few months after this photo was taken, at my cousin’s wedding in June 2002). I remembered her as fondly as I could which was easy to do; I tried to convey what she meant to me, which was difficult. Everything that is good about me is because of my mother. That was the line I used to open and close my remarks, and looking back, I still reckon it’s the most succinct way of illustrating the role she played–and continues to play–in my life. I tried to steer away from sentiment that was self-absorbed (this was an occasion to remember and celebrate my mother’s life, not how it affected me) or to unintentionally overlook the loved ones gathered whose lives she touched in so many indelible ways (or to give my old man, my boy, inadvertent short-shrift by ostensibly giving his wife all the credit for the heavy lifting he had also done), but as the chosen speaker, her only son, it was my opportunity, and obligation, to pay her the ultimate compliment. It was the most honest and appropriate thing I could do. Here was the crux of my comments, then and my feelings, now: by raising me the way she did, she was instinctively preparing me for when she was no longer around, even if that ended up happening a hell of a lot sooner than any of us could stand.

I’m sure anyone who has lost a parent (or heaven forbid, a child) can understand that when this happens it becomes a line of demarcation: your life before and your life after. It doesn’t mean nothing is ever the same or that you never get past it (everything is the same and you get past it except for the fact that nothing is ever the same and you never get past it. You don’t want to).

When it comes to the death of my mother, I of course have meditated on the loss privately and publically and anyone who knows me understands that her life and death are an unequivocal component of my ongoing existence. Nothing remarkable about that, really: it is what it is. I am not alone; in fact, one need not suffer the untimely death of a parent to understand that their presence is inextricable from one’s own. That said, it’s not because my feelings or experiences are unique, but because they are the opposite that I feel obliged to share some of these observations. Indeed, for me this is much more a celebration of her life (and her unambiguously positive influence in my life) than any sort of disconsolate meditation on death. It is what it is.

Please talk about me when I’m gone.

This is the implicit title of any work of art; a desire to have those thoughts and feelings articulated, read, understand, appreciated. More, it’s the unspoken message of any individual life: we hope to be discussed, loved and celebrated after we’re gone. Mostly, we do not wish to be quickly or easily forgotten.

***

How do you get over the loss?

That was the question I asked an old girlfriend who lost her father when she was a teenager. To cancer, of course. “You don’t,” she said. It’s just as awful as you’d imagine, she did not say. She did not have to; because you can’t imagine and you don’t want to imagine. How could you imagine? And, oddly enough, that succinct, painfully honest answer was more comforting than it sounded. In a way, when you think about it (does everyone think about it? Are some people able to avoid thinking about it?) there is an unexpected salve in that sentiment: you don’t get over it. Or, by not getting over it, that is how you survive it. It becomes part of you, and it is henceforth an inviolable aspect of your existence, like a chronic condition you inherit or develop along the way and manage as best you can.

This is important, because as Americans, we tend to think in terms of explanations and equations: how do I solve this riddle? We tend to inquire: how long until it’s okay again? I can handle the pain (I think) if I know how to endure it. Once you get your mind around the notion that the pain never goes away, it is, strangely enough, easier to incorporate into your life. You keep reading, you keep eating, you keep sleeping, you keep loving, you keep mourning and you never stop remembering. And, above all, you keep living.

***

It always waits until after you are asleep.

Memories. Not the unyielding, excruciating moments near the end, but the better times. Or even worse, the arbitrary moments in life that dig in deep, long before the mind has discarded them.

In the dark, afraid to close your eyes now, afraid of the not-quite-nothingness that awaits you there. Like a boy, again. Afraid of the dark; afraid to close your eyes.

Too much like death?

No. It was too much like life.

Sleep and death can each prolong peacefulness. The quiet, uncomplicated ability to forget suffering and self. Awake: I think, therefore I am, you think.

You can’t find an explanation for how you came to be here, but there has to be a story. There is always a story. (There is a dark space between what you can tell others and what you will only tell yourself, and that is Truth. And there is a darker space that contains the things you cannot even tell yourself; those things speak their own language—in dreams, memories and mistakes—so you try to make sense of them any way you can, and that is Art.)

Here is the story: everything had played out pretty much according to everyone’s expectations. It all more or less happened the way you had envisioned it would. You had plenty of time—all those anxious days, all those empty hours—to imagine how it would unwind. And after the long wait and eventual end of it, there was the afterward, the first day of the rest of your lives. Anyone who has lost a loved one will recall, or half-recall, the blur of events that come after, all of which are a blessing in the disguise of distraction.

We made it.

Yes, you thought: the hard part was over.

No, you knew: it was too soon to say that.

Okay. At least the worst part was behind you. It had taken five years: from first surgery until the day after, almost exactly five years. It had taken more than any of you could give. It had taken more than any of you could bear to give up. Now, (you hoped), all you had to do was somehow go about the business of living. Just live our lives, you thought.

The worst, (you knew), was over.

No, that’s not the truth.

The worst was only beginning?

No, not that either.

Only this: you had the rest of your lives to live.

You can’t go home again, someone once wrote.

And they were wrong.

Of course you can; all you have to do is never leave. Or, leaving it behind does not mean it leaves you. And certainly you can’t be the only grown child who returns often—in dreams, in memories and, of course, in your mind, you must confess: earnestly, often—to the old streets that you came to outgrow the way we outgrow games and bikes and friends and exchange them for jobs and cars and co-workers.

Remembering: immeasurable moments, IVs and all the unpleasant things you can’t force yourself to forget. Bad days, worse days, glimpses of serenity and then grief; a flash focus of forced perspective: This too shall pass. Then, inevitably, earlier times: you recall when doctors and dentists handled us with bare hands. Still living, then, in a past the future had not crept up on, a time when the truth was believable, because the only lies that children can tell get told to escape tiny troubles they’ve created.

***

I’m scared, you said.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You know I’ll never leave you, right? I would never leave this place without you.”

And you did know it. You believed her. It wasn’t the fear of being left alone (even an eight year old knows that is irrational, even if he could not explain it); it was the fear itself. It’s the fear itself, you did not say, because how can an eight year old articulate a concept he can’t quite understand? How do you convey the dread, bubbling up like blood from a scraped knee, brought on without warning or reason—the inexplicable consequence of chemistry? Only once it becomes established, a pattern, do you remember to expect it, even if you don’t understand it. Anticipation of a word you do not know and a sensation you cannot yet communicate: anxiety.

I’ll never leave you, she said.

And you believed her. It was never enough, but it was all she could do, other than never leaving your sight. Even you could understand that. Years and too many close calls to count later, you finally figured out that you have to go through that moment, alone, and then it would never be the same. The fear disappeared and everything would be okay. It was the dread of not knowing, yet being aware it was always inside, that made those moments so difficult to deal with. You had to experience it, get through it, and then that ineradicable fear subsided.

***

I’m so scared, she said, to anyone who was listening.

You know you were, and hoped that God was, the God who may have done this and a million other things in that austere, always unaccountable way. In the end: she feared the truth but not the reasons why awful things always happen to almost everyone. You, you envied the armor of her fear; you understood you could not even rely on those lovely lies about a God you couldn’t bring yourself to believe in.

***

You didn’t need a doctor to tell you that it was over.

On the way to no longer being, a person suffering from a terminal disease, like cancer, ceases to be themselves. It is during this time, which is hopefully as brief as possible for all involved, that family or friends (or medical staff, if they are sufficiently human) will get the message and take immediate action. The objective, you quickly ascertain, is no longer to help the person get back to being the person they were, but to help expedite—or ease—the resolution that Nature is not always interested in accommodating.

You don’t need anyone to tell you when it’s over. At a certain point you understand that the end has begun, because this is no longer your mother sitting—distracted and shaking—before you; this is instead a woman who had entered the last stage of a long, drawn-out, devastating dance with the illness she had loathed and feared more than anything else her entire adult life. She was no longer herself and she was no longer entirely with the rest of you; she was in a different place, that place some of us are obliged to go when our bodies, then our brains are assailed, inhabited by some malignant host, and we heed a primal imperative to follow that path until we arrive at the place where we no longer need to walk or cry or breathe or believe.

In the end you try to do for them what they did for you.

You watch them, filled with concern and fear, hoping that love and care can be enough. You sit there, quiet, trying to radiate what you do not feel inside—all the doubt and grief, the concern and fear. Please, you ask, just let her be peaceful; after all this, allow her to finally find peace. Looking right at her, all over her, you do what you can to provide some semblance of peace. By meditating, praying, focusing (the type of concentration that eventually brings clarity) and trying to will everything to be okay (Everything is going to be okay: this is the one promise you’ve repeated these last two weeks; a message and a mantra). Three hours. Unloading a barrage of comforting, healing thoughts and images, offering up everything that’s ever inspired you: snippets of songs (“While My Lady Sleeps” by Coltrane and “Blue Nile” by his wife Alice, and dozens of others), even fragments of poetry and prose (Ivan Illich: Death is over!; Emily Dickinson: Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; Keats: When I have fears that I may cease to be; Shelley: The lone and level sands stretch far away) and finally thinking, then silently humming the first nursery rhyme I can recall hearing: Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep. Then imagining it as a song, then hearing it (composing it?) as a jazz improvisation: with or without words, hearing a trumpet state the theme, then a sax, then the piano, then cymbals cascading in with a warm wash…until it takes off, soaring beyond music, beyond consciousness and somewhere else altogether.

Where was I?

Somewhere else. Out of body but in my mind? Shivering with purpose, glistening with energy and faith—faith in the energy inside, getting back to being inside this house, this situation, inside of myself. Beginning to appreciate that we can’t (shouldn’t?) try to understand everything, especially the things we seek to understand most of all. Just fear and concern becoming concentration, concentrated energy ending up on the other side as love. A soft silence, looking down at her again, like she had gone to sleep. Only more.

***

Later, after it was over, you stand alone by the lake, thinking about all you had seen, about what had happened and what was going to happen.

You look up at the uncommunicative sky and remember what you had once read, ages ago: that the light from a dead star, once it actually reached the earth, was millions of years old. At that moment, this seems to signify everything awesome and immutable, all you are capable or grasping, but neither rationalize nor reconcile. All those things there are no answers for.

You think about your life.

Silently you stand, the same child who had once looked up at the stars, scattered like breadcrumbs in the dark air, wondering if they really led to a kingdom beyond the clouds.

As always, you think about your family, your friends, all the heroes who had created art that made life more worth living, the places and feelings that comprised the pain and profundity of existence. All the questions that belonged without answers: all of this is inside. So long as you live, and made yourself remember, they never ceased to be.

You look out on the water, at your face, reflecting up into the evening, looking down and seeing the world in itself. Then the mirror implodes as you walk forward, leaving your shirt and shoes on the shore. You stride into the dark, warm water, making your way to the middle of the lake and diving deep, not stopping until your hands touch the bottom, gripping the cold marrow of murky mud.

Moments later you emerge, sucking in the air as though you had never tasted life before; as though you were breathing for the first time.

*from a work-in-progress entitled Please Talk About Me When I’m Gone.

The way the piano was played, like almost everything else in jazz, changed during the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. With a new crop of young virtuosos churning out one momentous work after another, the piano arguably reached a level of prominence that was never duplicated. It was during these years when legends like McCoy Tyner (who also famously worked with John Coltrane) and Herbie Hancock (who also famously worked with Miles Davis) established themselves as major figures on the scene.

While there were plenty of other notable players who made their mark (and icons like Art Tatum, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk who had each already taken the instrument to unprecedented levels of brilliance and glory), Bill Evans is one of the most important, if somewhat overlooked, geniuses in jazz history. This is in part because, despite the universal and enduring appeal and praise his work engenders, his personal story generally lacks the drama and mystique so inextricably associated with many (if not most) of the jazz icons of that era. Indeed, everything about Evans could easily, if facilely be described as understated. Everything, that is, except for his legacy and influence. Indelible, in his way, as Coltrane or Coleman, Evans helped instigate a calm and very cool revolution that subtly but unquestionably helped shape the jazz that came.

Certain words are invariably used when discussing Evans, and they are often meant well: introspective, intellectual, impressionistic, serene, understated. These descriptions, however genuine their intent, are inadequate. Think about how frequently the words quirky or irreverent are used in discussions of Monk or the words bombastic or passionate are used to describe Mingus. In each of these instances, the man’s craft and complexity gets shortchanged.

Much rightly gets said about Evans and the impact he had on piano, but not enough is perhaps said about how musicians, regardless of what instrument they played, were profoundly impacted by his style. Not for nothing was his second album as leader—and first masterpiece—entitled Everybody Digs Bill Evans. Evans remains a challenge for any writer who hopes to avoid uncritical acclaim or worse, cliché. The reality is that the depth of feeling and emotion in his work is difficult to adequately convey, but it’s all there in the recordings. The Definitive Bill Evans on Riverside and Fantasy does a commendable job of assembling, on two discs, some of his most memorable and important work.

Bill Evans, whose life was abbreviated as the result of extended drug abuse, made music in three decades, but it his work in the last years of the ‘50s and the first years of the ‘60s that garners the most discussion and approbation. No serious jazz collection can be considered complete without copies of the aforementioned Everybody Digs Bill Evans, as well as Portrait In Jazz, Waltz for Debby and Sunday at the Village Vanguard. The last three, all recorded with Paul Motian (drums) and Scott LaFaro (bass) as part of the Bill Evans trio, represent high points not only in Evans’s career, but in all of jazz.

Before forming his first—and best—trio, Evans had already made a considerable impression. Even before his revolutionary work on Kind of Blue (1959), Evans had played on Charles Mingus’s minor masterpiece East Coasting (1957). He would later make contributions on some of the crucial albums of the ‘60s, including George Russell’s Jazz in the Space Age (1960) and Oliver Nelson’s  The Blues and the Abstract Truth (1961). It is possible that Evans would warrant discussion even if he had only recorded “Peace Piece”, a solo piece from Everybody Digs Bill Evans (1958). Not only is it a perfectly realized composition, it is an ideal point of entry for the Evans aesthetic. The second selection on this set, following “Speak Low” (from his debut New Jazz Conceptions), “Peace Piece” is an early culmination of the type of sound Evans was working toward. This was, not coincidentally, during the same time he was employed by Miles Davis. Both men, circa 1958, were bored with convention and obsessed with freedom. The aim was to elevate feeling above all else; to achieve an unfettered, inevitable style that could only be the result of seamless improvisation. This, of course, is only possible through the result of ceaseless practice and reflection.

The masterworks ensued. Those trio albums continue to be cited by critics and musicians alike. The almost telepathic interplay achieved a pinnacle of sorts for the form. Jazz history is, unfortunately, replete with truncated careers, but the Bill Evans Trio must be ranked near the top of this dubious list of what-might-have-beens. When Scott LaFaro died in a car accident, jazz lost one of its best bass players, and the trio instantly became another tantalizing story interrupted by tragedy. Like Charles Mingus after Eric Dolphy died, Evans was inconsolable. It could be proposed, for understandable reasons, that this was a loss he could never fully recover from.

His supporting cast changed often during the next decade and a half, but Evans continued to make remarkable music. It’s his work after the trio, and all through the ‘70s, that tends to get short shrift. This collection does a commendable job showcasing how productive and significant he remained, right up to his death in 1980. Songs from more than a dozen subsequent albums are collected (one from each), providing a more than adequate sampler of lesser-known Evans. Some highlights have to include the spectacular “Medley: ‘Spartacus Love Theme’/Nardis” (from The Solo Sessions, Vol. 1), “On Green Dolphin Street” (from The Tokyo Concert), “Re: Person I Knew” (from Re: Person I Knew) and “The Touch of Your Lips” (from Alone (Again)).

This collection may serve as a timely refresher course for the fans, but it is an ideal primer for would-be enthusiasts. If you are among that latter group, pick this up without reservation or delay. Allow the rest of us to envy you for being on the verge of falling under the spell of Bill Evans for the first time. Enjoy the journey; it will last the rest of your life.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/144375-bill-evans-the-definitive-bill-evans-on-riverside-and-fantasy/

It occurs to me that I’ve said little, on the record, about McCoy Tyner.

This is a shame, since he is one of my all-time favorite musicians and a case could be made that he has, pound for pound, been the most prolific, consistently brilliant and straight-out important jazz musician of the last half-century.

That he made music (and history) as part of the “Classic Quartet” with John Coltrane is enough to ensure his immortality in jazz circles. That he simultaneously was making remarkable albums under his own name only adds to his legend. That he was also appearing with compatriots (like Wayne Shorter) and appearing on masterpiece after masterpiece for the Blue Note label would seal the deal. But that all occurred in the ’60s. Not enough people know that Tyner continued to make astonishing music into the ’70s and has not slowed down since. Indeed, his streak of albums from the late ’60s (starting with Expansions through the mid-to-late ’70s with Trident) represents a body of work that, by itself, can stand alongside anything anyone has ever done (in any genre, by the way).

Hyperbole? Hardly. Tyner epitomizes the restless spirit and inspiration that characterizes all of our great artists: he was already a master (for whatever that’s worth –and for the purposes of any discussion about jazz, it’s worth a great deal) by the mid-’60s; his work with Coltrane could be studied and analyzed the way entire catalogs of music get dissected by critics. He was neither sated nor satisfied, so he kept pushing and his work became increasingly ambitious, wide in scope and rewarding. His playing on albums like Expansions, Extensions, Enlightenment or Sahara is extraordinary, combining the proficiency and power with the uniquely affirmative expression he ceaselessly conjures up and conveys. It does, at times, sound like two people are playing two different pianos: there is so much going on, such emotion and feeling, but with little if any of the harshness or imperial perfection of late Coltrane. Similar in this regard to Mingus, there is a constant intensity and enormity in the playing, but instead of overwhelming it buoys you and carries you along.

In the ’70s, he began incorporating a far-reaching (literally) sensibility into his compositions, and there are traces of Africa and the far East interwoven into the mix. This is World music with a capital-W and much of the material on the aforementioned Asante and Sahara (both revealing titles on multiple levels) sound less like jazz and more like an uncategorizable other type of music: deeply spiritual and incredibly powerful, yet engaging and even, at times, ebullient.

Here is a brief tour of the progressions Tyner was making from the late ’60s through the mid-’70s. Enjoy the ride and go seek more.

Peresina (1968):

Message from the Nile (1970):

Asante (1970):

Valley of Life (1972)

Once I Loved (1976):

The question isn’t, really, about who might be interested in this documentary; it is about who might not be. For fans who already know everything, or those indifferent to jazz music altogether, this would not qualify as essential viewing. For everyone and anyone else, how on Earth could you pass up the opportunity to better understand one of the top-tier jazz geniuses of the last century—or any century?

For those whose definition of genius is either too encompassing or excessively narrow, John Coltrane poses no problems: there isn’t anyone who knows anything about music (in general) and jazz (in particular) who would contest that he is among the most prominent, impressive and influential artists to ever master an instrument. Furthermore, to put Coltrane and his unsurpassed proficiency in its simplest perspective, it might be suggested that no one has ever done anything as well as Coltrane played the saxophone.

Plus, he was an exceptionally gifted composer and bandleader and, by all accounts, he was a generous and gentle human being, as well. All of which is to say, if there is anyone worthy of celebration in our contemporary American Idol Apocalypse, Coltrane should serve as both antidote and inspiration.

Coltrane’s prime years, the decade between 1957 and 1967, seem concise enough by typical human and even artistic standards. However, he recorded so much and went through so many profound changes, it’s near impossible to convey the scope of his achievements—and impact—in a single documentary. It is, therefore, a severe limitation attempting to present any type of overview in 60-minutes, which is precisely what The World According to John Coltrane does.

One wishes the original material (this reissue was initially released in 1990) could have been expanded, or at least embellished with additional concert footage. On the other hand, even an hour of Coltrane is, in a sense, overwhelming. Considering that consequential projects could be undertaken to address Coltrane’s years on the Prestige label (late ‘50s), his momentous collaborations with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, his years on the Atlantic label (early ‘60s) and especially his years on the Impulse! label up to, and after, A Love Supreme (in ’65), a 60-minute effort is at once ludicrous and, to be fair, probably necessary.

The World According to John Coltrane follows the obligatory chronological timeline, briefly passing through his youth (the influence of his deeply faithful mother and the church music that filled his childhood were significant sources of inspiration throughout his career), then his post-military dues paying on the live circuit. Several of his contemporaries, such as Jimmy Heath, Wayne Shorter, Roscoe Mitchell and Rashied Ali are interviewed, all lending insight and echoing the unanimous awe with which so many musicians regard Coltrane.

Early on, it was apparent that Coltrane pursued his dream with an intensity bordering on obsession. “He attacked his (musical) problems,” Heath recalls. “He zoomed in until he solved it.” Coltrane quickly but methodically cultivated an unparalleled proficiency, and then he kept pushing. Like Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie (and many others), Coltrane initially emulated the bebop progenitor Charlie Parker and listened to western classical music, especially the work of Stravinsky. Even in his formative years, though, Coltrane was already resisting the accepted (and acceptable) limitations and straining to explore the possibilities of his instrument. According to Wayne Shorter, “he played the saxophone more like a piano or even a violin.”

Working in the first classic Miles Davis quintet while also recording his first sessions (for Prestige) as a leader, Coltrane steadily developed his fluid, exuberant style which famously came to be known as “sheets of sound”. The apotheosis of this evolution occurred in the miraculous year of 1959, which, among several other classic recordings, witnessed the releases of both Kind of Blue and Giant Steps. The footage, albeit awfully brief, of Miles’ solo casually sliding into Trane’s on “So What” is a bit more than simply historic: we didn’t get to see Notre Dame being built or The Statue of David being sculpted, but we do have the opportunity to witness some of the most brilliant musicians on the planet performing one of our best-loved albums. In the context of that seminal year, and this documentary, these are not simply all-time masterpieces so much as material that functioned as an obvious culmination of sorts as well as a point of departure (for both Davis and Coltrane).

After Giant Steps Coltrane would expand upon the modal concept perfected on Kind of Blue and, along with a budding interest in Eastern cultures and the avant-garde, fully embrace what was coming to be called free jazz. After 1960, one can hear the imprint of Ornette Coleman alongside the harmonic algebra of Monk and Miles, all bubbling under the surface of an increasingly intense and emotional approach to songwriting (and soloing). Rashied Ali, who worked closely with Coltrane in the final years of his life, compares him to a competitive athlete: “He was like a fighter who warms up in the dressing room; he’d break a sweat (backstage)…he was always playing.” This combination of restless energy and relentless exploration led to concert experiences that were as exhausting for audiences as they were for the musicians.

The sessions that produced My Favorite Things (1961)—a composition Trane would return to and reconfigure repeatedly in the ensuing years—are a touchstone for Coltrane’s next leap forward. Described in the documentary as a “hypnotic Eastern dervish dance”, this innocuous Rodgers/Hammerstein song became a springboard for an extensive, irresistible solo, showcasing Coltrane’s lucid yet multisyllabic way of conversing with his instrument. The footage of the “classic quartet” (McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums) tearing into this piece is more than worth the paltry price of admission. It is exhilarating to watch Coltrane—at his peak— in action, while the band steams in support. Literally. This particular clip was recorded in black-and-white at an outdoor festival, and throughout the performance it appears a smoke machine has been set up on stage until, after a while, it becomes apparent that actual waves of steam are pouring off Garrison and especially Jones.

There is more footage, including the quartet augmented by the amazing Eric Dolphy—who collaborated and performed with Coltrane throughout 1960 and 1961—which is priceless and, considering how prematurely both these men left the world, more than a little heartbreaking. The highlight, however, has to be the full performance of Coltrane’s epic protest piece “Alabama”: what Coltrane accomplishes here could cause even the most cynical hater of humanity to feel humbled by the uniquely moving and profoundly positive force of musical expression.

Of course, Coltrane’s music was not universally embraced during the final years he was able to record and play. His solos became longer and (much) more intense, yet no matter how many listeners he alienated, it was apparent that in order to push the audience, he first had to push himself. Roscoe Mitchell, commenting on this spiritual searching, likens Coltrane’s later music to what he witnessed in churches growing up, with people transporting into religious trances. This—the music and the explanation—is where more than a few draw the line; it’s just too out there.

Coltrane knew where he was going, however, even if he could not quite define what he was looking for. His wife Alice remarks that Coltrane was following a “progression toward higher spiritual realization…and development.” That type of sentiment can, and perhaps should, make people wary (this being the ‘60s, etc.) but with Coltrane it was no pose, and this was no joke. Not for nothing is A Love Supreme considered one of the most important, and affecting, albums in all of jazz. And later, even amidst the sonic uproar, came majestic and tranquil offerings like “Dear Lord” and “To Be”.

It was all over far too quickly. As is too often the case with our greatest artists, Coltrane fell ill and passed away long before his time should have come. It scarcely computes, even now, that the man making the music he recorded in early 1967 (particularly the shattering if cathartic Interstellar Space was months from losing a battle with cancer. Where he would have headed had he lived is truly difficult to imagine. It remains instructive, and more than a little startling, to consider the growth and refinement he demonstrated every few years, commencing in the mid-to-late ‘50s. Where he might have gone next is anyone’s guess, but it’s also safe to surmise that he took his instrument, and music, as far as anyone possibly could.

The World According to John Coltrane is an anti-documentary of sorts in the sense that we don’t have scholars or critics opining on who the man was and what he meant. Rather, we have the crucial and illuminating insight of contemporaries reminiscing about what it was like to be there, and what it’s like now, having lived through it all. That, along with the invaluable footage of the music being performed, speaks more eloquently and appropriately than even the most well-meaning expert (or DVD review, for that matter) is capable of doing.

I.

Nervous and unnerved this evening, alone:
Searching for solace, something not unlike prayer,
A hope that the past will not repeat itself,
Progress: a preemptive strike, this procedure
(They call it a procedure when
They expect nothing unexpected).
Precedence and percentages: our family has a history,
Meaning that some part of someone who has died
Might be alive and unwelcome and somewhere inside.

Remembering: immeasurable moments, IVs and all
The unpleasant things you can’t force yourself to forget.
Bad days, worse days, glimpses of serenity then grief,
A flash focus of forced perspective—this too shall pass.
Then, inevitably, earlier times: I recall
When doctors and dentists handled us with bare hands.
Still living, then, in a past the future had not
Crept up on, a time when the truth was believable,
Because the only lies that children can tell
Get told to escape tiny troubles they’ve created.

(I’m scared, I said.

But you know I’ll never leave you, right? I would never leave this place without you.

And I did know it. I believed her. It wasn’t the fear of being left alone (even an eight year old knows that is irrational, even if he could not explain it); it was the fear itself. It’s the fear itself, I did not say, because how can an eight year old articulate a concept he can’t understand? How do you convey the dread, bubbling up like blood from a scraped knee, brought on without warning or reason—the inexplicable consequence of chemistry? Only once it becomes established, a pattern, do you remember to expect it, even if you don’t understand it. Anticipation of a word you do not know and a sensation you cannot (yet) communicate: anxiety.

I’ll never leave you, she said. And I always believed her. It was never enough, but it was all she could do, other than never leaving my sight. Even I could understand that. Years and too many close calls to count later, I finally figured out that you had to go through that moment, alone, and then it would never be the same. The fear disappeared and everything would be okay. It was the dread of not knowing, yet knowing it was always inside, that made those moments so difficult to deal with. You had to experience it, and get through it, and then that awful, ineradicable fear subsided.)

II.

And so I am uneasy and it’s not even myself
I am thinking about: frightened all over again
For my mother, and I can do nothing for her
Now, just as I could do nothing for her, then.
A cycle: she had seen her own mother suffer
While each of them made their anxious inquiries,
Appeals entreating the darkening clouds, out of time.

Like her son, she eventually became acquainted
With the white-walled world of procedures
And all that happens—before, during, after and beyond:
Hope and fear, faith then despair—the nagging need
To believe in men and the magic of machines.
Or the things we say when no one is speaking.

(Fourth time’s the charm, I did not say, but I knew.

We all did. 1997, 2000, 2001 and now, 2002. Each previous time we’d avoided the verdict, dodged the bullet, lived to fight another day, embraced whatever cliché we could beg, borrow or steal.

This time, we knew. The surgeons would slice her open and see it. It’s in there; it’s everywhere, they would say. And then they would stitch her back together and deliver the news, all grim business. And we would bow our heads and pray for God’s blessing, as we’d been instructed in those weekly services that transport ritual and inculcate compliance. Tradition, that resilient escutcheon handed down through so many generations. They would see, she would show, and we could tell. Which is exactly the way it happened.)

III.

I’m so scared, she said, to anyone who was listening.
I know I was, and we hoped that God was,
The God who may have done this and a million other things
In His austere, always unaccountable way.
In the end: she feared the truth but not the reasons why
Awful things always happen to almost everyone.
Me, I envied the armor of her fear, I understood
I could not even rely on those lovely lies
About a God I can’t bring myself to believe in.

We were there: a child and the man
Who brought me into this calculus.
(We are made in God’s image, they say,
But it’s your parents’ faces you see when
You look at pictures and see the future.)

He said what needed to be said: nothing,
And I said what he said. After all,
What were we supposed to say, the truth?
The truth was this: we too were scared.

(How do you get over the loss?

That was the question I asked an old girlfriend who lost her father when she was a teenager. To cancer, of course. “You don’t,” she said. It’s just as awful as you’d imagine, she did not say. She did not have to; because you can’t imagine and you don’t want to imagine. How could you imagine? And, oddly enough, that succinct, painfully honest answer was more comforting than it sounded. In a way, when you think about it (does everyone think about it? Are some people able to avoid thinking about it?) there is an unexpected salve in that sentiment: you don’t get over it. Or, by not getting over it, that is how you survive it. It becomes part of you, and it is henceforth an inviolable aspect of your existence, like a chronic condition you inherit or develop along the way and manage as best you can (sometimes medications work).

This is important, because as Americans, we tend to think in terms of explanations and equations: how do I solve this riddle? We tend to inquire: how long until it’s okay again? I can handle the pain (I think) if I know how to endure it. Once you get your mind around the notion that the pain never goes away, it is, strangely enough, easier to incorporate into your life. You keep reading, you keep eating, you keep sleeping, you keep loving, you keep mourning and you never stop remembering. And, above all, you keep living.)

IV.

I’m so scared, she said, and we told her
It was going to be okay, we told her
We had reason to believe and we told her
Other things when the things we’d already told her
Turned out to be untrue. We never told her
The truth, which was that we were lying.

Fear and faith are useful if you can afford either/
Or, fear is free and lingers always, longer.
After it has served its purposeless point,
Like a stain on the street, days later.
Dying is nothing to be daunted by, it’s living
That takes the toll: living with death,
Living with life, being unprepared or unwilling
To be unafraid when it’s finally time to die.

(I’m so scared, she said, more of a whisper than spoken words.

But more than that: she was breathless with fear. It was the dread of anticipation; the fear of expectation, and the certainty of seeing what she’d already seen. The next day we would know, but we already knew.

My old man, balanced on the farthest edge of where he could allow himself to go, went into comfort mode, the autopilot of assurance spiked with insistence. “Relax,” he said (not unsoothingly). “It will be fine.”

It was his call, his place to have the final say. I deferred, and we left the room, the lie following us into the elevator like a solemn cloud. We drove away from the hospital separately and I have no idea what I listened to on the way home but I’m certain it helped.

I’m so scared, I thought, knowing we’d likely played our last hand and that we were in a rigged game the house always won. You were free to deal yourself as much hope as you could afford, but that currency can only carry you as far as the trump card the dealer is holding—the one He’s always held.

I’m so scared, she said, but I knew she’d fall asleep. She will be out as soon as the lights go off, I thought. She is too tired and too spent to worry herself into a restless night. Alone, in a strange place familiar only because of its function. The only solace an awareness that in the end, all of us go through it alone.

I’m so scared, she said, and I’ll never forget the fear in her face or the apprehension in her voice. And I’ll never forgive myself for not staying in her room to keep her company that night.)

V.

I’m so scared, I say, to anyone
Who may be listening in the silence,
Wondering if they can do more for me
Than we could manage to do for her.
There is no one left to lie to—yet
The truth, as always, is immutable.
And so, if you are out there, please help me
To absolve this dread that no one can hear.

* From a non-fiction work-in-progress entitled Please Talk About Me When I’m Gone.

It’s a big day for J.C.

In the spirit of Christmas, I’d like to celebrate J.C. with some…J.C.

I’m speaking, of course, about John Coltrane.

And I’ll try to resist the urge to make any potentially upsetting observations about the relative merits of music vs. religion, or the ways in which Coltrane’s message can never be corrupted. Instead, I’ll just offer thanks and praises (and anyone who knows me knows I’m not being sardonic). I also will point out that some people take this very seriously indeed.

“My Favorite Things” (with Eric Dolphy):

“Central Park West”:

“Dear Lord”:

‘Tis the season.

Which is to say, the time of year for finding excellent, non-traditional renditions of overly familiar “traditional” holiday music.

 1959 was a watershed year for jazz music (arguably the greatest single year for jazz in all history–which is saying a lot). Here’s a taste: Miles Davis Kind of Blue, John Coltrane Giant Steps, Charles Mingus Ah Um. That is like the holy trinity of jazz music; all from the same year. But in the not-so-silent shadows a young, relatively unknown alto saxophonist was poised to cause a stir that still reverberates today: Ornette Coleman’s provocatively titled The Shape of Jazz to Come. 

Kind of Blue is correctly celebrated for establishing modal music, and a genuine evolution from bop and post-bop; Giant Steps is the apotheosis of the “sheets of sound” that John Coltrane had been practicing and perfecting for a decade; Ah Um is an encyclopedic history of jazz music, covering everyone and everything from Jelly Roll Morton to Duke Ellington. And each of those albums were immediately embraced, and remain recognized as genuine milestones today. But The Shape of Jazz to Come was incendiary and complicated: it inspired as much resistance as it did inspiration. Some folks (Mingus included) bristled that it was all so much sound and fury, signifying…little. But what Coleman (along with trumpet player Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins — representing as solid a quartet as any that have made music, ever) achieved was, arguably, the most significant advancement since Charlie Parker hit the scene.

Of course, Parker was also misunderstood and dismissed when his frenetic, almost incomprehensibly advanced alto saxophone assault began to cause scales to drop from audiences’ eyes — if not their ears. Like any genuine iconoclasts of the avant garde, Parker and Coleman were not being new for newness sake; they had to fully grasp and master the idiom before they could transcend it. Tellingly, what was revolutionary and almost confrontational, then, seems rather tame and entirely sensible, now. Of course, it didn’t take 50 years for Coleman to resonate: he not only found his audience, John Coltrane –the all-time heavyweight champion– embraced his compatriot. He endorsed, and, crucially, he imitated. The Book of Revelation that Coltrane’s mid-’60s Impulse recordings comprise did, in many respects, grow directly out of the opening salvo fired by Coleman in ’59.

Flash forward ten years. Miles Davis was once again at the vanguard, nonchalantly picking up the baton dropped when free-jazz avatars Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane had their comet-like lives come crashing, way prematurely, to earth. By ’69, Miles had “plugged in”, augmented his quintet and went about the inconsequential task of changing music (again). To say that his endeavors were met with similar resistance as those of Coleman a decade before is putting it mildly. Indeed, while Ornette was eventually recognized, even lionized (witness his most-deserved 2007 Pulitzer for the masterful Sound Grammar ), the work Miles did in the late ’60s and early ’70s was met with a combination of incredulity, indifference and outright hostility (it also was warmly embraced by people with the ears to hear it). Much more on this era and the culmination of his experimentations which resulted in Bitches Brew, very shortly (stay tuned).

Suffice it to say, Miles led the charge that led to, depending upon one’s point of view, a radical expansion of jazz music’s possibilities or its lamentable bastardization. Certainly the (inevitable, unfortunate) proliferation of watered down fusion which resulted in the artistic stillbirth known as Smooth Jazz has little (if anything) to do with the shock heard ’round the world that Miles sounded off circa 1970.

What happened next is, again depending on one’s perspective, the languid death march of America’s music or a continuation of an art that seamlessly integrates virtually every noise and culture from around the globe. A certain, and predictable, cadre of critics submerged their heads in the sand and bitched about better days. The awake and aware folks who make and receive these offerings celebrate an ever-evolving music that resists boundaries and is capable of communication transcending language and explanation. At its best it is an ideal synergy of expression and integrity.

Anyone who knows anything understands that some of the best jazz music ever was created in the ’70s (no, really) and a great deal of amazing music was made in the ’80s (seriously). But in the ’90s and into the ’00s we’ve seen jazz music consistently –and successfully– embrace other forms of music (rock, rap, electronica, etc.) and end up somewhere that remains jazz, yet something else altogether. There are myriad examples, of course, but this small sampler of five selections might be illustrative, and enlightening. The uninitiated may be surprised, even astonished, at how alive and accessible this “other” music really is.

One could (and should) say more about artists such as Lester Bowie, Jamie Saft, Marco Benevento, The Bad Plus, Critters Buggin, Garage a Trois and Mostly Other People Do The Killing, all of whom have incorporated our (increasingly) info-overload existence into their sound. Slack-jawed and stale-souled haters may demur at even calling this Jazz, or course. And of course the last laugh is on them because most of these musicians would care less than a little what you call it. They understand that the shape of jazz that came is always turning into what we’ll be listening to tomorrow.

1. DJ Spooky (with William Parker, Joe McPhee and Guillermo E. Brown), “ibid, desmarches, ibid” (from Optometry):

2. Material, “Black Light” (from Hallucination Engine):

3. Matthew Shipp, “Cohesion” (from Equilibrium):

4. John Zorn, “Giù La Testa (Duck You Sucker!)” (from The Big Gundown):

5. Medeski, Martin and Wood (with DJ Logic), “Start-Stop” (from Combustication):