John Coltrane: Offering: Live at Temple University
Author: Stuart Nicholson
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Rashied Ali (d) |
Label: |
Resonance |
Magazine Review Date: |
September/2014 |
Catalogue Number: |
B0019632-02 |
RecordDate: |
11 November 1966 |
Naturally, a major archeological find such as this, a complete Coltrane concert recorded in good fidelity from a time in his career less assiduously documented by recordings than others, inevitably reawakens the question of whether jazz's past is now more important than its future. Certainly, giants like Coltrane, Miles Davis, Mingus and the like no longer walk this earth, so we value any additional documentation of their musical thinking for what it is. But this should surely not be seen as an aid to virtuosic recapitulation, to recreate the past in more detail, more accuracy and depth, but to realise that even the greats were moving past accepted definitions of what the music was during their lifetime. Jazz has always been a work in progress, as this revealing previously unreleased album demonstrates. Coltrane had used voice before, on A Love Supreme (he intoned the album title phrase 19 times) and Live in Seattle but not to the startling effect he does on ‘Leo’ and ‘My Favorite Things’, where he uses Buddhist chants and beats his chest in a way that represents powerful and unexpected climaxes within the overall arc of his performances. Yet it is less the confirmation of what had been hitherto considered apocryphal tales of his performance practices during his final months that matters, more the majestic sweep of his conception, the intensity, which some have called spirituality, of these performances and the grand theatre of their presentation (the African drummers and guest soloists where, as in some Evangelical meeting, they are moved to come forward and raise their voice) that captures the imagination.

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