Chief Trane - The influence of John Coltrane

CHIEF TRANE

The influence of John Coltrane on the contemporary jazz saxophonist, focusing particularly on his recorded output from 1957 to 1964.

Few musicians have had such a powerful and lasting influence on music and culture as tenor saxophonist John Coltrane.  This essay scrutinizes the most important phase of Coltrane’s life from the late fifties to mid sixties which includes the seminal recordings of Giant Steps, My Favorite Things and A Love Supreme.  This particular period was when Coltrane reached musical maturity, beginning with the Miles Davis Quintet, to his recordings as a leader, the explorations of Giant Steps, the establishment of his ‘classic’ quartet and finally his involvement with free jazz.  Taking the words and music of various contemporary jazz saxophonists as evidence, we will analyse how Coltrane became the most important saxophonist of our time.  A problem of this topic is that pinpointing exactly what constitutes influence is a rather nebulous concept.  We will begin by discussing the harmonic language of Coltrane and go on to look at his tone and rhythmic conception.  His popularising of the extended solo and the soprano saxophone will be assessed and finally, we will discuss Coltrane’s involvement with the avant garde, his personal philosophies and his position in the jazz lineage.

            One problem with talking about major jazz figures is that they are shrouded in a culture of veneration, thus finding objective, non-anecdotal resources can be challenging. 

Jazz has generated a great deal of writing over the decades, from fan-ish anecdote to impassioned polemic, the wildly impressionistic to the technically rigorous.  The jazz fan now has an unparalleled choice of reading matter. (Mathieson, 1991, p.vii)

Caution is thus called for as some writers seem more intent on waxing lyrical over their heroes than presenting substantive accounts.  In an endeavour to be unbiased, all musical examples have been taken from personal transcriptions, which provided the analytical bedrock for reliable research and objectivity.

Regarding harmony, the jazz world is still recovering from the harmonic exploits of John Coltrane.  His complex use of tension and release was unparalleled at the time and bridged the song-based approach of Charlie Parker and the ‘harmelodic’ concept of Ornette Coleman.  Possessing a foolproof harmonic conception is important because it imbues one’s music with substance above and beyond good technique.  Following his cold turkey cessation of heroin use, Coltrane dedicated himself wholly to musical pursuits, studying with a number of notable musical figures.  In 1960 Coltrane explained:

I’ve been devoting quite a bit of my time to harmonic studies on my own, in libraries and places like that. I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light. I’m not finished with these studies because I haven’t assimilated everything into my playing. (Coltrane & Demichael, 1960, p.102)

The semiotic nature of chord symbols means that what one person might play over a Cm7 for instance will be totally different to another’s interpretation.  Coltrane’s decodification of the changes would be unique to him, the chords signifying different things than they would to others.  Taking the ground-breaking tune Giant Steps, we see how

Coltrane destroyed tonality by using it against itself. Employing the most basic feature of the American popular song, the II-V-I chord progression, he sped up the rate as well as the degree of modulation to an unprecedented extent, creating a context for improvisation that allowed for coherent complete chromatic circulation. That Coltrane ‘signified’ on popular songs like My Favorite Things has been commented upon; less well-known is how his harmonic research signifies on the elemental assumptions of Western music theory. (Schott in Zorn, 2000, p. 355)

                As though Kenny Garrett’s tribute album Pursuance: The Music Of John Coltranewere not proof enough of Coltrane’s influence, the musical content itself evidences an internalisation of Coltranian dialect.  On the 1960 composition Equinox, Garrett sidesteps the tonality by a semitone, from Bbm to A (ex.1)[1], which was a typical Coltrane-esque device, and is used in the bridge section of Coltrane’s Resolution (ex.2). 

This sophisticated technique, when confidently executed, takes the melodic line momentarily outside of the prevailing harmonic territory before its resolution.  While one could argue that Garrett is deliberately playing in a similar style to Coltrane merely for the purposes of this recording, his version of Giant Steps shows he is adopting a more personal approach.  His version uses irregular time signatures[2] and focuses far more on the upper extensions of chords than the original.  This is not mere imitation, but the fruits of a cohesive influence manifested through Garrett.

            Coltrane’s appetite for harmonic innovations led him to study early 20^th century theorist Nicholas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns.  Many musicians have desperately studied this book in an aim to find the secrets of Coltrane’s advanced harmonic language.  One of the most important works of this period was the 1959 album Giant Steps, but more significant than the recording itself were the underlying harmonic concepts which Coltrane gained from his Slonimsky research.  Coltrane became the first jazz musician to extensively use the major third axis as a foundation for compositions and also as a reharmonization method.  This device had been used in a limited way before Coltrane discovered it, for example, in standards such as Have You Met Miss Jones and In A Sentimental Mood, however, the device was unusual and never used as a compositional basis in and of itself.

            The title Giant Stepsrefers not only to the major third interval leap, but also to Coltrane’s improvisations which raised virtuosity to a new level, literally a giant step.  The chord changes have become studies in themselves and are now used by musicians the world over and sometimes superimposed over familiar forms such as the blues.  These ‘Coltrane Changes’ have spawned many theoretical writings and their importance cannot be overstated.  To see a working example of major third reharmonization, please refer to Appendix A where Miles Davis’ Tune Up is compared with Coltrane’s Countdown.

            Coltrane also spent time with theorist George Russell, author of the most advanced harmonic discourse to emerge from jazz.  Russell’s lydian chromatic concept interested Coltrane and it is possible that he applied Russell’s ideas in his playing.  Whether this was the case or not, it was Coltrane and Miles Davis’ interest in the book that elevated it to the revered treatise it is today.  In the fifth edition Russell writes of Coltrane that “once an innovator knows a certain approach works, it is likely to become a permanent part of his...vocabulary” (Russell, 2001, p.188).  This gives some clue as to where Coltrane may have found his harmonic materials. 

            It is worth noting that in his own time Coltrane influenced contemporaries, notably Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, whose strong rhythm and blues style was utterly transformed when he encountered Coltrane.  We hear this influence particularly on Miles Davis’ Kind of Bluewhere Cannonball gleans by osmosis Coltranian language in its embryonic stages.  Although Kind of Blue and Giant Steps were recorded within a month of one another Coltrane does not regurgitate his major third ideas over Miles’ modal compositions.  He has another, entirely different conception for the quintet.  During this period Coltrane spent a good deal of time with young saxophonist Wayne Shorter who

had been friends with Coltrane, and the two often practised together.  In the mid-Sixties, Shorter recorded a series of albums for Blue Note.  The first few were with Coltrane’s rhythm section and had a modal lyricism that, while personal and individual, nevertheless clearly exhibited the impress of Trane. (Nisenson, 1995, p.244)

Coltrane’s modal conception culminated in the second most popular jazz recording of all time,[3] A Love Supreme.  Coltrane’s son Ravi Coltrane notes “how his father would reserve the use of certain harmonic gestures to enhance their value,” (Kahn, 2002, p.102).  This can be heard clearly on Coltrane’s Resolution solo where he delays the use of the thirteenth for eight bars and then emphasises it to great effect (ex.3).

            Ultimately, from a harmonic perspective, Coltrane set a tough precedent for future jazz saxophonists.  He made thorough harmonic grounding a vital attribute for every jazz saxophone player.  Coltrane’s formidable technique meant that instrumental virtuosity also become part of the mandate.  This raising of standards specifically affected the saxophone more so than other lead instruments such as trumpet and trombone which had no similar virtuoso figurehead.

            Coltrane raised the bar for the jazz saxophonist through his intense rhythmic impetus, as manifested through articulation.  His expressive palette ranged from a languid legato wash to a crisp and biting staccato.  The infamy of the Giant Steps solo lies more in the rhythmic momentum of Coltrane’s melodic line than the harmony.  Indeed, what has made Giant Stepsthe most transcribed solo in jazz are not the repetitive materials, but the ferocity with which Coltrane propels the ensemble forwards.  His articulated time feel imbues the music with an intensity and sophistication that elevates it from technical exercise to pivotal work.  Pianist Tommy Flannagan is left grappling with the complicated modulations and desperately tries to keep the form before he has his solo brought to an abrupt end by Coltrane’s blistering re-entry.   Cole observes that Coltrane’s modal period actually developed out of his rhythmic conception when playing over pieces with more traditional song-forms:

In his solo on “Blue Train,” Trane, as he did with Monk, was playing faster, not just to play faster but to execute rhythmic patterns with that assured sound of his.  He was still playing faster than anyone had before, and with pinpoint articulation.  He was doing this while developing rhythmic-melodic lines.  Now he needed the space in which to sustain these lines.  This didn’t necessarily mean more playing time, but rather stretching out the space in changing harmonies, in order to further sustain his rhythms.  Even in the tight space he was working in now, he was demonstrating that he was a visionary musician. (Cole, 2001, p.72)

One of the less insightful comments listeners make when first hearing Coltrane is that he plays very fast.  On a deeper level, Coltrane was instigating a new paradigm in jazz

according to the lines already laid down by the past. Rhythmically, Louis Armstrong thought in quarter-notes; Charlie Parker thought in eighth-notes. Coltrane’s phrases and accents imply that he was thinking rhythmically in 16ths; thus, Coltrane subdivided bebop rhythm. (Williams, 1967, p.41)

That is not to say that nobody played semiquavers before Coltrane, but looking at the construction of saxophone solos in the post-Coltrane climate, one cannot fail to notice the abundance of this “sheets of sound” device, as famously coined by journalist Ira Gitler in 1957.  In Michael Brecker’s composition Cabin Fever (ex. 4) we clearly hear how the same rhythmic energy that thrust the music forward is present today.  In a sense, Brecker is the epitome of the Coltrane-centric tenor player, however, even his most passionate work can sound clinical when compared with Coltrane’s output.  Coltrane’s solos

tend more to stampede the rhythm section with the sheer weight of their inner rhyme than to correspond in a more direct way to the section’s rhythmic thrust,  He was playing neither behind nor on the beat, but rather flying over it. (Nisenson, 1995, p.48)

What is remarkable when we consider Coltrane’s tone is that it penetrates the usual boundaries of time, styles and cultures.  The opening stentorian cry of Acknowledgement from A Love Supreme is still as gripping today as it was forty years ago.  The sonority of Coltrane’s horn presents the contemporary jazz saxophonist with a timeless manifesto of the model tenor saxophone sound.  It is hard to overestimate the importance of this, especially when one considers the rich lineage that is aurally present when we listen to Coltrane.  In a sense we listen not only to Coltrane, but to Lester Young, Johnny Hodges, Dexter Gordon and Charlie Parker.  Coltrane therefore represents a synthesis of all that went before, but also a powerful inertial force promoting continual innovation.

            Of course, this has not always been the case, as some “found Coltrane’s tone raw and shocking after years in which the...school of Lester Young and Stan Getz had held sway,” (Larkin, 2004, p.194).  Critics of the day dismayed Coltrane by describing his tone as angry, when Coltrane actually conceived of his music as a spiritual quest, not merely some form of catharsis.  When jazz musicians talk about tone they often mean the whole stylistic conception of the artist, not just the physical parameters of their sound, so tone might include aspects of intonation, range and dynamics.  Coltrane’s tone on tenor saxophone is considered a template for the jazz saxophonist, proving the prophetic insight in this 1960 review:

run, do not walk or otherwise loiter on your way down to the Jazz Gallery. The reason is John Coltrane, a tenor saxophonist who has the future coming out of his horn. (Nelsen, 1960, p.219)

Regarding Coltrane’s own thoughts on saxophone tone, he once explained that contrary to the alto saxophone where Charlie Parker’s influence was ubiquitous, how

there was no one man whose ideas were so dominant. I listened to almost all the good tenor men, beginning with Lester [Young], and believe me, I’ve picked up something from all of them, including several who haven’t recorded. (Coltrane in Watrous, 1987, p.58)

Thus Coltrane is the conglomeration of all the prominent tenor players from previous decades, like Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt and Stan Getz.  The ability to beautifully execute a ballad was not always one of Coltrane’s strengths, his original version of Naima sounds rather brittle.  Nevertheless, we can conclude that Coltrane’s usual sound

has become a mainstream commodity, from the Berklee College of Music style of Michael Brecker to the ‘European’ variant of Jan Garbarek.  New stars such as Andy Sheppard have established new audiences for jazz without finding new ways of playing. (Larkin, 2004, p.195)

Though Coltrane was primarily a tenor saxophonist, it should be noted that he also elevated the soprano saxophone from complete obscurity.  Before Coltrane, the only jazz musicians who seriously played soprano were clarinettist Sidney Bechet and to a lesser extent, Johnny Hodges.  Coltrane became enthralled by this instrument and began to use it extensively.  His most famous work on soprano was the clarion-call My Favorite Things, which became a standard part of his classic quartet’s repertory.  By today’s standards his soprano playing is little short of abysmal, the tone is thin, the intonation is completely askew and he has no genuine control over the upper register, but of course he had no real role models upon which to base his tonal concept.

            That Coltrane played the instrument is more important than what he played.  This is because

he alone was responsible for recognizing and demonstrating the potential of the soprano saxophone as a modern jazz instrument; by the 1970s most alto and tenor saxophonists doubled on this once archaic instrument. (Kernfeld, 2001, p.163)

Looking at the contemporary jazz scene today we find that the combination of soprano and tenor is very common.

Although Miles Davis is generally remembered as the great enabler, the role that Coltrane played as a leader and encourager of others should not be underestimated.  It was Coltrane who inspired ‘The New Thing’ generation of saxophonists and who actively brought young musicians alongside him in various projects.  In an interview for an extended CD reissue of Blue Train, Archie Shepp stated that his record deal with Impulse! was “Almost totally engineered by John Coltrane.”  Players such as Pharaoh Sanders, John Tchicai and Albert Ayler owe much of their success to the opportunities they received from Coltrane.  Their names have become synonymous with Coltrane and some have not really developed their individual styles since his death.

            Coltrane may have been introverted and reluctant to speak in a manner that revealed his phenomenal intellect, but he had the qualities of an effective leader.  On stage and in the studio Coltrane became a vociferous and significant musical personality, thus inspiring many young players.  The trend of saxophone players leading their own groups has proliferated in the forty years since his death and has further established the saxophone as the cardinal jazz instrument.

            Coltrane’s late period output is often overlooked by critics as a kind of aimless searching, but this is to ignore the vital role Coltrane played at this time in launching the avant garde as a valid mode of musical expression:  “With a wave of his hand, Coltrane...legitimized the angry, discordant sounds of the New Thing, forcing serious attention to be paid to a subgenre that might otherwise have been dismissed,” (Kahn, 2002, p.184).  Coltrane’s influence on the young players was not a formulating of imitators, rather, edification to develop their own voices. 

            Regarding the musical materials of this period, it was reportedly Thelonius Monk who first talked to him about using multiphonics.  When Coltrane discovered these effects he endeavoured to employ them in his music, for example in Impressions from the Graz Concert live recording (ex. 5), we hear him continually straining for the same top A split tone. 

Regardless of how competently Coltrane used this technique, it opened the door for jazz players in the future using them in more sophisticated ways.  One instance can be found in Stefano di Battista’s recording ‘Round About Roma, on Amorosowhere he uses a multiphonic at a climactic moment (ex. 6). 

This particular recording obviously draws on classical influences, but the use of the multiphonic pays tribute to Coltrane’s sixties experimentations. What we have here is an example of how even artists who have not necessarily followed Coltrane’s aesthetic approach have nevertheless taken elements of his style and incorporated them into their own work.  Amoroso may be rather removed from late-Coltrane, but there are subtle musical connections that make them part of the same lineage. 

            A more direct link to Coltrane’s late period can be found in British free jazz pioneer Evan Parker, best known for his unaccompanied solo saxophone performances.  One could argue that he represents a departure from the Coltranian path because there are no recorded examples or accounts of Coltrane playing absolutely solo.  But when we consider how just Coltrane and Elvin Jones would sometimes play for hours together, we begin to forge a connection.  John Tchicai, John Surman, Michael Brecker and Joshua Redman have all recorded extensively in unaccompanied settings.  Although Coltrane never played completely unaccompanied in public, the exploratory nature of his solos and the sonic landscapes created have clearly moulded Parker’s approach.  The freedom we hear in Coltrane is developed, expanded and augmented by Parker to ever more distant aural limits.  If one compares India from the 1961 Village Vanguard sessions (ex. 7) to Line 2 from Evan Parker’s Lines Burnt in The Light, (ex. 8) there is a particular use of harmonics and polyphony in the saxophone line that establishes a musical conduit between the ‘New Thing’ of the sixties and today’s free scene. 

We observe that Parker uses

asymmetrical groupings not dependent on the basic pulse; developing an incredibly sophisticated system of chord substitutions and initiating a pan-modal style of playing, using several modes simultaneously. (Nisenson, 1995, p.223)

Although Parker enjoys only a fraction of Coltrane’s notability, this element of the music undoubtedly lives on.

When we talk of influence, we should bear in mind that not all influence is of a positive nature

although this in no way diminishes the value of his own work.  [Miles] Davis has a point: about the “droning modality.”...While no one soloed for an hour or more like Trane on a good night, the average soloist would often play a solo for fifteen or twenty minutes, boring the hell out of his audience.  Most of the young musicians who wished to play long had not mastered improvising a coherent solo of, say, sixteen bars, or one or two choruses, as Coltrane had. [This] in no way diminishes Coltrane’s own ability to captivate audiences while soloing far longer than those misguided acolytes; rather, it makes that ability even more awe-inspiring. (Ibid)

Coltrane’s effect on his contemporary Sonny Rollins is evident in Mother Nature’s Blues from Global Warming, where Rollins plays sixteen choruses as a main solo then another seven at the end, starting with a blazing re-entry from an uninspired drum solo.  The sheer depth of Rollins’ inventiveness clearly exhibits the influence of Coltrane, and the strident tone of his return (ex. 9) begs comparison with the Giant Steps recording (ex. 10). 

Sonny displays a Coltranian exuberance and passion that would have been unknown before his contemporary became a musician of such renown.

            Coltrane’s habit of playing long solos began in the Miles Davis quintet, and the philosophy behind it is explained adroitly by one of Coltrane’s protégés, Archie Shepp:

That was his breakthrough – the concept that the imperatives of conception might make it necessary to improvise at great length...that it was possible to create thirty or forty minutes of uninterrupted, continually building, continually original and imaginative music. And in the process, Coltrane also showed the rest of us we had to have the stamina – in terms of imagination and physical preparedness – to sustain those long flights. (Hentoff, 1976, p.53)

Later in his career Coltrane had the fortune to play with three highly sensitive and deft musicians: pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones.  The four of them constituted one of the finest ensembles jazz has known.  One element that demonstrates their sensitivity was Tyner and Garrison’s ‘laying out’ while Coltrane soloed, spurred on by Elvin alone.  The reasons for this are partly because of Tyner’s belief in giving soloists as much harmonic room as possible, ergo, sometimes not playing at all was the most musical decision.  Also, as Archie Shepp noted, sometimes the sheer stamina required was just too great.  There is video footage of the quartet performing for the television show Jazz Casual where we clearly observe Garrison sweating profusely at the intensity of the music.  The genesis of the saxophone and drums combination can be traced back to Coltrane’s opening evisceration of Countdown with drummer Art Taylor (ex.
11). 

An example of this can be heard in Courtney Pine’s Prince of Peace (ex. 12) from Modern Day Jazz Stories.

Trying to fathom the depths of Coltrane’s intellect was a difficult task, not least because Coltrane’s personality was so reserved and unassuming.  Interviews with him provide little insightful information and he never wrote explaining his convictions[4].  Coltrane is widely remembered as a taciturn individual whose values were transmitted more through his music than other medium.  The assertion among biographers is repeatedly that he was a very ‘religious’ man, although this label is neither useful nor accurate enough for the demands of academic rigour.  It is true that his maternal grandfather, William Blair was a baptist preacher, that his first wife Naima, was a Muslim and that his second wife Alice was a Hindu, but in fact, Coltrane spent his whole life searching for something which perhaps he never found.  His values are a typical post-modern muddle of various religious ideas and esoteric beliefs.  The liner notes of A Love Supremewhich are so often cited as God-given revelation are terribly ambiguous, not particularly relating to any specific cohesive doctrine.  One need only glance through the liner notes of a Steve Coleman album, for instance, to find similar mystical polemics today.  Thus we find that modern jazz culture is a hotbed for the new-age and obscure ontologies.  Of course, not all of this can be attributed to Coltrane, but he plays a major part in shaping this fundamental aspect of the music.

            On a more terrestrial plain, Coltrane was a politically aware individual.  His composition Alabamais a moving eulogy for a number of young black girls killed in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing.  The melodic line follows the contours of the funeral speech given by Martin Luther King.  Although this important facet of Coltrane’s character needs to be highlighted, the extent to which today’s saxophone players are as tuned in to the current socio-political climate is limited.  Israeli saxophonist Gilad Atzmon may be an exception, with his deep interest in the Middle East situation.

            Coltrane’s solemn disposition was manifested acutely through his music and there was never a flippancy in anything he played, one rarely hears quotations from standards as so many older players often used as a comic device.  Today, most contemporary saxophonists also avoid such musical quotations, again with the exception of Gilad Atzmon whose music reflects his own satirical political writings.  Otherwise, most music we hear on the contemporary jazz scene is pretty serious, even if it sometimes lacks the consistent depth of Coltrane’s.

In terms of the jazz lineage, Coltrane well and truly earned his place alongside Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.  As was true of most great jazz innovators, they immersed themselves in the tradition to such an extent that when they started to break new frontiers, their music had the authority and historical validity to do so.  One interesting point to note is that Charlie Parker died in 1955, just as Coltrane was musically coming of age.  There is a very real sense in which there was a passing on of the torch from Bird to Coltrane.  It is possible that Coltrane was the last great epoch-maker in jazz and that no one has really taken the torch from Coltrane since his death in 1967.  Some would argue that jazz is stuck in a neoclassical rut, with Coltrane tribute albums from players like Branford Marsalis exhibiting an internalisation of concepts but a lack of genuine intensity.

            As far as Coltrane’s place in the lineage is concerned, there are three distinct elements.  Firstly his respect and love for those who went before, secondly his influence on his contemporaries and finally his nurture and inspiring of the next generation.  To elaborate further, we can take the examples of

Cannonball Adderley, Wayne Shorter, Charles Lloyd—[who all] began to incorporate elements of Coltrane’s multiphonics, hard edged phrasing, and arpeggiated flights into their own playing by the mid-sixties.  Earning the respect of one’s contemporaries was one thing; inspiring an entire generation of saxophonists was another.  By decade’s midpoint Coltrane was being credited with widespread influence similar to that of his own heroes: Lester Young and Johnny Hodges. (Kahn, 2002, p.66-7)

Indeed

the last part of the equation was critical; jazz had always evolved out of the innovations of the previous generation or jazz movement.  That is what tradition is all about, and this new music...was very much part of the jazz tradition, music which spoke of and to its time. (Nisenson, 1995, p.251)

In culminating the above findings, we can but conclude that Coltrane was a resolute musician.  His synthesis of intuitive and cognitive methodologies made him a musician of extraordinary calibre.  His elevation as one of the key figures in jazz history is deserved, he worked hard to become the player he was.  Coltrane’s influence has been perpetuated in part by the posthumous release of recordings.  Both Naima his first wife and Alice his second, have unknown quantities of music that has not yet been issued, particularly the latter, with whom Coltrane recorded in his later groups.  In 2005 there was a great deal of excitement concerning a previously unreleased live recording with Thelonius Monk.  In fact, there was more interest in this release than most of the contemporary jazz being brought out.  This further illustrates the point that in a sense, jazz is still in the Coltrane-era.  As discussed earlier, there is no obvious name that follows Coltrane in the jazz lineage.  There has been a great deal of quality music made, and a tangible increase in instrumental virtuosity but no saxophonist has single-handedly shaped the music as a whole, changing its direction irrevocably.  Perhaps that is why two of his closest colleagues, McCoy Tyner and Jimmy Garrison referred to him as ‘chief’.