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Coltrane Sounds Like Nobody Else In World of Jazz
By Ed Baker
The Seattle Times, Wednesday, September 29, 1965, page 48
As John Coltrane and his men approached the Penthouse bandstand to begin their opening set of the evening, Bill Owens whispered to friends at a ringside table, "This will be like nothing you have ever heard."
Owens, who books acts for the First Avenue club and has heard every adventurous jazz musician from Miles Davis to Dizzy Gillespie, was perfectly right.
Coltrane’s sound is like nothing else. It is wild, furious, dissonant, scornful of conventional rules of harmonics, indifferent about melody.
It also is the most influential sound in modern jazz. Many other instrumentalists, seeking new ways to express their musical ideas, have gathered around Coltrane to absorb his ideas – which, in essence, have freedom as their goal.
Coltrane, making his first Seattle appearance this week, surprised the Penthouse management by showing up with a sextet instead of the expected quartet. He uses two tenor saxes – his and that of Farrell Sanders; drums, piano, and two basses.
Some numbers last 45 minutes. Coltrane generally sets the direction with a statement that could be described as angry. The sax growls in the low register and soars into abrasive, jarring runs.
The five other men leap in, often seeming to go different ways. The music is urgent, heavily percussive packed with tension that seldom allows release.
Technically, all six musicians are good, to say the least. Three of them – Coltrane, Donald Garrett and Elvin Jones – are downright remarkable.
Although their styles seem light-years apart, Coltrane and Stan Gets share one virtue: They make a tenor sax perform feats that are improbable, if not impossible for anyone else.
Garrett can play a bass as if it were a guitar. Last night, he won a volley of applause for his 15-minute solo.
Jones ranks in the forefront – if not all alone, at the head of the class – among modern drummers.
Most laymen, even most musicians, perhaps, either will like Coltrane’s music to the point of frenzy of will reject it with equal passion.
"Modern jazz has to go new ways," Owens said. "This is Coltrane’s way, taking a few notes and then being free. Maybe this isn’t the way jazz will go; maybe it is.
"Anyhow, it’s an experience."
Owens was right again. Each listener brings deep-grooved habits with him when he hears the music. Coltrane’s departures from harmonic tradition may cause discomfort – but the listener won’t forget the sound.
That sound may be Coltrane’s artistic method of expressing some ideas about tensions and harshness in the world outside of jazz music. Some members of the audience will hear chaos only; others will find beauty emerging from an inferno.
It’s an experience – the most unusual experience that modern jazz has to offer.