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Bebop Spoken There

Ambrose Akinmusire: “ I am certainly always aware of what the masses are doing. And when I see too many people going one way, I'm going another way - even when I don't know what's over that way". DownBeat, March, 2024.

The Things They Say!

Hudson Music: Lance's "Bebop Spoken Here" is one of the heaviest and most influential jazz blogs in the UK.

Rupert Burley (Dynamic Agency): "BSH just goes from strength to strength".

'606' Club: "A toast to Lance Liddle of the terrific jazz blog 'Bebop Spoken Here'"

The Strictly Smokin' Big Band included Be Bop Spoken Here (sic) in their 5 Favourite Jazz Blogs.

Ann Braithwaite (Braithwaite & Katz Communications) You’re the BEST!

Holly Cooper, Mouthpiece Music: "Lance writes pull quotes like no one else!"

Simon Spillett: A lovely review from the dean of jazz bloggers, Lance Liddle...

Josh Weir: I love the writing on bebop spoken here... I think the work you are doing is amazing.

Postage

16287 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 169 of them this year alone and, so far, 41 this month (Mar 18).

From This Moment On ...

March

Tue 19: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Michael Young, Paul Grainger, Tim Johnston.

Wed 20: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 20: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 20: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 21: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 21: Castillo Neuvo Trio + Conor Emery & His ‘Bones Band @ The Grove, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:30pm (7:00pm doors). £10.00. (£7.00. student).
Thu 21: Remi Banklyn + Chris Corcoran Trio @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £12.50. Chicago blues. An International Guitar Foundation promotion.
Thu 21: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Ragtime piano.
Thu 21: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm.

Fri 22: Vasilis Xenopoulos & Paul Edis @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm. £8.00. SOLD OUT!
Fri 22: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 22: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 22: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 22: Nauta + Remy CB + Last Orders @ Hoochie Coochie, Newcastle. 8:30pm (7:30pm doors). Free.
Fri 22: Vasilis Xenopoulos-Paul Edis Quartet @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. £15.00. Opus 4 Jazz Club.
Fri 22: Redwell @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sat 23: Jambone @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 6:30pm. Free (ticketed). End of term performance in the Northern Rock Foundation Hall.
Sat 23: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 23: Red Kites Jazz @ Rowlands Gill Community Centre NE39 1JB. 7:00pm. Tickets: £12.00. (gibsidecommunityfarm@gmail.com). A ‘Build a Barn’ fundraiser. BYOB, tea/coffee available.
Sat 23: New Century Ragtime Orchestra @ Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £20.00. + bf (book in person at venue - no booking fee!). Featuring pianist Martin Litton.
Sat 23: Pete Tanton’s Cuba Libre @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 24: Musicians Unlimited @ Park Inn, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 24: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:30pm. Free.
Sun 24: Luis Verde @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm. Verde (alto sax); Joe Steels (guitar); John Pope (double bass); John Hirst (drums). Alto sax brilliance!
Sun 24: Elsie Franklin @ The Globe, Newcastle. 3:00pm. £10.00. Country blues. An International Guitar Foundation promotion.
Sun 24: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay Metro Station. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 24: Las Vegas Live with the Rat Pack @ The Forum, Billingham.
Sun 24: Ian Millar & Dominic Spencer @ Otterburn Memorial Hall. 7:30pm. £12.00.
Sun 24: Lindsay Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Note start time - 7:00pm.
Sun 24: Bold Big Band @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 25: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 25: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 6:30pm. Free.

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Album review: John Coltrane – A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle

John Coltrane; (tenor sax, percussion); McCoy Tyner (piano); Jimmy Garrison (bass); Elvin Jones (drums); Pharoah Sanders (tenor sax, percussion); Carlos Ward (alto sax); Donald Rafael Garrett (bass).

I was driving back from the Nikki Iles gig at the Sage, listening to the recently released Charles Mingus live album when one of the saxophonists quoted the 4 note riff from A Love Supreme in his solo. When the disc finished I flicked to Jazz FM and the second or third track they played was Will Downing’s vocal version of the same tune. ‘Blimey,’ I thought, ’A Love Supreme is all around us.’

It is hard to separate this version of the famous jazz suite from the legend that attached to the original recording. Asked by the record company to record something more commercial to match the sales of My Favorite Things Coltrane took his group to the famous Van Gelder Studios in Inglewood, New Jersey and came up with a response to his times instead. Something totally uncommercial that would defy radio play and become one of the biggest sellers in jazz history. It was recorded in December 1964 and first released the following month. Until recently it was believed that it had only been played live once, at the Antibes Jazz Festival in July 1965. That concert was widely available, though not officially released until 2002 as part of A Love Supreme: Deluxe Edition. The Seattle recording was made on October 2, 1965 and, until very recently, it had been a well-kept secret; not only was there no available recording, no one connected with the performance spoke of it or wrote about it.

This latest recording also has to be set in the context of Coltrane’s development in 1965. A Love Supreme came out early in a year that would see a gradual progression further into the avant-garde with studio albums such as Ascension, Kule Se Mama, Meditations and Om, and live albums One Up, One Down, John Coltrane Quartet Plays and Live in Seattle with Pharoah Sanders all being recorded that year, although most would not be released until after Coltrane’s death in 1967. Indeed, Live in Seattle, Om and this newest version of A Love Supreme were recorded on consecutive days. This phenomenal work rate and refusal to rest on his laurels are the defining characteristics of this great ‘Late Period’ in Coltrane’s life and this new recording is the last flourish of the great quartet, albeit in an augmented form.

Coltrane had experimented with additional musicians during the recording of the studio album and both the Deluxe Edition and The Complete Masters (which contains every burp, fart and whistle recorded for the album) include Art Davis on bass and Archie Shepp on tenor sax. Ascension, recorded in June 1965,  would take this further and would include the quartet plus seven other musicians including Sanders.

To compare the live performances, I dug out the recording of A Love Supreme from Antibes. It is 48 minutes long whilst the Seattle recording clocks in at 75 minutes, a continuous piece with the Interludes (see below - the studio recording is 33 minutes long). The Antibes recording has space and, even on the bootleg version I have on the ‘Giants of Jazz’ label (it wasn’t released, it escaped), the separation and the fact that there are only four and not seven musicians means greater clarity. You can hear what the members of the quartet are doing all of the time.

Ashley Kahn’s book A Love Supreme – The Creation of John Coltrane’s Classic Album (ISBN: 1783786051) - includes a nine-page chapter on the Antibes recording but has no mention of the Seattle performance. Interestingly, in his overview of Coltrane’s activity during 1965 Kahn writes ‘Coltrane’s response (with Meditations) leaned more towards the spiritual than the musical as he saw his current efforts as points along the same continuum’. This ‘evolutionary theory’ of Coltrane’s music during 1965 is developed without access to the Seattle recording which would have explained and clarified much. It is the key recording that provides the evidence that Coltrane ‘was determined to honour the past and yet face the future.’ (Kahn, page 179)

This new A Love Supreme reflects Coltrane’s growth during the year and applies the new approach to the familiar material. The other recordings made around the time show huge change on the previous year but for this concert he has put one foot back into the past (which was then only 11 months ago) but the performance is a clear statement of where he was, musically, by the October of 1965.

Despite the presence of three additional musicians, this still sounds like an augmented version of the great quartet rather than a septet. The most distinctive new voice is Carlos Ward’s alto and the additional percussion, apparently played by Coltrane and Sanders, fills out the sound, giving it more urgency whilst the others solo. The four parts of the suite are played in order – Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance, Psalm – but there are also 4 Interludes in the form of bass or drum solos in between the main parts.

A New York Times review (quoted by Kahn) described Ascension as ‘massive and startling’ and that applies to the first listen to Seattle; the performance threatens to overwhelm both the music and the listener. It starts softly with gentle sax and arco bass, tentative piano, delicate percussion. The familiar four note figure comes in after 2 minutes and we’re rolling. More gentle explorations of the theme follow until, after 5 minutes the saxes start to dominate. Jones drumming is heavy and powerful, pounding rhythms and rolls, Tyner thumping ‘Monkishly’ behind, the extra percussion filling in any gaps to create a wall of sound. Ten minutes into Acknowledgement the music is wild and free and has escaped the restraints suggested by the earlier recordings. Resolution comes after Interlude 1, a bass solo, and follows a similar pattern to Acknowledgement with the familiar giving way to the free.

After the fury and protest of the first two parts and then Jones’ muscular heavyweight solo (Interlude 2), Pursuance features McCoy Tyner’s percussive left hand piano bombs behind his own dazzling runs. This is a driving, high-paced performance, faster than the studio version. Long wild sax blowing breaks for Tyner’s solo, which feels like the first opportunity to draw breath since the start of the record. Needless to say, the energy levels soon build, with the drum and bass, and various other shaken percussion forcing Tyner to play more loudly and aggressively whilst he solos. The main theme is implied as the solo comes to its end, is repeated by the sax and Jones rolls the tune down to a halt and we move into Garrison’s solo on Interlude 3.

The closer, Psalm, opens with a call to prayer on the sax over booming drums, waves of cymbals and delicate piano. There are moments of fragility in this tune and great slabs of uncompromising drumming from Jones as if questing for some final truth. It’s a truly beautiful way to close the album.

The Seattle recording is a challenging uncompromising work and one that sets itself against the casual listener. You cannot listen to it whilst driving; it is not dinner party music though it might be a way of getting rid of overstaying guests and unwanted sales calls. For those of us who cannot get enough Coltrane, especially from the later period, this new release is gold, frankincense and myrrh all rolled into one for a Christmas come early. Other Coltrane recordings of A Love Supreme may surface in time showing what more and what else he could do with the source material but, until then, we sit in satisfaction at A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle.

A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle is released on October 22 through all of the usual channels. Dave Sayer

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