Quote:
Originally Posted by SoundboardTerrorSquad
later Coltrane> early Coltrane
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On the annual 24 hour Coltrane birthday broadcast on Columbia University Radio two birthdays ago... I can’t remember the guy’s name but he’s probably the world’s foremost expert on Coltrane. He was very carefully explaining with examples how his sound developed. The point he was making was that even his most difficult stuff, the later, and even final recordings are very rooted in his early stuff. Everything he does is an extension of something that comes before. It may sound like you could say that about anyone but with Coltrane (we’re moving from his words to mine) it’s startlingly organic. Like his music actually has DNA or genetic coding. It’s important to appreciate the entire organism of Coltrane’s music as a single and sacred entity.
I realize it’s simply untrue to say there’s no such thing as late period Coltrane but at the core of it, it doesn’t exist in isolation, nor does his earlier stuff exist in isolation either. People who were alienated from late period Coltrane never really understood his earlier stuff. And that even includes Miles Davis. But the reverse is also true. His earlier stuff is held within his later stuff. It’s all crucial.
And Frown, there was nowhere left for him to go. He was expressing his death through his sound. The end of his career was an expression of his existence in the face of the infinite. He had to be dying to say this is me as closely connected to the universe as I can possibly be as I spiral off.