Country: US
Artist: Male solo artist
Career: recording since 1976
Language: Instrumental
Genre: Jazz
Pretty much what the title says: an octet (drums, bass, piano, flute and four horns) play John Coltrane classics (and one somewhat incongruent, but great original, ‘The crossing’). Eight players is a lot, but the first moment the music hits you’ll find out these guys easily sound like sixteen – a thick and wild mesh of energetic eruptions, all half-finished melodies landing on top of each other or just short blasts of sound from all over. It’s not free jazz (not at all actually, more like a swing band) but they’ve got some of that wild energy. But that’s not all they can do. The big band sound opens proceedings, and returns here and there, in its most pure form on exhausting closer ‘A love supreme Part 1’, soloing over that bassline for close to 15 minutes (exhausting, but also exhilarating for the listener, imagine how it must’ve felt for the musicians). It’s also there, in a more orderly fashion on ‘The crossing’, which simmers for the duration close to boiling over, but always staying on just the right side of messing up the groove. But they do other stuff too, exquisitely, on luminous ballad ‘Naima’ or on my favorite track, all seven minutes of the opulent ‘India’. AllMusic has it right comparing this performance to electric period Miles unplugged, it’s splendiferously other. I mean, it makes me dig out all these adjectives out of a hat, you know.
Anyway, none of this is played the way Coltrane did, and who needs that? Maybe the reason such a simple idea (a Coltrane themed disc) hasn’t been done more often (not that I know of anyway, examples?), is the imposing personality behind it. You don’t have to worry about that here, and what better tribute than that?
At its best: Naima, The crossing, India, A love supreme Part 1
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