Search & Destroy: John Coltrane

Can anyone help me? I have a copy of Kulu Se Mama which turned up in a bunch of vinyl belonging to my parents. Neither are big free jazz fans but my grandfather liked a bit of jazz now and again so maybe it came from him.
Anyway i put it on the player and on side one, rather than being the title track I'm pretty sure it's actually playing 'Om', not Kulu Se Mama, so this must be some sort of misprint? Also it's on HMV/ EMI label, not Impulse or MCA. Can't find a trace of this being released on Discogs. So can anyone shine a light on what the heck this is?

Om takes up two sides of a record; does the second side fade in (and sound like the first side)?

"Om" begins with percussion (incl. kalimba) and bandmembers reciting in unison the speech that ends with "... I am he who awards to each the fruit of his action. I make all things clean. I am Om!", whereas "Kulu Se Mama" begins with a single drum and recitation in some African tongue, including the title phrase.

Oh hai I am the clarified butter

Yep, it's definitely Om on the first side, but the label and cover both say Kulu Se Mama. Not sure about the second side. A bit more digging threw up that this is a misprinted copy that got recalled, but I can only find one reference to it on the internet.

What, am I quids-in or what here?

Like Tarfumes said, both sides of "OM" basically sound the same. 2nd side of KSM would have two separate under-ten-minute tracks.

Om also ends with the same recitation it begins with.

Have you checked Popsike or collectorsfrenzy?

If you peel off the cover is there a picture of Coltrane in a butcher's smock with a cleaver and some bloody dolls?

^^ nice one!

Checked all the sites mentioned and there's little-to-no info.

can you post a short video with music from both sides?

yeah when i get home i shall do that.

Here go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLminRDx5gw

Bump.

Having spoken to a few people, I'm kind of convinced this is most probably a rarity. But what to do with it? I'm not a very confident eBay user...

Side 2 is definitely the continuation/2nd part of Om.

This just sounds like half of a British vinyl version of this:

http://www.amazon.com/Major-Works-John-Coltrane-Selflessness/dp/B000003N6C

There are lots and lots of vinyl repackagings of Coltrane's stuff. Unless they contain material unavailable elsewhere, they're not generally worth very much at all.

WF, but it's not that - the label/cover is clearly Kulu Se Mama, but the music is Om.

Well, I'm guessing the market for mis-labelled British Coltrane issues of commonly available material is not especially fierce, but am happy to be proved wrong when you sell it for a mint on ebay.

haha, cool. i know next to nothing about how much stuff goes for, so i'm curious. don't expect to make a fortune but it's interesting all the same.

I started a thread on the Steve Hoffman forums asking about this. Only one reply so far, but it said that unless the music was previously unreleased, a mislabeled record isn't worth a lot (or at least, not appreciably more than an error-free copy of the same record).

So, depending on condition, probably around 30 pounds/$50.

Cheers. Well that's a fair bit to me.

good longread here: http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/06/03/an-absolute-truth-on-writing-a-life-of-coltrane/

This is a tremendous and fascinating story; thanks so much for posting!

i've never read that book, but really want to now. i thinnnk my library might have it? seems to be sort of hard to come by, even the reprint.

that's a really cool story

Yeah, great piece - thanks for the link!

All-day birthday broadcast today:
http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/wkcr/story/john-coltrane-birthday-broadcast

I know it just came out today but anyone heard "Offering" yet? (wasn't Christian Vander's post-Magma band called Offering?) I have a boot of half the show but curious to hear anyone's heard the "new" thing.

Also, HBD JC

My work firewall seems to prevent me listening to WKCR's stream for some reason. Weird because I can always get FMU. Oh well.

Ugh, I know, I'm not able to get this at work, either.

One of the highlights will be an Evan Parker interview between 7-10 eastern tonight. That should be interesting.

I've had Offering for a couple of months. Considering it was recorded with a single microphone, it sounds amazing; the engineers recovered way more sound than I thought they'd have been able to, though you'll never be able to convince me there was actually a bassist present that night. Musically, it's really strong, though a couple of nobodies wander onstage and start soloing - and Coltrane lets them. Totally worth hearing if you're already a diehard, though not recommended for new fans.

Can't even listen on my phone w/ cell data.

Finally got the stream going, Marion Brown just finished his solo on "Ascension."

How much of the final Quintet is there recorded and released?
Looking forward to getting my hands on this Offering set but wondering what else is out there both studio and live. Cos I get the feeling they're greatly under-represented and I'm not sure if it's me or what is available by them.

Studio, there isn't much...in fact, strictly speaking, that quintet only made one studio record (Expression). Stellar Regions is also studio, but it's a quartet (no Pharoah).

There's a few live things, though: Live at the Village Vanguard Again!, Live In Japan, and The Olatuniji Concert.

I've only heard the boot of Offering, but it's tremendous, easily on par with Live In Japan, which itself has always been a high-water mark of this music for me.

I thought there was more, or is that just officially released. looks like I've had all of it but the Olatunji concert though I need to get new copies of a couple of things.
Hadn't realised there was no Pharoah on Stellar Regions & I did think there were more studio recordings which had been put out at least posthumously though i didn't know titles. Was that all Quartet stuff?
& Alice reworked some material prior to posthumous release by editing/overdubbing from what I've heard.

Live in Japan is the one Coltrane rec I'd return to.

I did think there were more studio recordings which had been put out at least posthumously though i didn't know titles. Was that all Quartet stuff?

Yeah, most of the posthumous stuff was the Quartet (Sun Ship, Transition, Living Space, First Meditations, others), or some coagulation of the Quartet + others (Live In Seattle, Om).

& Alice reworked some material prior to posthumous release by editing/overdubbing from what I've heard.

I think that's mostly on Cosmic Music, but I've never heard it.

forgot about transition, that's a great fucking record

Infinity is the reworked one (and it's fucking glorious; I wrote about these albums almost exactly a year ago), Cosmic Music is two tracks by John Coltrane's group and two tracks by Alice's.

Infinity is amazing, agreed, I also liked those two tracks on Cosmic Music OK, but I sold it years ago so I must not have *really* liked them

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/gallery/2014/oct/04/catastrophic-coltrane/

^ horror show of a review.

You can like or dislike Coltrane's work in this period (defining what it was to be 'in transition' a lot of the time) but its his "confession" around his oh so clever use of the word "catastrophe" that comes off so...ineffectual and weedy. Just leave it there man.

Having skimmed through this thread I guess I am going to have to give Meditations another go!

Anyway, for what its worth, Coltranology Vol 2 is my pick.

https://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3293&action=edit&postpost=v2

is it me or does Coltrane *almost* break into "Happy Birthday" on "Welcome" (from Kulu Se Mama)?

Birthday celebration on back-to-streaming, now-with-playlists WKCR!

Found out last year that my Dad had the same birthday as Coltrane though I think he was at least 12 years younger. Then missed any comment about JC's Birthday this year so missed it.

Rarely see my dad and grew up without him so don't know if i ever knew his birthday

Your dad isn't ilxor... oh never mind.

Didn't know this was on its way--opens in a couple of weeks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMFNuDJmc1Q

http://www.openculture.com/2017/04/the-tone-circle-john-coltrane-drew-to-illustrate-the-theory-behind-his-most-famous-compositions-1967.html