Search & Destroy: John Coltrane

ooh yeah dime has a bunch, thx

From an interview with Tootie Heath about asking Jimmy Garrison to do a gig after JC died:

He said, “I’d love to make it, Tootie, but after playing with Coltrane for so long, I don’t know any songs! After seven years of vamps, I forgot all the tunes!” I thought that was some funny shit. Of course, the way Elvin played so loud and rumbled through everything, you couldn’t hear those vamps anyway!

Heh

it's funny that to some of us, probably most of us, Coltrane is like this paragon of sophistication, jazz personified, etc. etc. and then you realize some of his contemporaries basically regarded him like he was Iron Butterfly or something

"Try taking the fucking horn out of your mouth"

It is interesting as a listener to come across totally opposite views by some contemporaries in jazz.

I love watching jazz educator Barry Harris videos and there is one where he is talking around a piano about voicing and one of the students mentions Bill Evans. Harris pretty much shoots that Evans is not that good and is overrated go listen to Hank Jones.

There is definitely some bile and venom in how things works out that comes from some classic jazz artists when a sore spot is touched. Read enough and you will come across some anger in some stories and interviews- I know I have read of some from and about George Coleman, Joe Henderson, Jimmy Smith, Jimmy Knepper off top of my head that made me think wow.

Barry Harris is kind of a bore imo

ikr get something like "sheets of sound" named after your playing style and then maybe i'll take your critique seriously.

Barry Harris is a technician. his major contribution, outside of the music (which isn't peanuts either by the way), really has to do with jazz pedagogy for players. so yeah if you're not a jazz musician it makes sense that you might find it boring

Barry Harris was awesome — even though I might disagree with him, I wouldn't mind hearing why he thought Bill Evans is overrated.

sheets of sound is a memorable phrase but it's a terrible description of coltrane's actual playing style, time to sit down the late ira gitler

the renata adler of honkin and squeakin

totally agree on "sheets of sound." That never seemed fitting to me at all.

Barry Harris is a technician. his major contribution, outside of the music (which isn't peanuts either by the way), really has to do with jazz pedagogy for players. so yeah if you're not a jazz musician it makes sense that you might find it boring

― budo jeru, Wednesday, April 10, 2024 2:02 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I started college as a jazz major and took a clinic with him. I don't just mean his music is boring, I find his entire persona and approach to be boring.

*found - I forgot he passed a few years ago

Hank Jones is good of course. I'd be interested to hear an argument for why he's better than Bill Evans. But I'm pretty skeptical!

i mean for starters i think you could make an argument that there's more to learn from Hank Jones. i don't think that makes him "better" though. but yeah if you find his music boring and his approach unhelpful than to each his own

young players often get stuck in traps and sometimes it's unhelpful when a cult forms around a certain player, or people get it in their head that certain kinds of players are "conventional" or "boring", and therefore aren't worth paying attention to or learning from. i think that's what that's about, i mean he's not a music critic or something

I love weird jazz opinions and hating. More on a micro level though, it's not good to write off whole styles and eras.

I thought "sheets of sound" was only coned for one specific phase in Coltrane's development, like even maybe one of the Prestige sessions.

coined

it is but (a) ppl never remember this and apply it everywhere and (b) it's a bad description for that phase also

Better than Johnny Lotsanotes

I saw Barry Harris back in... 2005? 2006? I don't remember who the bassist and drummer were with him, but he sounded really good.

Barry Harris is for people who think Tommy Flanagan is some kind of radical avant-gardist. Like, wow, your harmonies are so sophisticated. Your chord substitutions are so cleverly conceived. You are truly the platonic ideal of jazz piano. But somehow, I never want to listen to you!

dunno what to tell you if you can't get with this album

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxLqEmaBJ4zz4-agdQ2kDZG43UvkVEq5F

I mean, the first track is exactly why I don't listen to Barry Harris. He takes one of the most famous bebop melodies there is, and plays it like Bach. He's exactly the kind of guy who'll say "jazz is America's classical music" with a straight face, and want you to nod soberly when he says it. He's not an innovator. He's a traditionalist, someone who makes sure the fences stay up.

Harris pretty much shoots that Evans is not that good and is overrated go listen to Hank Jones.

this would be funny if harris told the student to go listen to ryo fukui

Can I flagpost the whole thread for the Barry Harris hate?

What’s the hive mind opinion of Don Friedman?

see Can I flagpost the whole thread for the Barry Harris hate?

He's not an innovator. He's a traditionalist

god help us if every musician has to be an "innovator"

Sorry, he just really rubs me the wrong way, and I really did not like him in person! His music is fine. The idea of "learning to play bebop correctly" makes me want to die and is part of the reason I dropped out of the music program I was in, which was built on that concept. And I say this as someone who can actually play bebop "correctly."

Like no I am not interested in becoming an AI bebop generator, what the fuck is the point of that?

god help us if every musician has to be an "innovator"

Well, that's not what I said. But if you're determined not to be an innovator, maybe jazz isn't for you. Maybe you should just play piano in a blues or a country band.

Meanwhile, here's Miles talking about why he didn't require the players in his band to "know jazz history"
https://www.tiktok.com/@ettletodd/video/7349651562203024683?_t=8lFPsTGTris&_r=1

Also, even among *just bebop* players, I find Harris pretty unadventurous, fwiw.

every celebrated "jazz" "innovator" ever has been a traditionalist and the coltrane quartet was basically a fancy blues and country band anyway

yeah I thought bebop was about wrong notes where's the wrong notes

he's fine you know just not the kind of music I'd listen to

dubiousness about the phrase aside, my point stands: harris, by all acounts, was a consummate professional and highly respectable musician. he never did anything cool enough to merit a fucking catchphrase though.

no, not everyone needs to be an innovator to be an expert. but i would think the experts (who know what they're doing) would defer to the innovators.

Jazz is a big tent with ample room inside for lots of different cats of varying stripes.

Dissing Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones and Barry Harris in one go is basically running down the entire Detroit school of piano– unless you are intentionally making an exception for Roland Hanna– along with the deep well that they were part of and contributed to that also brought us Motown etc.

TBC, I love Tommy Flannagan. I saw his trio live at least three times.

Now remembering some tangentially relevant funny things I heard Tootie Heath say at Smalls that I’m afraid I can’t type here

Meant to add something to that other post to the effect of “study, study or bonk, bonk on the head with Henry’s Swing Club!”

TBC, I love Tommy Flannagan. I saw his trio live at least three times.

It's pretty much understood these days that Coltrane practiced so assiduously only in the hope of someday bursting in on a urinating David Crosby

Loool!

Just remembered that bit of business in THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS