John Coltrane
Jazz musicians have frequently been a divisive group, forever arguing about what is and isn’t legitimate music. Perhaps today’s most vocal arbiter of taste is Wynton Marsalis, whose unyielding devotion to tradition has led him to dismiss dozens of more adventurous, forward-looking practitioners. The trumpeter’s emphasis on understanding jazz’s rich history inside and out as a prerequisite for progression is not without merit, but his uncompromising take also runs the risk of slowing progress by overlooking innovation. After all, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Thelonious Monk, and Charlie Parker all drew fire and condemnation from their fellow musicians before eventually being lionized as geniuses.
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We count on true innovators to ignore the naysayers. In the hefty book that accompanies The Heavyweight Champion, a recent box set of John Coltrane’s groundbreaking recordings for the Atlantic label, saxophonist Charles Lloyd recalls a brief exchange between trumpet legend Roy Eldridge and bassist Richard Davis as they watched Coltrane perform a lengthy solo at New York’s Birdland. “Roy leans over to Richard and says, ‘I know Trane is playing, but I just can’t get with him.’ Richard says, ‘Well, you know Roy, Trane ain’t waitin’.’” As this seven-CD set of music recorded within the short period between January 1959 and May 1961 vividly demonstrates, Coltrane was defined by a restless need to transform himself, and his music was the product of an inner urge to reach out further. Even Marsalis cites the innovative Giant Steps, Coltrane’s Atlantic debut and an enduring classic, as the record that got him into jazz.
The early work on The Heavyweight Champion was recorded with hard-bop mainstays like Hank Jones, Paul Chambers, Percy Heath, Art Taylor, and Jimmy Cobb, but by the December 1960 session that produced “My Favorite Things” pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones, musicians who’d remain with Coltrane for the next five years, had joined the fray. Tyner’s brooding chordal vamps and romantic lyricism as well as Jones’s highly propulsive, African-influenced drumming became prodding, simpatico forces for Coltrane, providing the support he needed to push his music onward. While previous musicians worked with Coltrane, Tyner and Jones fully understood him.
