A centennial celebration of John Coltrane

This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. The jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane was born 100 years ago. The centennial is September 23rd, and the celebration includes concerts, album reissues, and a new book of Coltrane photos edited by my guest Ravi Coltrane, the son of John and Alice Coltrane. Ravi is a highly regarded tenor saxophone player and composer who is recorded as a leader and in other bands. The book is titled Coltrane, the Definitive Visual Celebration of the Legend, and it includes an introduction by Ravi and several essays, including ones by Patti Smith, Carlos Santana, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Phil Lesh. The Coltrane family is organizing some of the centennial events and overseeing the estates of Ravi's parents, John and Alice Coltrane. John Coltrane is one of the most influential musicians in the history of jazz. He was famous for his early recordings in Miles. Davis's band, his transcendent ballads from the Great American Songbook, his modal music, his spiritual music, for popularizing the soprano saxophone in jazz with his recording of My Favorite Things, and for avant-garde free jazz like no one had heard before. To quote what the late jazz critic Francis Davis wrote in the New York Times, full disclosure, Francis was my husband, Coltrane has come to stand for a disciplined mindset, a desire for spiritual ecstasy, a vision of music as ritual and of performance as a holy rite. That's R-I-T-E. Depending on what a listener wants from it, Coltrane's music is a cry for black liberation, the soundtrack of a spiritual quest, a backdrop for tripping, or the next evolutionary step for jazz after bebop. Unquote. Alice Coltrane, Ravi's mother, was a pianist and harpist who played on John's final albums, recorded many albums, and her own name turned to Vedanta spirituality and founded an ashram in L.A. Ravi Coltrane, welcome to Fresh Air. Congratulations on the book. I want to start with something from your father's ballads album because I just think that album is gorgeous and so beautiful that it sounds a little spiritual to me because it sounds kind of transcendent. Yes, absolutely. Where do you see this album fitting into your father's? Where do you see this album fitting into your father's body of work before we hear a song from it? Well, first of all, thank you, Terry, for the invitation. It's an honor and pleasure to be speaking with you today. It's a pleasure to have you. And yes, I think that album, it really displays his tone, his sound. And I think that, in fact, all of the songs are very beautiful. His interpretation of them, sonically, I mean, I think that's really where the rest, the record really gets its power from. His tone alone, you won't hear a saxophone, a tenor saxophone sound quite this beautiful on any recording. It's something to marvel at. It has this uplift to it. I don't mean that it's uplifting, but his tone always sounds like it's kind of rising. Yes, it carries us. It carries the listener, really. So let's hear You Don't Know What Love Is from John Coltrane's ballads album. You Don't Know What Love Is Thank you. So that was from John Coltrane's Ballads album, and we heard Elvin Jones on drums, McCoy Tyner piano, and Jimmy Garrison bass. So you just edited a collection of photos of your father, and there were a lot of iconic photos in there. You've looked at photos of him throughout your life. Do you look at his photos in the hopes of finding out more about who he was, but also who you are? And do you ever look at his photos and then look at your face in the mirror and see, like, if you can tell that you're his son? Well, I've been told throughout my life, how much I favored my father. And, you know, at this point, I've outlived my father by about 20 years. You know, he passed away at 40. I turned 61 this year. And I think, especially with this photo book, you know, it was a real opportunity for me to, you know, not only seeing these iconic photographs that we all know, but, I mean, seeing a brand new photograph for the first time, it's enlightening and elevating, you know. Some people thought of Coltrane as having, of being divine himself. And there was actually, I'm not sure if it still exists or not, there was a Coltrane church in San Francisco called St. John's. Yeah, St. John the Divine. Yeah, and the John was for John Coltrane. And there was even, like, a painting in the church of Coltrane as if it was, like, one of those. Apostles. Yeah. And, you know, they played his music during the service. And he was kind of, like, worshipped. And that's, it's, you know, it's fascinating, a little strange. But what's it like for you to have your father literally be worshipped? I mean, like, he was your dad. You might not have known him. But, you know, he was, he was like a mortal. Yes, absolutely. With an exceptional talent and vision. You put it right there on that. He was one of us. Yes, right. This is the thing where people wanted to, well, if they don't recognize the fact, you know, they say, oh, he was from another world, from another planet. It's like, no, he was from North Carolina. You know, he's as human as all of us. But he represents the highest heights and possibilities of human achievement. He's still doing this. As a human being. So, I want to play another recording by your father. And this record, the album is titled Ascension. And here's my story behind it. So, first of all, this is one of the most radical albums in jazz history. A turning point in free jazz. It's also one of the first jazz albums I bought. Wow. Yeah. So, I was living in Brooklyn and I was on a summer break from out-of-town college. And I was working on Wall Street as a typist. Wow. But I had just started listening to jazz. And I wanted to buy jazz albums, but I hardly had any money. So, I was working on Wall Street and it was near JNR Records, which is a great record store. So, on lunch, I'd sometimes go to the record store and look for, like, discounted records. And I knew Coltrane's name. I didn't really know his music at the time. And I saw Ascension. So, I bought it. It must have been, like, on sale. I don't know. But I got home. I put the needle down on the vinyl recording because that's all there was, was vinyl. Yes. And this is what I heard. And I was like, oh, my God. So I have to say, the more I listen to that, the more I hear patterns and get a sense of cohesion. But when I first put that on, I thought, what is this? And I didn't know what to make of it. Were there musicians expressing anger? was it called ascension as in christ ascending or as the souls of the dead ascending was it expressing existential pain were the musicians high was it a bad trip or a good trip um i and and i i was afraid to listen to it high myself i thought who knows what's where you go feeling yeah where they end up yeah um what did you hear the first time you heard this do you remember well yes i think what you experienced i think is probably what most people experienced when they first hear that music you know what is this and what's going on you know and maybe this the second feeling is like there yeah it's it's actually entering my body in some way it's i'm reacting to this either positively or negatively there's something there's something that's stirring there and uh and it's like diving into cold water you know what i mean it for as shocking as it might be initially you get used to it at some point and as a gateway record i mean not a lot of people choose ascension to start you know learning about john coltrane's music that was quite no i just did it because i saw his name i knew he was important but you know one of the things with with your father is that like for example like he took really long solos and he he could pull it off but he set this kind of new um opening for other people to take really long solos who didn't really have much to say musically and i've sat through that's true i've sat through many jazz concerts where the editor in me kept thinking like you could have cut this down from like 10 minutes to two and it would have been fine yes yes not everyone can can go on that journey and take the audience and the listener along with them and continue to explore and expand um you know but the great great improvisers the great solos the great visionaries in music could and uh john coltrane clearly was one of one of those types of uh uh creators and improvisers there's a very famous recording uh from a club called the half note that was on spring and broom here in manhattan uh from 1965 john plays a 27-minute saxophone solo and throughout he never repeats himself he's building from one idea to the next and one motive to the next and expanding these motives and ideas um and and the most organic way you know that the ear is following the band is following it and things could continue to build and grow from there and i think that's a great idea and i think that's a great idea and i think for uh 28 minutes i mean that's that's that's really something a lot of most musicians don't have 28 seconds worth of new ideas in them and within a solo you know what are your thoughts with your own playing about how long a solo should be either in performance or on record yeah about 28 seconds i think that's fair how did your parents meet my parents met at birdland my parents the club right here in new york city yes uh the original birdland when it was on 52nd street and broadway um there was they used to do double bills then you know one band would play 45 minutes they'd get off a comedian or a poet with spoken word artists would get up and he'd he or she would speak until the next band was ready to play and then that next band would play for 45 minutes and they would just keep doing that throughout the the evening for as long as people were in the club so for a week the john coltrane quartet played a double bill with terry gibbs oh and your mother was on the band my mother was in the band yes so they they met that week at birdland 1963 so did they hit it off right away your parents uh yes they did that week at birdland they were uh you know john was uh an introspective and kind of intuitive person who didn't uh didn't lead with his words he led with his his intentions musical intentions so uh and uh and i think my mother was also quiet you know um you could say shy but i think i would say quiet you know they they both were i think at very similar uh temperaments you know and uh so that there wasn't a whole lot of words exchanged but at some point my mother realized that um that my father was serenading her and following her around the club with his horn you know when uh when he was not uh on the on the stage he didn't really take his horn out of his mouth he would play the set and then he would go back to the dressing room with and continue playing he never stopped playing uh but she did realize that he was serenading her uh in between uh the sets and uh and she said the song he would would often play was a song called always irving berlin song i'll be loving you always i'll be loving you always with a love that's true you always yeah it's beautiful it's it's it's sentimental you know and hokey but beautiful you know and i think my mother understood the sentiment she gave up music to devote herself to her spiritual work and to her own you know devotional practices but you convinced her to go back to the studio a few years before she died and you recorded an album with her called what did it take to convince her to record with you well i think 1979 was when my mom finished her contract with warner brothers she was signed to abc records which is impulse records and then uh and then through the 70s she she made a bunch of records for warner brothers but when that contract ended she never signed another one again and i think that was her her time um you know where she said i'm gonna shift here and and and moved completely into the spiritual path you know and the only music that was made was for it was devotional music um yet at the same time she still was a great great great pianist you know uh and i would i would play gigs in in la when i started working with my own bands and and my mom would come to the gig and i'd say ma yeah play one of this and she'd get up there and burn she'd sound just great and people would say you know if your mom could play like that why didn't she just do that all the time and uh and you know when i would ask her she'd say no that was my past the young people now that's your time now to play this music and so um i had to start begging you know i said you know come you know just let's go into the studio just let's record a few tracks you know and uh that's really how that record came about just me um and i think that's really how that record came about just me cajoling her you know i'd go on the road and and for as many people who were admirers and followers of john coltrane there were as many if not more who were following alice so let's hear the title track of translinear light composed by alice coltrane featuring alice at the piano and my guest ravi coltrane on soprano saxophone um um that was my guest ravi coltrane on soprano saxophone with his mother alice coltrane on piano from it's the title track the title track of translinear light composed by alice coltrane of their album together translinear light well we need to take another break here so i'm going to reintroduce you if you're just joining us my guest is ravi coltrane he's a jazz composer and tenor saxophonist and the son of john and alice coltrane ravi edited the new collection of photos of his late father titled coltrane the definitive visual celebration of the legend we'll talk more after a short break i'm terry gross and this is fresh air so © transcript Emily Beynon Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Ravi Coltrane. He's a jazz composer and tenor saxophonist and the son of musicians John and Alice Coltrane. John was one of the most influential and groundbreaking musicians in jazz history. The centennial of his birth is September 23rd. As part of the celebration, Ravi edited a new book of John Coltrane photos titled Coltrane, the Definitive Visual Celebration of the Legend. So I want to ask you something that I know is a turning point in your life. Because of a tragedy, your older brother John died in a car crash. John Jr. Yeah, John Jr. This was 1982. You were in high school. Do you remember how you heard the news? Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I remember that day. We'll always remember that day. He passed away on my birthday, essentially. It was August 6th, 1982. That's the day I turned 17. And if he had lived a few weeks longer, he would have turned 18 on August 26th. Actually, today is the anniversary, his birthday. Yeah, we're recording this on August 26th. Yeah, it was a real shock to the system when we lost John Jr. And it really, you know, you kind of suddenly wake up. And realize that life can be heartbreaking, you know. And events like that completely reshape you, you know. My mother was widowed at 30, you know, with four kids. And to lose her husband and then to lose their first son together 17 years later, you know, it was not easy. Not easy. How did your brother's death change your relationship to the future? Did your brother no longer had a future? Did you feel like you had to live life while you still could? Did you question whether you could die too? Did you feel like your mortality in a way that you'd never thought of it before? Absolutely. Yes. You start reevaluating things. You start evaluating things, maybe is a better way to put it, in a way that you've never needed to do before. You know, the existential questions, you know. What's the meaning of his life? What's the meaning of my life? I mean, we could all literally be gone tomorrow, you know. It effectively ended my childhood, you know, and it was suddenly time to think about other things, you know, more important things. It's a lot to ponder when you're 17. Yeah, but probably a good time for it, you know, if those questions never came up before, you know. Where did music fit in in that part of your life? Where did music fit in in that part of your life after your brother's death? You know, I took a very long pause, you know, after John Jr. passed away. What do you mean by a long pause? Everything kind of stopped. I had been playing the clarinet. I started playing clarinet in junior high school, and I was playing in the marching band while my brother was on the football team. Yeah. But after he passed away, everything stopped for me. You know, I took the GED. I couldn't be in school anymore. I just kind of isolated myself. It had been about three years, you know. When John died, there was definitely a void, you know. There was something in my life that needed to be filled, and music filled that void for me, you know. And it was primarily my father's recordings. You know. It was the first time that I really started to connect with the music on a more emotional level, a spiritual level, I suppose, as well. But it started to speak to me in a way that I hadn't recognized before. So when you came out the other end of the pause, where were you? Like, what was your next step to creating the next chapter of your life? I think it was music, you know. I think music was suddenly this thing that I could pursue, and that there was some obsession behind it, you know, and love behind it, and curiosity behind it. And it was something, yeah, to really go after. Is that when you switched from clarinet to saxophone? Yes, yeah. And was that because. You didn't hear a lot of clarinet in jazz bands? Well, the saxophone is a pretty cool instrument. No offense to the clarinet. Right. The clarinet's a beautiful instrument. It's still one of my favorite woodwinds. If I go to the symphony or something, my ears are kind of constantly pulled by the woodwind section. Flutes and clarinets, I think, are. Yeah, well, you mentioned symphony. You considered becoming a classical clarinetist. Well, I mean. Before the jazz bug, you know, hit me, you know, before that calling came to me, yeah, I would have been very content to have just continued playing clarinet for the rest of my life. Did classical training help in playing jazz once you turned more toward jazz? Well, starting on the clarinet, I mean, it's a very difficult woodwind instrument compared to a saxophone. So just playing the clarinet, it's great practice. Preparation for being a saxophonist. So Elvin Jones, who was in your father's quartet and was a really brilliant drummer, he called you when you were still, I think, still in your teens? No, I was still studying. I was still in school. So it was in my early 20s. And he suggested that you join him on the road and perform with his band. What was your response to that? I said no. Because? Well, I. I was not ready. I was still learning. You know, I basically, yeah, I just picked up the horn. You know, I told him I wasn't ready and that I was, you know, I was still studying. He said, well, I want to help you get ready. So I agreed, yes. I couldn't say no twice to Elvin Jones, his offer to bring me on the road and let me play in his band. That was life-changing for me. So you didn't feel. You didn't feel ready, but when you were playing with him, did you feel like you were holding your own or were you thinking like, I really am not ready, I shouldn't have agreed to do this? Well, that's the thing. You know, it was an experience of a lifetime. I mean, the first tours that I did in Europe, I mean, the first tour I did with Elvin Jones was 1991, spring of 91. It was two months, two months of one-nighters. And that same year, we came back in the summer and did the first tour. And another month, I mean, to watch him play every night, to listen to him as a band leader, to see how he conducted himself on the stage and off the stage, it was. These are the most powerful lessons that I learned in my young life as a musician, you know, whether I was ready to be on the stage or not with him. So when you became a jazz musician and you're playing with Elvin Jones, who's a legend unto himself, and who plays. who played with your father and your father's quartet, and your father obviously was a legend, did you feel the pressure of being John Coltrane's son? I mean, picking up the saxophone, there's going to be a certain amount of pressure for anyone if your last name is Coltrane. Yeah, I mean, the pressure can be internal or external, because I did grow up very much Ravi, you know, that was who I was growing up. But as soon as I picked up the saxophone, suddenly. I was John Coltrane's son. So as I kind of was moving through that early stage of my life as a musician, you know, I was very aware that people were aware. Was it hard to figure out who you were as a musician since you had been so steeped in your father's music? Yeah. So, like, you couldn't really escape it. And you didn't define yourself, like, in opposition to your father? Like, you weren't playing radically different music? You weren't playing, like, punk rock or something? You know what I mean? That would have been, like, totally different. For the sake of being different, no, no. I mean, the reason why we play is because we hear something that compels us, it draws us in. You know, and John Coltrane's music drew me in. I mean, I'm not the first to be captivated and compelled by the sound of his saxophone, you know, by the power of his. of his intention and musical invention, you know, that. It's a powerful sound, putting on a John Coltrane record. You say, what is that? And then you say, I want to do that. I would like you to choose a recording of your own to play. Let's see. Well, there's a track written by Charlie Hayden called For Torea. Charlie wrote this song for my mother, Alice. Her spiritual name was Torea. And Charlie wrote this song in the 70s and recorded it with my mother on an album. I think the album was called Closeness. It was an album of duets. And it went on to be one of his most popular compositions. I think he recorded it with many other musicians. And I played it with Charlie many times when I was at CalArts in the 80s. But after my mother passed away, I asked Charlie, if we could record the piece with a young harpist named Brandy Younger, who was unknown at the time. I'd like to take credit for discovering her. And she's a big superstar now. But we recorded Charlie's song, For Torea. And I think it was the first time that a harpist had played it since my mother had recorded it with Charlie in the 70s. So let's hear it. This is For Torea from Ravi Coltrane's album Blending Times. ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ up in almost the same kind of atmosphere that I did. So spiritual is something that is very deeply ingrained in our character. And spiritual, to me, brings memories of my father on the Wednesdays, prayer meetings we used to have in church, where he would get down on his knees and pray for hours. And you could feel, even if you couldn't hear or understand all of the words that he was saying, you could certainly feel it. And that's what, when John Coltrane played a song, Spiritual, that's the kind of feeling that it invoked in me and I suppose a lot of people who had the experience enough to understand what it was he was saying. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ guitar solo I'm wondering if your drumming in the opening of Spiritual as recorded at the Vanguard was composed, was thought out beforehand, or if this is improvised. It was all improvised. We never had a rehearsal in the whole time that we were together. Not one time. And everything was improvised. As a matter of fact, I never really knew until I heard a downbeat exactly what it was we were going to play. It was sort of like that. Once you started to play it, we just sort of rallied around the flag. And it came off like that. It's very unique. I've never had. I've never had that kind of experience ever before or since. Would John Coltrane talk with you about the pieces? Like, for instance, he had a composition, Alabama, that he said was inspired by the tragedy when a church in Alabama was bombed and I think it was four girls were killed. Did he talk with you about that before the piece? Or did you know that the piece was inspired by? No, no. He didn't say anything about it. Yeah. I think what you're referring to, liner notes, I think somebody read me, that was an afterthought. That was an afterthought? At least as far as the general public is concerned. I don't know what he thought in his own mind. I know what I thought in my own mind. And I thought that that melody sort of illustrated a lot of the things that a lot of people were feeling. And when I. I was playing that piece, the tears were coming from my eyes. Everybody in the group had, including Coltrane, it was very sad. And I was thinking, I don't know, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what I'm going to do. after a break, this is fresh air. This is fresh air. Today's show is devoted to John Coltrane and his son, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane. The centennial of John Coltrane's birth is September 23rd. Let's get back to my 1998 interview with Elvin Jones, who was the drummer in John Coltrane's band from 1960 to 66, and later was a mentor to Ravi. When John Coltrane's solos got longer, and then your solos got longer, too, I wonder what it was like to accompany him in, like, what, 40-minute solos? I mean, that's about the length of a whole set. Yeah. I'll tell you, there was one occasion in Philadelphia, where you are now. You remember the Showboat Lounge? Yeah, that was a jazz club before I moved here, yeah. Anyway, we used to play there quite often. And Pep's Bar and all, and the Blue Note up in North Philly. The routine was, on Saturday or Sunday afternoon, it would be a matinee. And this particular matinee, John was playing a very fast tempo piece, and something happened to his horn. I guess pad fell out or whatever, you know. And he could barely get a tone out of it. It was just squeaks and squawks. And he wouldn't stop. And so he played it until he finally got, he finally started making scales out of all of these sounds that were coming out of his horn. And he played this piece for three hours. But the thing about it is, when he, after, when we finished, I didn't, I was ready, ready to play the next piece. I said, okay, what are we going to play next? And the matinee was over, you know. So you're talking about 40 minutes was nothing. Sometimes, the way that group was, the time didn't really have any significance. You know, I didn't get tired. Nobody got tired. It was just a. To pursue an idea or a mode to its natural conclusion. And if it took an hour or 40 minutes or two hours or whatever, it doesn't have been that soapy. It doesn't have been that soapy. What about when the music of the group started moving away from time signatures and getting freer? As the drummer, how did you feel about that? Well, just like anything else. It really. It really didn't matter. Because that's what you refer to as an abstract. There was nothing strange about being abstracts. Because I used to like, you know, go to a museum in Detroit. They had a lot of Jackson Pollock's paintings, you know. And Matisse and Picasso and all these guys. That's all abstract, you know. I didn't think it was any different than anything else. It's just a musical abstract. But the portrait is there. Yeah, nevertheless. My interview with Elvin Jones was recorded in 1998. John Coltrane's centennial is September 23rd. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead will have an appreciation of Coltrane closer to that date. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, how big tech companies, including Google, Apple, and Microsoft, have been donating equipment, holding conferences, and are offering workshops for educators and students. So how much are they influencing? We'll talk with New York Times reporter Natasha Singer, author of the new book Coding Kids, Big Tech's Battle to Remake the Schools. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews. are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Reboldonato, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. We'll be right back. © BF-WATCH TV 2021