Disappointing Coltrane at Old First Concerts

John Coltrane being presented the Edison Award for his Giant Steps album in November of 1961 in the Netherlands (photograph by Dave Brinkman, from Wikimedia Commons, made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication) 

Last night at Old First Presbyterian Church, Old First Concerts presented a concert consisting entirely of the music of John Coltrane, performed by a group modeled on what is now referred to as the saxophonist’s “Classic Quartet.” Coltrane’s part was taken by tenor saxophonist Tod Dickow, taking soprano saxophone on one of the six pieces played. The remainder of the quartet was taken by the Charged Particles trio, assuming the roles of pianist McCoy Tyner (Murray Low), bassist Jimmy Garrison (Aaron German), and drummer Elvin Jones (Jon Krosnick).

The “main event” of the evening was the opening selection, a complete performance of John Coltrane’s four-part composition A Love Supreme, music that originally filled an entire LP album. The other works on the program were Coltrane’s arrangement of Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro Blue,” “Dear Lord,” “Syeeda’s Song Flute,” “Naima,” and “Straight Street.” The result was a repertoire that covered Coltrane recordings on his three major labels, Prestige, Atlantic, and Impulse! Records.

While all this looks very good on paper, the listening experience itself left much to be desired. Krosnick even went as far as to admit that Coltrane had little to do with the usual Charged Particles repertoire. Indeed, of all four quartet players, the one that came closest to “source content” was German’s bass work. Krosnick never really seemed to approach the polyrhythmic complexities of Jones’ drumming, while Low gave little attention to the two-hands-full chord progressions that so defined Tyner’s style when playing with Coltrane. However, too often German let his bass dexterity lose touch with a solid sense of intonation, meaning that there were some disquieting jolts of pitch disagreement when Low’s piano reentered the scene.

For his part, too much of Dickow’s time went into reading his charts with little sense of what the music was trying to do. As a result, there was a total of character distinction across the four parts of A Love Supreme. It seemed as if the titles of those four parts, “Acknowledgement,” “Resolution,” “Pursuance,” and “Psalm,” were there only as markers with no indication of why and how those words were significant to Coltrane himself. (A Love Supreme was created at a time when Coltrane took his Christianity very seriously.)

The result was an evening of jazz that was disappointing from beginning to end. This was particularly disconcerting coming in the wake of the perceptive approach to Lee Morgan’s music presented by the jazz quintet affiliated with the Noise record shop this past Wednesday evening at the Balboa Theatre. Nevertheless, when it comes to honoring the jazz masters of the twentieth century, there has always been a fools-rush-in risk.

Fortunately, the Mingus Big Band had the advantage of being managed by Charles Mingus’ widow Sue, who made sure that the spirit of Mingus was never in jeopardy. On the other hand, when it came to Frank Kimbrough and his quartet recording the tracks for Monk’s Dreams: The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Sphere Monk, there was no effort to “channel” Monk’s performance techniques, preferring, instead to be true to his charts and personal in improvisation. Coltrane, on the other hand, continues to live more through his recordings than through the efforts of more recent players to account for either his charts or his style. Last night had little to offer down either of those paths, and the quartet would have done better to let well enough alone.