Last night I saw at Lincoln Center -- Alice Tully Hall the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra led by Wynton Marsalis perform a big band version of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, that is possibly his most famous work after My Favorite Things.
The first half of the concert actually started with My Favorite Things, a somewhat truncated version of older versions I have heard but it was not a bad arrangement, just somewhat different. The big band setting for Coltrane's music reminds me more of Duke Ellington's or Charles Mingus' big band ensembles.
The next piece was an adaptation from African Brass, featuring two basses.
The second half was devoted to a Love Supreme, with all four parts:
1) Acknowledgement
2) Resolution
3) Pursuance
4) Psalm (ending with Prayer)
This piece is the bridge between Coltrane's more melodic pieces during the Quartet days from 1959 until A Love Supreme at the end of 1964. After this, Coltrane's becomes far more abstract not unlike an artist like Jackson Pollock whose work became increasingly abstract towards the end of his relatively short life.
Similarly, Coltrane fought heroin addiction and became deeply religious (embracing many forms of spiritual practice) and succumbed to liver cancer in 1967 at the age of 40. Here is an excellent biography about Coltrane's life: http://www.monsoon-music.com/Looking_East.html
The end period of his music is difficult to listen to but is worth trying especially if one wishes to embrace the higher. Coltrane said his composing was like cathedrals of sound.
Suffice it to say, that John Coltrane was "in the house" last night; his spirit is indomitable.
On another note, I was driving by my old block at 77th Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive; it has been renamed Miles Davis Way in honor of Miles' residence on that block that I shared with him for a few years back in 1981-1982.
