Coltrane Reconsidered

「コルトレーン再考」を英訳しました。摂訳です。

英語に興味ある方はどうぞ。

Coltrane Reconsidered

Like “Chasin’ the Trane”, I’m in pursuit of Coltrane. Almost everyday I blow my soprano saxophone, listening to him through a CD player. What I grasped, or got a feeling by doing so is that previously I had assumed that Trane’s music was as unique as what has been called “Sheets of Sound”, so that that was one and only, about which I wrought so in my blog before, though I recently came to feel it not always so, feeling that those idioms are to be traced up to Parker, Coleman Hawkins, etc. Even if so, you still hear an almost blasting tonguing, and an extraordinary energy which instantly runs through the whole registers of two and half octaves of the tenor-saxophone. And it is no doubt such phrases were originally created, and they are never contemplated in advance, and are completely without assumption. Yet, I feel his musical language should be based on a tradition of jazz.

Above expression, or explanation may sound overemphasized for readers who have no experience in playing instruments. However, when you try to copy his performance even though incompletely, you can understand his idea and attitude on playing. I believe that playing jazz is essentially different from one in European Classic music, even if they both use the same instrument. In Classic music a composer discreetly chooses notes in advance, and creates a melody and sub-melody, and further makes logical development with adequate harmonies, and then an instrumentalist must honestly demonstrate them, whereas a jazz player seems to start from an individual instrument itself. That is, for example, when he plays a tenor-saxophone, he corresponds all the notes in the whole registers of the instrument, i.e. from the bottom A to the top F sharp, and tries to sound every note as if it would have individual character respectively, just like he plays it as if the instrument were extension of his own body. Therefore, even if a note moves for two octaves at a time within a bar, it could be established as a part of the melody to draw a logical necessity. Such technique, or attitude should not be found in Classic music. In view of playing instrument, although both express dexterity of hands, which has been obtained through hard practice, improvised performance in jazz should be, in a sense, more physical than Classic music. For, jazz musicians seem to struggle all the time to find a way to sound their instruments more beautifully based on the reality of the instrument itself.

Now, as noted above, what is the meaning of my saying that “Coltrane should be based on a jazz tradition”? Of coarse, needless to say, he got a direct influence from Charlie Parker. It’s not exaggerating that any musician after Be-Bop started from Parker. But, it’s absolutely no need to mention priggishly such a simple fact. Yet, now I come to recognize something after fifty years have been passed since Coltrane performed at his 1958 Prestige recording. That is, for example, when you are in the midst of a forest, you only see a clump of trees, whereas when you stand far from the forest, you can look over the entire shape of the forest. Thus, the figure of Coltrane was found outstanding in perpendicular at that time, now, after fifty years, you are seeing it as the same figures as Miles, Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, Gene Ammons, etc. Even in the case of Coltrane, similar to other jazz giants, he follows up phases that are based on a rhythmic point in an ensemble, and syncopation allocated along English consonant, and also intonation, generated from Yoruban language of West Africa, all those constitute a jazz tradition.

This is somewhat deviating from the topic, but I have been listening to jazz for more than forty years. Music kept sounding in my head since then, and I kept humming phrases from time to time. Two years ago when I recognized the fact that phrases in jazz improvisation are based on consonants of English language, it seems to me that phrases sounding in my head should have changed a little. This may also have something to do with the fact that I began to play in my bar (drinking place), listening to Coltrane. Whatever the case is , it seems to me that I am cool enough to put Coltrane on the context of tradition of jazz, thanks to a historical distance as noted above.

Nevertheless, Coltrane is still an adored musician as well as a great mentor to me. What is it to make Coltrane separate from other giants? Here, a forty-year-longstanding question comes along. i.e. whether or not Trane’s music did have a political message? When I translated his biography three years ago, I wrote in the postscript that it was of “God only knows” matter. It was unknown. Now, I think I’ll go further to consider again on this problem, based on the things mentioned above, although I did it many times in the past.

As far as political nature of Trane’s music is concerned, there seems to be no other way but to take the circumstantial evidence that his musical style has been perpetually changed, even if they are so abstract. For, he never made a comment, nor answered a word on it. “He was far away from such mundane world, but was in much higher level” said Sonny Rollins. True, as a result. But, we need to consider a trifle further about the background as to what was that that, since he joined Miles group, he kept changing his style in almost every several months interval.

America during fifties and sixties was swept up with what Richard Wright described “Heated Racism”. It is nowadays difficult to imagine what the term really means. “Heated Racism” could be depicted that it is a situation where brutality and death are at hand, and you are forced to stand alone, being surrounded with the enemy in every direction. This bizarre and freezing terror was minutely described in novels written by Richard Wright. This kind of socially gripped situation gave various influences to the mentality of the black people. Return to Africa. Exodus to Europe. Refuge to Islam. Marxism. Freudianism. Violence. Demonstration, strike, and civil riot. And then ultimately Civil Rights Movement in a large scale. It was the situation that everything was boiled up in a chaotic confusion. First of all, when the World War II was over, the black people, being lucky to be back home alive, after they had fought at the risk of their own life, dreamed a non-racist society. But the reality was just contrary. American whites put harder racism against them than they did in the pre-war era. They exploited a house from the black people without a proper reason. Or, simply because of “Negro”, they group-lynched a black man. Especially, during those very confusing postwar days, the situation was of nothing but absurdity. It was quite beyond our imagination that the black people got staggering dismay and disappointment. Against the situation, there were several streams in the society, i.e. some blacks tried to protest with violence, whilst others to overcome whites philosophically, or bore a painstaking movement toward mutual understanding and reconciliation.

Coltrane’s music has evolved out of such social situation. It is hard to believe that, as a transcendent practitioner, as well as an avid book-reader, Coltrane was detached from the society in which he himself lived. We have another circumstantial evidence to indicate this. It is a tune titled “Alabama”. Back then, I was foolish enough to make self-convinced that this tune was made based on an imagination on bucolic country, Alabama. Gosh! I put my foot in my mouth! According to his biography, it is the tune composed by him as a memorial to the tragic incident that four girls were killed due to an explosion caused by terror of whites during mass at the church in Alabama. The motif of this tune is serene, and is full of deep and holy mourning through sublimation of anger.

　“’Stand up! “ said Albert Ayler “ These were Kenji Nakagami (Japanese novelist)’s words. Even though Albert Ayler did not actually say “Rise in revolt”, he clearly showed the political stance against whites. Not only those Coltranean artists, but also members of Black-Panther Party, who were clearly in pursuit of revolution by violence against whites, admitted Coltrane as their hero. I think that this is also one of the circumstantial evidence, in which there was a political message intrinsically involved in Coltrane’s music.

Then, why do they, people like Albert Ayler and members of Black Panther Party, feel political thing in Trane’s music? His music has often been called as “vertical”, which means an attitude to sound many notes like arpeggio either from lower or upper register within a space of one beat. On the contrary, horizontal solo means to play a note within a code, and those notes are connected horizontally. Many musicians except Coltrane are roughly horizontal type. You could perceive more an elaborate logic and an imminent feeling in a vertical solo than in a horizontal one. Needless to say, music is an abstract. It may not be so much deviation to consider that playing jazz music is an abstract product through English language. If so, I’m keen to think that things brought from his phrases and his attitude to try to express, should be as follows, and those should be what Albert Ayler as well as members of Black Panther Party must have felt too: i.e. he tried to express it with every possible means that he persistently tried to protest against the environment surrounded with naked racism and violence which become everyday affair, and that he holds a drastic contradiction between the hard reality and helplessness of himself, which is, in other words, a tragic distance between recognition of the reality and existence of himself. Listeners should be touched by such an attitude. To repeat, music is an abstract product, so that I cannot certify it. Coltrane said that his music is “a humble offering to God”. It must be true and honest. But, even if so, I have no other conclusion but the above, based on the things discussed as above.

---K’s Case Ogata