Faber & Faber

Coltrane: Ben Ratliff

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Synopsis:

John Coltrane, who died aged forty in 1967, is one of half a dozen truly fundamental contributors to the history of jazz. No one - not Armstrong or Ellington, nor even Charlie Parker - inspires quite the same mystique or continuing intensity of fascination. No young saxophonist of the past forty years has been able to escape his influence, and few musicians have had their work so obsessively documented on record.

Coltrane is the first book to do justice to this great and controversial musical pioneer. Ben Ratliff is not attempting to present a full biography here, though he gives an elegant narrative of Coltrane’s life. Instead, he does something much more valuable: he writes about the saxophonist’s unique sound.

Ratliff has an unrivalled ability to explain in literate prose what musicians actually do. He applies that gift to the astonishing diversity of Coltrane’s work, from the journeyman outings in the early 1950s to his unforgettable collaborations with Miles Davis, and on through his breakthrough recordings for Atlantic, notably Giant Steps - whose fiendish title track has become a rite of passage for every virtuoso since. He discusses the recordings of Coltrane’s classic quartet, which produced much enduring music and one crossover hit, the ecstatic A Love Supreme. Ratliff’s sober and sympathetic discussion of the final years, when Coltrane lost many of his listeners, and Philip Larkin accused him of ugly noisemaking, is a model of critical intelligence.

Tags:

Categorised as:

Music, Stage & Screen

Sub-categories:

Biography & Memoir; Popular Music

People & Characters:

John Coltrane

Genres & Themes:

Jazz; Musicology; Pioneers