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In Reply to: A lot of latter day revisionism takes place with Coltrane... posted by Robert H. on December 02, 2002 at 14:43:10:
I think you have some things out of order, but I may be wrong. Weren't the teeth more of a problem in the 60's? Isn't he using that rubber mouthpiece on Interstellar Space, one of his last albums?No matter. I would say the Prestige stuff is less consistently good than the Atlantic or Impulse stuff, and drugs were surely a factor in that. He wasn't a junkie ALL that time though, and you seem to forget that virtually all of Trane's colleagues at the time would have been junkies too. Still, there's great music spread over all that time and everybody has different favorites. The truth is, nobody can tell the original poster where to go next and guarantee that it's really where he wants to go.
Here's my rec: lots of good recs in this thread already. Get one or two from each time period (the ones named most in this thread are fine), figure out what you like, and go from there. MFT is OK, but there is MUCH better Trane out there. WARNING: Your time with other artists may suffer when you really start to get into Coltrane.
dh
Follow Ups:
Very well put. I am constantly amazed how forums turn into flame-fests because a newbie has expressed an interest in something, and the more experienced among us begin to argue---losing sight of what was asked in the first place. To even argue the relative merits of pre- vs. post-tertiary harmonic substituition Trane is just silly, given we're trying to help a guy who just discovered Trane this past weekend--as if the work of any individual negates the work of another---or even his own earlier work. Such agendas, yeesh.And for the more advanced Trane-o-philes, his bad tooth he had fixed in the 50s, the day before one of the great Miles sessions (Round about Midnight, Kinda Blue, I don't remember which).
Mouthpiece-wise, he used a TON of different ones, from an old Link Tone Master (used on most of the Prestige sides), to metal Selmers, to short-block rubber Selmers, to rubber Links, and altered Super Tone Mater Florida Links.
People like to rhapsodize about the significance of such things and their origins (e.g., "bad teeth"), but the reality is that Trane, like most musicians, was always looking for something different. Simple as that. Kinda like growing a moustache.
"Mouthpiece-wise, he used a TON of different ones, from an old Link Tone Master (used on most of the Prestige sides), to metal Selmers, to short-block rubber Selmers, to rubber
Links, and altered Super Tone Mater Florida Links. "Simply not true. On Tenor, Trane played the same metal Otto Link for ages. At the time, there was only one "Link" factory, there was no such thing as a "Florida" Link different from any other. He used a hard rubber Link - again, at the time, their only rubber model, once his main metal Link got trashed. Later he got another metal Link. He never, ever, used any Selmer mouthpiece on Tenor, the narrow bore of the Selmers is designed specifically for classical players, it's sound is unmistakable. The only jazz Tenor man who ever used a Selmer on tenor is Joe Henderson. On Soprano, Trane used a metal Selmer virtually exclusively. This is presumably because, at the time he started playing soprano, it was the only game in town.
Any musician will tell you that the single, most critical aspect to technique is the mouthpiece. Even changing to another of the same model, facing, and tip opening can be disastrous for a virtuoso. For the sax player, the mouthpiece is the single, greatest issue, when they find one that works for them, they hold on to it like it were a gift from heaven, because it just about is that.
By the way, real Trane-o-philes will know that Round About Midnight was recorded in 1955, and Kind Of Blue in 1959, so which one he had the teeth fixed before (not "tooth" as you wrongly say)cannot be both. It was actually well before Kind Of Blue, which is also obvious to the listener, Coltrane is still having intonation problems as well as executional issues on Round About Midnight, Kind Of Blue is clearly showing markedly superior playing.
As to what this all has to do with helping a guy get into Coltrane...well, that escaped you also, so let me reiterate it. It has to do with what are the masterpieces, and which are the steps on the learning curve. The Prestige stuff, particularly the earliest ones, are works of a gifted artist still struggling to get his instrument to do what he wanted, and to find his own voice. I don't recommend starting there, I recommend starting at Blue Train or, even better, Giant Steps, where we hear the beginnings of the fully matured Coltrane.
I'm not quite sure why the fixation on absolutes, particularly when erroneous, even more so since we're saying basically the same thing, with miniscule disageements about minor data.Now I remember why I stopped contributing to forums years ago, thanks very much.
Years ago I was hanging out with a very well known and great saxophone player who took me to a guy's apartment somewhere around 57th st. & 7th ave. He was going to try out a bunch of tenor necks at this guy's place (necks on saxes can make a huge difference). Around 15 minutes after we got there, Pharoah Sanders (who played with Trane often in Trane's later years) rings the bell. He has a bag with around 15 of Trane's old mouthpieces. Yes, I said AROUND 15. They were all old metal Links, all around 4's & 5's, not big mouthpieces as I'd always thought (although the old #'s are larger than modern equivalents). Like most saxophone players, Trane kept on buying and trying mouthpieces, always hoping to find perfection.
How many times he actually made at least a semi-lasting change, I have no idea.
Trane was endorsing Link mouthpieces in those days, appearing in ads. So of course, he probably had piles lying around. Yes, it's true that sax players are continually trying out mouthpieces, and since the loss of his 50's Link, Coltrane spent awhile trying to find one again. I'm surprised that it was a 4 or 5, I would have thought larger, but it would have been a 4* or 5*, and you are right, a 60's 5* is probably a 7* today. I once tried Dexter Gordon's Link backstage, he had a 60's 9** with a #5 reed, it was like blowing a tree trunk. Those guys had cast iron lungs, today, there's none of the younger players who could get a peep out of those mouthpieces.I had a pile of mouthpieces around in my time, Links, Wolf Tayne, Larsens, others. Like anyone else, they can come in handy when your embrochure goes south, as it does from time to time. I always played the Link, but when I was having problems, I went to the Berg Larsen which had a very different tone but was easier to blow through with.
Agree this has drifted seriously OT, but jeesh, what a friggin' GREAT discussion! Thanks to all who added their knowledge and opinions. WOW, my head's still spinning!
1. The teeth were fixed after he got off drugs, late 50's or so. The intonation during the 50's, particularly pre-Monk, is notoriously weak.2. I'm well aware there were many jazz junkies in the 50's. The point I made was that both his technique and his ideas were not yet all in place during the Prestige period, nor was he really doing the material he wanted to.
3. Trane's metal Link was refaced around 1962, the "Ballads" recording and a few others were the result. When the metal Link was returned, he couldn't use it, and then he had to find another he could get the same results with as before. The rubber Link is more forgiving and easier to blow, but you can clearly identify which recordings are with the rubber mouthpiece as the tone is different. Interstellar Space was done with a metal Otto Link. There were odd times in the last 2 years where he turned to the rubber Link again, speculation on my part is that his health was the main factor.
I agree that this has been an interesting discussion, regardless of the fact that it may not be very relevent for the poor newbie who just wants to know which Coltrane album to pick up next. (My vote: Blue Trane, Giant Steps and Live at Birdland--a nice overview.)But let me ask/contribute two cents on something: It's been said that "Trane's metal Link was refaced around 1962, the "Ballads" recording and a few others were the result." I've always had a hunch that the series of relatively conservative albums that followed the wild (and at the time poorly received) Village Vanguard stuff might have been a response to the harsh criticism that "Chasin' the Trane" and the like received on initial release. As most readers will know, critics were merciless, calling these performances "anti-jazz" and questioning whether this new style was some sort of joke on the audience. Trane took them surprisingly seriously, at least if we read interviews of the time at face value.
Thus, I've always wondered if the Ballads/Hartman/Duke records weren't a kind of retrenching, a pulling back from the edge in response to the pasting Trane was taking in the press. I should make it clear that even if this is true, it's not a knock on Trane: those records are very good, whatever the motivation for the change in direction. I'm just asking the opinion of the obviously well-learned posters here: was the harsh criticism of the Vanguard material a factor in the launching of a more conservative period in Trane's development, or was it really (as he said at the time) merely the result of ruining his favorite mouthpiece?
There exists audiotape of Trane (apparently in a radio or other kind of interview) saying these albums were the result of his bad luck with mouthpiece refacing. The same is stated in "Chasin The Trane," a pretty good but factually dubious and speculative book.There are other sources, however, especially those who were close to him, who said that was his "PR" explanation, rather than admitting to bowing to alleged label pressure to produce more accessible records. This alleged label pressure is the same modern jazz artists still get, i.e., "Give us some more commercially accessible stuff so we can continue to justify putting out your 'High Art' stuff too." Some good labels genuinely want to keep artists happy and productive, but they gotta sell records too.
Either way, that's my humble entry into this fray. Any other folks have more info?
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