Jazz for aficionados

If my memory serves me, the problem started when Coltrane started bringing in other players. Mccoy left 1st and then Elven Jones left shortly after when Coltrane started using Rashid Ali, as a second drummer. One report on Wiki, said McCoy could not hear himself, with all the sounds. Maybe someone else can add some more.

I read or heard an interview a long time ago where Mcoy and Elvin said they just had problems with the direction of the music. I tried to find it on the internet, so you could see their own words, but I did not find it.

Acman, you and Rok are both correct; while it's not so apparent on records, at a live performance it was quite clear; "Trane" would take off to parts unknown, he seemed to feel, "If you wanted to hear what you heard on a record, you would have stayed home and played the record".

Tyner would stick with "Trane" as long as he could, but was quick to realize when it was futile, and that's when he would just make a solid foundation for the rest of the group to get behind.

According to Miles, Trane played for Trane on live sets. When this happened, only the musicians in the audience seemed to know what Trane was doing and where he was going.

Yes, Tyner was the glue that kept things together when Trane decided to go on one of his excursions, and Trane must have known that when the muse hit him, and he took off to another galaxy, that McCoy Tyner would keep things together down here on the ground; otherwise, as Rok stated, the music would have slipped into the abyss, and Trane knew that Tyner wasn't going to let that happen.

Enjoy the music.

Interesting comments all; and, in keeping with the incredible depth, scope and inclusiveness of Trane's music, I think that there is truth in all of them.

While it is true that bringing new players in compounded the "problem", I am not sure that the inevitable can be seen as a problem. Trane's music was like a train moving forward; with a direction that was unstoppable, if not a runaway train. True, McCoy was the glue, but Trane didn't always want glue; notice how he often had the piano simply lay out and not play ("stroll"). His excursions were then with just drums; his music was very drum-centric. There was a lot of experimentation going on and it would be naive to think that it was all a love-fest. As Acman says, at times there was disagreement and displeasure with the choices that Trane made and the direction of his music. From "Chasin' The Trane" (highly appropriate title for this discussion and highly recommended book):

"When I knew them, Trane and Eric were listening to tribal recordings of South African pygmies. Trane was really into African Rhythms. He told me that each drummer has a certain rhythm to play and doesn't try to play all the rhythms at once. What he heard was several drummers playing polyrhythms" - Leon Thomas

And yet....

"Ain't playin' shit! Trane's got this jerk on drums with me and he's got me goin' for hours on one tune, wearin' me out. Still ain't playin' shit!" - Elvin (on Rashid)

"McCoy left John Coltrane in Dec 1965 to form his own group. He had been thinking of leaving for some time; not because Trane's solo space was stretching out in inverse proportion to his, but because he wanted to follow his own musical direction. However, the fact that Alice Coltrane was also a pianist may have contributed to his decision.

Tyner once said, *A musician such as John shouldn't have to depend on the piano all the time. Sometimes it's better to work without it because the piano, as an orchestral instrument, can get in the way of the soloist, especially a horn player. John and I would decide on which tunes I would play and on which ones I would lay out*

But now McCoy was taking a permanent stroll. And Alice Coltrane walked in as McCoy Tyner walked out" - J.C. Thomas (the author)

Yes, Frogman is absolutely correct. What I was calling the abyss, was where Coltrane wanted to go. He had not lost his way, but was finding it.

As hard as I looked, I couldn't find any examples of the Trane I was talking about. This was a hip night club with a lot of musicians in the audience, so maybe Trane was showing them something special, but he never went quite that far out on any of the other live sets. The last 4 minutes of this set for 20 minutes is about as close as I can get.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03juO5oS2gg



Enjoy the music.