John Coltrane

In 1961 John Coltrane joined the newly founded Impulse! label. The great saxophonist was coming off several impactful albums (Giant Steps) and a very notable — even commercial — success: that My Favorite Things which had made his soprano sax one of the “new sounds” that marked a turning year for jazz, the fateful 1959. Some people — despite obvious clues to the contrary — speculated a turn, if not toward commerciality, at least toward more palatable music: a Coltrane in some ways comparable to Paul Desmond with Dave Brubeck on “Take Five” (also from 1959). Nothing could have been further from the truth. Jazz was returning to its roots.

For his debut on the black-and-orange label — under the auspices of then A&R director Creed Taylor — Coltrane assembled an expanded ensemble, with two double basses (Reginald Workman and Art Davis) and a large horn section augmented by unusual instruments such as euphonium, French horns, and others. A jazz big band? No. It is the piece “Africa” that most stirred the jazz world: some, even frightened, cried “anti-jazz.” Today we can laugh at those quarrels, but the listening still provokes unease: evocative sounds of a little-known environment, the throbbing of the double basses (used sometimes unconventionally), the rise of a menacing sonic cloud in which, in the filigree, one perceives the wail of Eric Dolphy’s alto sax (responsible for the incredible arrangement), the eruption of the leader’s tenor sax, the passing of the torch to McCoy Tyner’s piano — all driven on by the ensemble’s cry. In short: it was Africa. But evoked, not imitated: there are no added percussionists; it is Elvin Jones’s “solo” who takes on dancing and overwhelming with his first extended solo outing; which ends with a threatening roll that reintroduces that disturbing bass pulse — which finally dies away in a distant, perhaps infinite, stammer... Completing the B‑side are the traditional British ballad “Greensleeves” (given a “My Favorite Things”–style treatment) and a dynamic modal blues (“Blues Minor”). Beautiful, but the sixteen minutes of Side A made history.