美国国家公共电台 NPR John Coltrane's Lost Album A 'Buried Treasure' For Jazz Fans

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(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "UNTITLED ORIGINAL 11383")

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: 11382 - 383 original.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

11383 original - the track you are listening to right now is special not only because of who plays it - John Coltrane's quartet - but because until now, hardly anyone had ever heard it. The song is part of a never-released studio album from 1963.

RAVI COLTRANE: To have an entire album of music surface - this is definitely a rare thing.

CORNISH: Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, John Coltrane's son, stopped by our studio to tell us more about the uncovered recording¹.

COLTRANE: This recording was originally lost by ABC Records, which is now Universal Music. The engineer for this session, Rudy Van Gelder, would often make copies for the musicians for them to reference after the session. So these are my father's original copies of that session.

CORNISH: The recording was found by the family of Coltrane's first wife, Juanita Naima Coltrane. She had saved the copy. John Coltrane and his bandmates, bassist Jimmy Garrison², the drummer Elwyn Jones and the pianist McCoy Tyner, recorded this session in one day on March 6, 1963. Ravi Coltrane compiled the tracks. It's on a new album called "Both Directions At Once: The Lost Studio Album." To talk more about the exciting news, we also invited back our favorite jazz guide...

CHRISTIAN³ MCBRIDE, BYLINE⁴: That sounds like my brother Ravi.

(LAUGHTER)

CORNISH: ...Bassist Christian McBride, host of NPR's Jazz Night In America. I started by asking Christian to give us a sense of Coltrane's career at that time.

MCBRIDE: You could say it was a very healthy period in the history of jazz. And John Coltrane was the leading voice in balancing both the previous generation, you know, coming from Miles Davis' band and then also leading the way for some of the new school and the freer-thinking players.

CORNISH: So Ravi Coltrane, is this why the album is called "Both Directions At Once"?

COLTRANE: Well, for us and for why that phrase seemed to make a very relevant title for this album is because of the period that the record was recorded at. 1963, as Christian did point out - it's a very fertile period for John Coltrane and this band. But it's also a - kind of a midpoint between his earlier musical life which did consist of playing lots of blueses (ph), slow blueses (laughter) and bebop tunes⁷ to where he would eventually end up, you know, in his musical explorations - you know, much freer music. So for John Coltrane in 1963 - does feel like he has one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you know? And with this music, you do get sort of both of those directions in John's music at once.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "UNTITLED ORIGINAL 11386")

CORNISH: Ravi Coltrane, you helped order the songs, right? And I notice that they don't have titles - for instance, "Untitled 11383" (ph).

COLTRANE: You don't like that title?

CORNISH: Well...

(LAUGHTER)

COLTRANE: It's kind of catchy⁸.

CORNISH: I was wondering why they had those titles.

COLTRANE: Well, those titles are actually the original slate⁹ numbers that the producer of the session would apply to any recorded material so they could organize which songs had been recorded that day. So it's just a serial¹⁰ number to identify the tape.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "UNTITLED ORIGINAL 11386")

CORNISH: For those of us who aren't sure what to listen for, how do you listen to music like this that, like, wasn't in the end released? How are you listening in terms of the development of the group?

MCBRIDE: Well, listening to these newly found tracks, I had to put into context. You know, remembering the recordings¹¹ that the Coltrane Quartet made the previous year, the album "Coltrane" and then the record with Duke Ellington and to think that - you know, where they will go in the following year with "Crescent" and "A Love Supreme¹²"...

COLTRANE: That's right.

MCBRIDE: ...This is sort of, like, maybe toward the beginning of the second half of this band's development.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "UNTITLED ORIGINAL 11386")

COLTRANE: The music has a purity to it. I mean, that's the one thing that you can always rely on. And the foundation of this music, jazz music, is improvisation¹³. They're reacting to each other's calls and responses and riffs and phrases and textures¹⁴. And it has a very sort of in-the-moment sort of impetus¹⁵, you know? So there isn't one (laughter) specific way to hear this music. You have to kind of open up your ears. Open up your sensibilities a bit, you know? Be open for a new experience, you know, if this is new music for you.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "SLOW BLUES⁵")

CORNISH: Christian, for you, is there a song in particular that struck your ear?

MCBRIDE: I really enjoyed listening to "Slow Blues" 'cause Trane never got enough of the blues.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "SLOW BLUES")

MCBRIDE: The blues form and the blues sound, I think even in his later days as he was starting to really embrace more of an abstract sort of sound - that blues never left. The sound of the blues never left his horn.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "SLOW BLUES")

COLTRANE: Of course I would agree with what Christian says about John and his blues playing that he was really a blues man, I mean, throughout his entire career even into the avant-garde period. But the unique feature of this tune⁶ - it's - I mean, they start off trio without piano accompaniment.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "SLOW BLUES")

COLTRANE: The saxophone solo stretches out for a little bit.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "SLOW BLUES")

COLTRANE: So you think it is a trio piece, and suddenly in the middle of this long track, you know, we hear the entrance of McCoy Tyner.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "SLOW BLUES")

COLTRANE: I don't think they had ever really done anything like that in the studio. That was something more that was a feature of their live performances. It sort of gives it a new feel, new touch.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "SLOW BLUES")

CORNISH: Now that you guys have had time to really live with this music - you especially, Ravi - what do you think is the value of people hearing it today?

COLTRANE: You know, it just - it's kind of like a little time capsule. I mean, it gives us a glimpse 50 years in the past, you know, of this incredible working band, John Coltrane Quartet. And what they were doing, I mean, has the utmost depth and sincerity¹⁶. I mean, these guys were not trying to be hip¹⁷. These guys were very, very hardworking players, you know? And they happened to be innovative¹⁸, creative-thinking individuals, you know? I mean, it's an incredible buried treasure to have this emerge today.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "IMPRESSIONS")

CORNISH: Bassist Christian McBride, thank you so much.

MCBRIDE: Always a pleasure, Audie.

CORNISH: And saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, thank you for talking about this album with us.

COLTRANE: It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.

CORNISH: John Coltrane's recently discovered music is being released on the album "Both Directions At Once: The Lost Studio Album." It's out June 29.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "IMPRESSIONS")