DDR: Ascension: John Coltrane and his quest by Eric Nisenson

Another first for my Daily Devotional Reading Project: today I'm starting a book that I will be reading online as an ebook from Internet Archive. It is Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest by Eric Nisenson. It's 304 pages long *, so I'm guessing that this will be a two week project. And after that...well, I don't know. I will probably try going back to Miles: The Autobiography before I call my Jazz Project to a close. There are a few other books I'm interested in in this subject area, but I'm also feeling the desire to move on, and I think I'll yield to that.

At any rate, this is what the book cover looks like:

Day 1: Jazz Day 63 (DDRD 1,641) April 29, 2022

Read to page 11. Which is more than 11 pages, but I will still probably go back and read some more later on, as I left the text at a spot where I didn't want to stop reading, but Dad duties prevailed. One complicating factor vis-a-vis reading via Internet Archive: you can only borrow a book for one hour, and when the hour runs out if you don't have internet access--which I often don't, as I am averse to using public internet--you can't continue to read your book. Kind of a pain in the ass. We'll see how that goes. There are some possible work arounds--like screen shotting the text and then reading from them, but that would take more time than I want to devote to such a project.

Anyway....

Several things of interest in these pages.

Nisenson (who I like a lot) talks frankly about how Jazz can seem snobbish, and that Jazz writers  have contributed to this attitude. He then cuts to an incident in the Ken Kesey novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, wherein we find this bit: "Does one ever play Coltrane for the uninitiated without subconsciously hoping for the worst?" It's funny, but it also rings true...and I have to admit that I've been there on some things in the past. (Not so much these days. Now it's more that I'm astonished that everyone doesn't love, say, Roy Harper or the tv show Rubicon.)

There's also this bit of up front clarification early on: "...Coltrane...tr[ied] to discover through music a way toward what Stephen Hawking has called " the mind of God" for modern man." (xviii)

Well...what else is there, really? You're either running from a bear, masturbating, or searching for God.

There's also a reference early on to John Coltrane reading comic books, which made me happy, but then came the detail that he liked Doc Savage comic books. I don't think that could have been true. Coltrane was born in 1926.  The first Doc Savage comic came out in 1940. It's possible that a 14 year old boy would be reading comic books, of course, but the first Doc Savage Magazine came out in March of 1933, and that seems much more likely to have been young John's reading material. I suspect that Mr. Nisenson does not know the difference between the pulps and the comic books.

We are also told that the first Coltrane tenor sax solo was on Dizzy Gillespie's "We Love to Boogie" for Dee Gee Records. Well, I just recently bought the two disc collection of Dizzy's Dee Gee Records material, so that's in hand. If you don't have a copy, it's easily findable on the You Tub.

Later...

Read to bottom of page 20, then couldn't go any farther because I wasn't online. BTW, a Rudy Van Gelder biography would be nice, but so far I can't find any evidence that such a thing exists.

Even later...

Read to the end of Chapter 2 / page 28. Thought this was particularly interesting:

Not only in and of itself, but also in how it relates to what some people say about Black folks' success in sports. I have heard even bleeding heart liberals say things which either directly states or distinctly imply that Black people have superior athletic abilities. Which pretty much ignores all of the hard work and dedication that an athlete puts into becoming a superior athlete. It's nothing but racism...even if it's well intentioned or seemingly complimentary.

* Online booksellers list it as 298 pages long, so I'll have to look into that. I often find that they don't count pages numbered with Roman numerals, though.

Day 2: Jazz Day 64 (DDRD 1,642) April 30, 2022

Read to page 48.

This--

"My music is the spiritual expression of what I am, my faith, my knowledge, my being." (42)

           --pretty much sums up why I love John Coltrane...and why the contrast between him and Miles Davis is so incredibly stark. In fact, the more I read about Coltrane, the less I think I'm going to be able to go back to the Miles Davis autobiography.

Also in today's pages...there was a reference to " the brilliant teenaged trumpet phenom Lee Morgan...." (48) It hit me that a few months ago this name would have meant nothing to me, but now it means the guy who played trumpet on what may now be my favorite Jazz album--Grachan Moncur III's Evolution (1963). * Such a chain of coincidences--I happened to hear an NPR program on Lee Morgan, remembered it, watched a documentary, found an album, read a review of it which mentioned Evolution. All part of the plan, you see.

* Which, by the way, was recorded at the Van Gelder studio, which also now means something to me, whereas it would not have a month ago.

ADDENDUM: Read a little bit more...to page 59 / End of Chapter 4.

Here's a thing that hit me on two levels:

"I...don't understand this talk of Coltrane being difficult," [Miles Davis] told Nat Hentoff. "What he does, for example, is to play five notes of a chord and then keep changing it around, trying to see how many different ways it can sound. It's like explaining something five different ways. And that sound of his is connected with what he's doing with the chords at any given time." (52-53)

On one, it's clear that Mr. Davis knows Coltrane's playing, understands it, and embraces it. On two, it makes me think a bit more kindly towards Davis, on whom I went sour some time ago. It doesn't change his bad qualities one whit, but it does show that there's more to him than when he is at his worst. Which is not much, but is indeed something worth considering.

Day 3: Jazz Day 65 (DDRD 1,643) May 1, 2022

Read to page 83...and had to stop in mid-sentence because I was out of internet range and page 84 wouldn't load. So that's the drawback of the one hour online can't download it borrow. A small price to pay for the privilege of reading hard or impossible to find books for free, though.

Two other things. One, look what I found at Half-Price Books yesterday:

And the price was reasonable...like right around $10. But I decided to pass on it and stick to the virtual read, just to see how it goes.

Two, I started thinking about Ralph Ellison, and how a long time ago I had started reading Shadow and Act a long time ago. I'd never finished it, and I'd forgotten most of what I'd read, but I was pretty sure there was some Jazz writing in there. So I Googled Ralph Ellison and Jazz, and it came up with a book I'd never heard of entitled Living with Music by Ralph Ellison. Google Books gives this description: "Before Ralph Ellison became one of America’s greatest writers, he was a musician and a student of jazz, writing widely on his favorite music for more than fifty years. Now, jazz authority Robert O’Meally has collected the very best of Ellison’s inspired, exuberant jazz writings in this unique anthology." So yes, I did put in a Hold Request at the LFPL...and yes, it is now heading my way. So it looks like Ascension won't be my last Jazz Book after all.

Day 4: Jazz Day 66 (DDRD 1,644) May 2, 2022

Read to page 103 / End of Chapter 7. Along the way, I met drummer Elvin Jones, who sounds like a really interesting fellow. Looked for a biography, but the closest I could find was a chapter in the book The Seekers by John Densmore...who was the drummer for The Doors. Here's a line from Mr. Jones that I particularly liked:

"I never learned any tricks, anything flashy —like juggling sticks or throwing them in the air. That kind of thing stops me inside. After all, Artur Rubinstein Doesn't play runs on piano with his chin. 92)

One of the advantages to reading on my Kindle is that when a song is mentioned I can open a tab, find it on the You Tub, and then play it immediately, no fuss, no muss. Sometimes I let it play as background music, sometimes I just focus on it. So in Today's Twenty I listened to 

"Harmonique" in which Coltrane played two notes at once, "My Favorite Things" in which Coltrane turned the old chestnut inside out, and "Equinox" which Nisenson said was indicative of Coltrane's interest in astrology. Which reminded me that all of the pieces on Interstellar Space are named after planets ("Mars," "Venus," "Jupiter," and "Saturn"; there's also a track that didn't make it to the album entitled "Leo" *) I'd previously always listened to IS as a kind of modern, Jazz, The Planets. I wonder if having an astrological state of mind might change my perceptions of it. Of course, I'd need to learn a bit about the astrological significance of those planets for that to work at all. So...homework, right?

Nisenson made reference to the fact that during live performances, Coltrane's solos were extending, going as long as 2 hours. That's kind of hard to imagine. Apparently Elvin Jones was game for it, though, and stuck with JC through the whole deal. Hard to imagine somebody drumming that long straight...and apparently Mr. Jones had such a loud sound that he sometimes drowned out the bass and piano, so I wonder if they even kept after it.

ADDENDUM: Read a bit more...to page 110. Now I want to read a biography of Eric Dolphy, because it sounds like he was that rarest of creatures: a truly kind, nice, loving guy. Internet Archive has a small book entitled The Importance of Being Eric Dolphy by Raymond Horricks. (Great title there, right?)

* As for this "Leo".... The dates for that sign are July 23 to August 22, and Coltrane was born September 23, 1926. So what's up with that?

Day 5: Jazz Day 67 (DDRD 1,645) May 3, 2022

Read to page 140. And by the way, I'm getting very close to a total of 30,000 pages read during this DDR project...less than 100 to go for that. 

Coltrane believed "That the purpose of music transcends that of mere entertainment, and can actually socially * transform its listeners." (112)

* Not to mention "spiritually." 

ADDENDUM: Read a little more...to page 150. Also, this (which was mentioned in Ascension) just in:

And the beat goes on, and the beat goes on....

Day 6: Jazz Day 68 (DDRD 1,646) May the 4th Be With You, 2022

Read to page 170.

"Religion is the total way of life; it is the understanding of truth, which is not a projection of the mind." (153)

Truth...is not a projection of the mind.

Truth is that which stands outside of the mind, and with which the mind seeks to find union.

Truth is not subjective.

Truth is not relative.

Truth is truth.

And nothing is truer than truth.

And as for that ongoing beat I mentioned the other day...I'm also thinking about 

Notes and Tones by Art Taylor

Black Music by Amiri Baraka 

Living With Music by Ralph Ellison

The Seekers by John Densmore

Something by Nat Hentoff

...all of which were mentioned in this book, and all of which are available at Internet Archive...so it looks like this Jazz Unit of the DDR might go on for a bit longer.

Also, this:

I am not a fan of hyperbole. Every time I hear someone say "countless," my first thought is, "That's definitely NOT countless."  Because, after all, very few things are, you know? But this line from the book is even worse than regular hyperbole, I think. I mean...to say that John Coltrane's music had a effect on the spirt of the Sixties is a perfectly acceptable statement. But to say that he "contributed immeasurably"? Well, that's just bullshit, isn't it? I don't know why writers feel the need to do this. A realistic assessment of Coltrane's importance to the world beyond music is welcomed, but elevating Coltrane to Godhood is just silly...and certainly doesn't add anything to Coltrane's legacy. Quite the opposite, I'd say.

Day 7: Jazz Day 69 (DDRD 1,647) May 5, 2022

Read to page 190.

"When Elvin Jones, who disliked the playing of most of the free jazz players, saw Shepp or Pharoah Sanders stroll onto the bandstand after a long Coltrane solo, he would think, 'Oh, no, here comes another one of those motherfuckers.'" (172)

The more I read about him, the more I like Elvin Jones.

Lots of commentary on Free Jazz in today's reading. I queued up Ascension and Om for background reading (as they were commented on at some length). Reference Coltrane's Ascension, one commenter (from "Empereur Justinien") noted, "One must be an ascended conscience to fully appreciate the beauty of this album." Well. First off, seems to me that one must be a pompous and / or bombastic person to choose a name like Empereur Justinien for him / herself. Second, what's up with the reference to "conscience"? Seems obvious that EJ meant "consciousness," and the error (assuming that I'm right there) is egregious on this count, and indicative of ignorance on the part of the writer. Third, this kind of "I'm superior to you because I like this" is a pretty obnoxious perspective...though I'd have to admit that I have leaned in that direction myself on more than one occasion. But at root it's just a way of dismissing dissenting opinions without bothering to explain, justify, or defend.

Along the same lines (more or less), there are several references to masochistic verbal and intellectual behavior on the part of Whites, suggesting that embracing Free Jazz as a Black militant expression was part of the expiation of White guilt.

So there's that.

On the other hand, there's this:

"If one insists, as some critics do, that playing these furious sounds is catharsis, one has to wonder if an artist's emotional catharsis and release, unreflected through the artistic process, is really art."

Um...🔥🔥🔥🔥!

Day 8: Jazz Day 70 (DDRD 1,648) May 6, 2022

Read to page 210...which means I have about 70 pages remaining. (It's a little hard to tell because of the strange way this eBook's pages are numbered. On the main page it shows "1 of 308." On the last page of the "introductory" material, it says "26 of 308." But then when you turn the page, it says "4 of 278." Clearly they've re-designated the pages so that they correspond to the book's pagination, but 26 + 278 = 304, so I don't know where those 4 pages got off to...and it means that if I've read to page 210, I've actually read "around" 236 pages. Possibly 240.)

Speaking of, I haven't been reading as much in this book every day because I've been caught up in my latest purchase, Edgar Rice Burroughs Tells All, compiled by Jerry L. Schneider. It's a very interesting collection of "most" of the non-fiction that ERB published ...all of which is apparently now Public Domain. I'd imagine it was a pretty huge task to compile all of this material, though, and hats off to Mr. Schneider for doing it.

In today's reading, I'm sorry to say that I bumped into this:

"...Miles Davis...regularly beat the women--all of whom he called 'bitches'--in his life...." (204)

Just when I was starting to think I might soon be ready to go back to his fuckin' autobiography. Well...we'll see.

Day 9: Jazz Day 71 (DDRD 1,649) 🏇May 7, 2022🏇

Read to page 308. -ish. Because I got my second Covid booster yesterday, and when I woke up all I wanted to do was lay in bed. But that gets boring, so I read and watched The Office.

I'm sorry to say that the last 1/4th or so of this book was really disappointing. For some reason, Eric Nisenson found it necessary not only to heap incredibly lavish praise on Coltrane, but also to denigrate pretty much every modern Jazz artist he could think of. And Jimi Hendrix, too. Check this out: "Long after Hendrix had come and gone, Coltrane continued to influence new generations of rock musicians." (231) What the actual fuck? There are so many things wrong with that sentence that I can't even bring myself to comment on it, so I'm hoping that its faults are obvious.

And he doesn't stop with musicians. Here's his comment on a U2 video: "In one U2 video A Love Supreme is mentioned in the lyrics while Coltrane's face is briefly seen on the screen, undoubtedly bringing blank stares to youthful viewers of MTV." (242) Well, unDOUBTedly. How could any reasonable person argue with that kind of insightful comment?

And Neil Diamond? His music (all of it, apparently) is categorized as "warmed over ditties." (245)

As much as I love Coltrane, I got really tired of Nisenson. After the Epilogue, he had a list of albums he suggested buying if you wanted an introduction to Coltrane's music. There were over 30 albums on the list. 

Yep. This book is worth reading up to about page 200, but I sincerely wish that I had stopped there. The final hundred pages sullied my love for Coltrane (only temporarily, but still...) and made me determined to never read another book by Eric Nisenson...who I had a good opinion of previously.

A last note:

Maybe it's not Nisenson's fault, but it's hard for me not to conclude that if you can't even make sure that Lester Bowie's name is right in your book, you probably aren't a very careful writer.

I mean...LESTER FUCKING BOWIE!

Sheesh. 

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages 
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages

(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages

(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages

(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages 

2nd 1K Sub-Total: 13,945 pages. So as of Day 578 of The Second 1,000 Days, I've already passed (by a substantial amount) the number of pages I read in all of the first 1,000 Days. Woo-hoo. 

(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages

(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages

(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages

(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages

(19) Kind of Blue 4 days, 224 pages

2nd 1K Sub-Total: 15,547 pages. Grand Total: 28,996 pages. 

(20) Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece: 5 days, 256 pages

(21) Miles: The Autobiography 445 pages...abandoned at page 229 for violence against women, racism, and unrelenting assholiness.

(21) A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album: 8 days, 287 pages

(22) Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest 8 days, 304 pages