After reading Miles Davis's "anecdote" about beating Frances Taylor multiple times...because he loved her and was jealous of her doing anything that wasn't focused on him...I had to put down Miles: The Autobiography at page 229. To be honest, it was hard for me to put it down. On the one hand, I was revolted by Miles Davis. So far as I can see, he was a piss poor excuse for a human being, a nasty, violent, racist man. A man who is not worthy of any respect whatsoever. (I don't know if that "should" make me averse to his music as well, but I can tell you that for right now I have no interest in listening to him anymore.) But I've never dropped a Daily Devotional Reading before, and that regimen means a lot to me. And beyond that, there are not very many books that I've read over two hundred pages of and then quit. But I most certainly have no interest in reading another word right now.
So I'm going to take a Coltrane break. At the end of that, maybe I'll go back and see if I can finish M:TA. I kind of doubt that that will happen, though.
For now, though, it's A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album by Ashley Kahn. 287 pages total.
NOTE: This is coming to you from Day 2, actually, but just in case you want to know...there are endnotes for this book, but there's no indication of their placement in the text itself, so if you want to read them alongside the chapter, you've got to keep your eyes peeled. Or do what I'm going to do, and read them before or immediately after each chapter (so that they don't pile up too much). Okay? Okay.
Day 1: Jazz Day 55 (DDRD 1,633) April 21, 2022 *
Step One: Remove the Sacred Bookmarker
(a picture I took of The Boxer at Rest at the MOMA when I took Jacqueline to NYC in 2013) from Miles: The Autobiography.
Step Two: Prepare The Music.
Step Three: Cue the vinyl and commence to read.
And...read to page 15...which was more than 15 pages, since it included all of the preliminary stuff. Speaking of which, the writing on the endpapers was the handwritten (by John Coltrane) version of the album notes which Mr. Coltrane wrote for the A Love Supreme album. I discovered this when I finally took the plastic off of the album cover (I'd opened it and played it several times, but left the plastic on, not realizing that it had a gatefold cover) and saw said notes.
Reading about Coltrane...who was not only a very serious musician determined to transcend the limitations of himself, his instrument, and music itself...a man who had dedicated his life to a spiritual quest...and (so far as I can tell at this point, anyway) a very Good man...is what I needed after biting down on that bad shit about Miles Davis. I'm going to try to take my time and enjoy this book, give time a chance to leach the Miles Davis poisons out of my brain, and then see if I have it in me to go back to the autobiography. Let's see...229 - 424 = 195 pages to go, so at 20 pages per day that = 10 more days of Miles Davis. I don't know. Right now I'd have to say that that is not something I want to do, but we'll see where I am when I finish the A Love Supreme book. Which, ironically--though not unexpectedly--has already mentioned Miles Davis several times.
One of the most startling bits of information that I found in these first pages was that all of the tracks of A Love Supreme were recorded in a single day.
Although I got a little puzzled when I went to look at the details (and yes, to verify...because Wikipedia doesn't always get it right, you know), because the next day...
But hey, if Ashley Kahn says the album was recorded in one session, then I take his word for it. Hmmm. Does this also imply that all of the tracks are first takes? Details as they happen.
BTW...the information above comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_John_Coltrane_recording_sessions...and a little more reading on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Love_Supreme reveals that the 12/10 recording of "Part I Acknowledgement" was an alternate take without the vocal, and Coltrane decided that he didn't like it and used the version from 12/09. No further information found on the second "Part II Resolution" recording yet...but hey...Details as they happen there, too.
P.S. Just had a thought which led to a look, and according to https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Rifugium/best-selling-jazz-albums-of-all-time-riaa-or-theres-no-money-in-jazz/, A Love Supreme is the 27th best selling album of all time. Not bad for a day's work, huh? **
* Which, by the way, is the same Jazz Day, DDRD, and date as my last reading in M:TA, since I didn't finish my reading goal of 20 pages in it.
** I know, I know. I tried to find another source for Best Selling Jazz Albums of All Time, but came up with nada. Still looking, though, so ...well, you know what kind of eyes she got.
Day 2: Jazz Day 56 (DDRD 1,634) April 22, 2022
Read to page 40.
On the one hand, this book is proving to be a most excellent antidote to the bitter negativity of Miles: The Autobiography, and I'm glad that I put the brakes on that. Coltrane has his problems, for sure, but he is foremost and essentially a good man, which Miles Davis clearly is not. On the other hand, there's just no escape from Davis. One telling story is when he is berating Coltrane for a poor performance, and he slaps Coltrane in the face and then punches him in the stomach. Coltrane does not strike back. Kind of sums it up, doesn't it?
Also, in his comments about Blue Train, Kahn mentioned that one of the session players was...
It was also at this point that I realized that Kahn's notes for the book were all invisible...tucked away at the end and with no indication that there even were notes...just as he had done in his Kind of Blue book. I wish that I had remembered that. It really frustrates me, because I actually want to read the notes, but I don't want to read the whole pile of them at the end of the chapter...or at the end of the book, for that matter. So I'm going to stop and catch up, then either read them before starting each chapter or immediately upon finishing the chapter. It would be really awkward to read them alongside the chapter, since I would have to spend a lot of time concentrating on where a note was likely to be (since there is literally no indication that a note has been made in the text itself). Sigh. What's wrong with footnotes, for fuck's sake?
Day 3: Jazz Day 57 (DDRD 1,635) April 23, 2022
Read to page 62.
First, there's No Escape from Miles Davis's Autobiography:
Also cool to think that Ashley Kahn was actually talking TO Grachan Moncur III as he put this book together.
Day 4: Jazz Day 58 (DDRD 1,636) April 24, 2022
Read to page 82. Looks like I'm going to need to listen to Crescent. It's the album which preceded A Love Supreme, features the same main players, and, according to Kahn, is a kind of pre-figuration of ALS.
It's also totally available on the You Tub at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQPfv0Fyqhc. So that's where I'll be going now.Side One
"Crescent" – 8:41
"Wise One" – 9:00
"Bessie's Blues" – 3:22
"Lonnie's Lament" – 11:45
"The Drum Thing" – 7:22
And you know what...even my tin ear on its first listen can hear some hints of A Love Supreme here.
Later...
Went back and read a bit more, to page 104, which was the end of the section on "Acknowledgement," which is the first song on A Love Supreme. There were enough interesting details to make me want to give it a listen immediately, but that wasn't possible, so I'll have to try to remember the details. The thing I most want to listen for is Kahn's assertion that Coltrane's vocal (chanting the words "A love supreme") is multi-tracked. I'm sure it's true, since (1) Kahn knows his shit and (2) the recording information for the day after the tracks were recorded specifies that overdub vocals for this track were taped. But I've never noticed it before, so I want to hear it.
News as it happens.
As it happens: Even though I have a copy of A Love Supreme...on vinyl...on BLUE vinyl...I bopped over to hoopla to see what I could see. And yes indeed, they had the album. But they also had another version of the album which included the whole thing live in Juan-les-Pins, France AND four alternate takes (two each of Parts I and II). And I was about to borrow that when I saw that there was another version sub-entitled "The Complete Masters" which had the album plus 13 other recordings from the sessions. And then I saw another "The Complete Masters" which had 17 other recordings from the sessions plus a live version of Part I. And then I saw the sub-entitled "The Platinum Collection" which had
But after lots of thinking it over, I decided that this track from The Complete Masters 2015 must be Track 23 from The Platinum Collection...even though the title is slightly different and the time is a tad bit off. Of course, the only way to know for sure would be to listen to both of them. Am I OCD enough to go there? Maybe. But for now, I'm going to say that if you really need to hear every track recorded for the A Love Supreme album, then The Platinum Collection is what you're looking for. All 4 hours of it.
Day 5: Jazz Day 59 (DDRD 1,637) April 25, 2022
So with that ⬆ in mind, I checked out A Love Supreme: The Platinum Collection (2021). I started with Track 18, "A Love Supreme Part III - Pursuance - Original Mono Reference Master"...and ended up going through Track 19 as well, which is the Original Mono Reference Master for Part IV. I have to admit that I don't know what "Original Mono Reference Master" means. It clocks in at 10:40, which is almost the same length as the final album version (10:45 there). So I did what any self-respecting Anal Retentive / OCD / On The Spectrum person would do: I played the Platinum version through my computer and the album version through my stereo. I couldn't get the timing exactly right (since they're in different rooms), but I got it pretty close...and the strange echo-y sound which this produced was actually kind of cool. Worth a try if you happen to have two music playing devices close at hand. And after listening to both Parts III and IV "Original Mono Masters" alongside the album versions, I can say that I am 99% confident that these are the exact same recordings. Which makes me wonder why they put these Mono Masters onto this record. There is a little studio talk at the beginning of the one for III, but hey, could've done that with like a four second thing.
As long as I was there, I went ahead and listened to tracks 20 through 25.
Track 25 ("Part I - Acknowledgement - Take 1 / Alternate") was interesting, as it has a seriously different sounding horn added into the mix. (Presumably both were played by Coltrane.) This second horn is very blurry sounding, almost like a comic effect, close to a raspberry. I'm really glad that this take didn't make the cut so far as the final album went. In fact, I had to take a long pause halfway through because it was really getting on my nerves.
Read to page 130, which got me through all of the notes on the recording day. Turns out that Coltrane went back into the studio to re-record the album, adding in some additional people, but ended up deciding that the first version was better. At this point it seems that the tapes for this material has been lost. In fact, Kahn said something along the lines of "all the material for A Love Supreme, including false starts, would fit on one hour of tape." Also noted that the three session men were paid $122 each for this project, and Coltrane made $244. Hard to imagine, isn't it?
Day 6: Jazz Day 60 (DDRD 1,638) April 26, 2022
Read to page 180.
Hey, did you know that Rick James and Neil Young were in a band together? Neither did I. The band was The Mynah Birds, and the actually recorded three singles, one of which was released 1965. The other two had to wait until 2006 and 2016. All are easily found on the internet.
Thinking about Rick James reminded me that I'd never gotten around to noting what Carlos Santana had to say about A Love Supreme (from way back in the introductory material), so here it is now:
"The first time I heard A Love Supreme, it really was an assault. It could have been from Mars as far as I was concerned, or another galaxy. I remember the album cover and name, but the music didn't fit into the patterns of my brain at that point. It was like someone trying to tell a monkey about spirituality or computers, you know, it just didn't compute." Carlos Santana page xviii
I think I also forgot to note this detail about the recording of the album: "a four hour recording session...running from 8:00 p.m. until midnight." (84)
Day 7: Jazz Day 61 (DDRD 1,639) April 27, 2022
Read to page 201.
So, how dedicated am I to my Daily Devotional Reading? Well, I had a busy day. It started with a 5 am wake up, and I was fixing breakfasts and lunches until 6, when #2🌞 got up and wanted to watch a show he'd taped. By the time that was over I had to get going to take him to his day center, then take #1daughter to her day center, then went to #1🌞's house to babysit granddaughter. She went down for her nap late, so I only got a little bit of reading in A Love Supreme until it was time to leave and pick up #1daughter. We got home just a moment before #2🌞, and then it was time to start dinner. After that it was a whirl of dad duties (including reading from three books for each of my kids) and before I knew it I was nodding off and dragged myself to bed. And just as I was about to go to sleep I thought, "I didn't finish my twenty pages for the day!" So yes, I got up, got my book, went back to bed, and read to page 201. Then closed the book, closed my eyes, and was gone in seconds.
BTW, here's a quote I want to preserve:
"I want to be a force for real good." John Coltrane,1966. (192)
What a contrast between John Coltrane and Miles Davis, hmmm?
Speaking of, instead of going back to Miles: The Autobiography when I finish this book, I think I am going to go for John Coltrane: His Life and Music by Lewis Porter. It's still possible that I'll go back to the Miles Davis book...but I'm definitely not ready yet.
Day 8: Jazz Day 62 (DDRD 1,640) April 28, 2022
Read to page 260...The End.
This was a very satisfying book, filled with great details about John Coltrane in general and A Love Supreme in particular. Lots of good photographs, too. And Kahn's writing here was tighter than it was in the Kind of Blue book.
Here's what I consider to be the final word on the album:
"I actually had to stop listening to A Love Supreme - I think it was very dangerous for me as a musician," confesses Joshua Redman." There was no way I was ever going to be able to play like that, so I had to say, "Look, this is so overwhelming as a musical statement, that if I keep listening to it, I won't be able to find any meaning and what I'm trying to do as a musician." (211)
So...think it's going to be more Coltrane tomorrow.
Coda: Listened to Tracks 26 through 30 of The Platinum Collection. Track 26 was another two horn take on Part I, and it was about as unbearable as Take 1...though the bass did some interesting things I hadn't noticed in previous takes--some bowing sounds towards the end among other things. Take 27 was just a minute before it broke down, and 28 was petty much the same as 26, and equally unpleasing to me. The two horn approach just seems to muddy up the waters to me. And I'm guessing that Coltrane felt the same way, since he ditched these and went back to the first versions of the songs for the album. And the rest of the tracks...well, they were interesting, but you know, I'm glad that I didn't pay for the privilege of listening to them, as I don't think I'll ever want to hear any of them again. No, it's back to the original album for me, thank you.
DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read
(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
(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
No comments:
Post a Comment