Customer Reviews

Olatunji Concert: Last Live Recording

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is the last live recording of saxophonist John Coltrane; by the time it was committed to tape, he and his quintet had ventured deep into free jazz territory, alienating many of his original fans and polarizing the jazz world. The music abandoned harmony and pulse, instead consisting of ecstatic and/or frightening solos over a churning rhythmic backdrop offered by drummer Rashied Ali and several percussionists. And Trane's partner in the front line, saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, angered many fans with his harsh style of screams and groans.

This performance gives you a taste of that quintet -- sort of. The sound here is really bad, like a below-average bootleg. (Much worse than the Coltrane/Monk recordings from the Five Spot, if you want a point of reference.) It deteriorates as the CD progresses and by "My Favorite Things", the only things you can hear are the horns and Ali's thrashing drums; those instruments are so distorted that Trane's soprano sax reminds me of Little Walter's harmonica on those great Chess recordings!

That said, these are better performances than other currently available recordings of this band. (Live in Japan and Live at the Village Vanguard Again, both from 1966.) "Ogunde" is incredible, from Coltrane's anguished reading of the melody to his exploratory solo for the last ten minutes; Alice Coltrane contributes a piano solo -- one of the few places you can hear her on this recording. "My Favorite Things" is similar to other performances of this staple by this group: not many references to the melody, but instead a moaning and busy exploration beginning with a Jimmy Garrison bass solo and culminating with a saxophone duel by Coltrane and Sanders.

This is not the first place to start with Coltrane, his Impulse recordings, or his avant-garde music. It is not even the place to start with his 1967 recordings -- Interstellar Space or Stellar Regions are both much more digestible and better-sounding recordings. But once you cut through the cobwebs of awful sound, the power and alien beauty of these performances cannot be denied.

I'm torn with this cd. As a enthusiastic fan of Coltrane's late period (1966-7) I bought "Olatunji Concert" without question. I knew the music would be in the stratosphere and it is, ala "Live from the Village Vanguard Again" and "Live in Japan". That I love. The band is energetic and don't disappoint musically. Unfortunately the sound is horrible. There is a lot of distortion and it's midrange heavy. I had to take a breather midsong from ear fatigue and think there should be a warning on the back cover.

If you love late Trane you'll want it-it's late Trane! If you're just getting into him please don't start here. His music is so beautiful and inspiring I wouldn't want you to get off on the wrong foot. Try "Live at Birdland" if you want a good place to start for his Impulse years.

------

4/10/06: I have to update my review of this cd to state that I never play it because the sound is so bad. As a result, my rating goes from 3 stars to 2. Pains me but, despite the music, this cd sounds horrible.

Never before have I cared to write a review of a CD. Taste is not universal, and generally I prefer to have my own, and let others have theirs (as long as they are justified). But this CD NEEDS to be heard, and I NEED to tell people to listen to it. The Olatunji concert absolutely shattered me in the most beautiful and intense way possible. It redefined jazz for me, reinvigorated my love for it, and ultimately showed me what art looks like in its purest form, devoid of one extraneous ounce of aesthetic packaging. Coltrane took every ounce of himself, and rather than devoting it to a polished sound, applied every bit of it to the feeling behind that sound. This is artistic purity like I have never before seen. Still, many people will get a headache from this. Shoot, sometimes I get a headache from it, but a headache like one I would get from reading a philosophy text and repeatedly having my brain stretched out...the absolute best kind of headache. This record changed me, and even if you don't "enjoy" it on a listening level (I personally do) you must still try to recognize how much there is to be learned from this, not necessarily in music, but in life and art in general. As for the recording, yeah, it's a bit shoddy, but I tend to like the noisy overdriven intensity it produces. Like the music, it bypasses capturing the sound and captures the feeling of it all, which is what it's all about in the first place, isn't it? good luck...

I waited a while to get this one (this was probably close to the 50th Coltrane CD I have purchased), and I was initially very reluctant to order this, mostly because I had heard negative comments about the recording quality. While it's true that the sound quality is not great, it's really not that bad either. At times the distortion that I hear even complements the music somehow. Pharoah Sanders really doesn't even sound like he's playing tenor, more like an electric guitar combined with human screaming, and he is, by the way, on fire this particular evening. This may be my favorite live recording of this group; it certainly made me fall in love with this era of Coltrane all over again. The two percussionists backing Ali also add to the power of this performance.

This is probably not the place to start if you're just getting into Coltrane, but I would certainly highly recommend this CD to anyone who already feels passionately about the music of John Coltrane.

I have never heard any of Coltrane's avant garde stuff - I was driven away by its fearsome reputation for being nothing but random noise. But I was tempted by a cut-price copy of Olatunji Concert of 1967 - Coltrane's last recorded performance.


I tentatively put on My Favorite Things, and settled down to hear an avant garde performance of one of my favourite Coltrane tunes.

As I said before - what the...?

I was first met with a seven minute Jimmy Garrison solo - comfortably familiar, sounding much as he had in 1961. But then...

Since I just heard the music a few minutes ago for the first time, I think I should record my impressions here now. So here goes.

First, I recognised NOTHING. NOTHING at all. Zip. I'm not joking. I thought the Newport performance of MFT from 1965 had been pretty out there. I had also seen the footage of Coltrane's Belgian performance of 1965, which was even more out there. But here??? I can't describe what it was like to hear Trane's soprano shrieking out, and trying desperately to hear the familiar sound of the opening bars...and waiting...and waiting...

Immediately I was plunged into random noise, like listening to static on the radio (an impression heightened by the abominable quality of the sound). The sound was far, far more offensive than I could have anticipated. It was ugly, stressful, musically barren, assaultive.

No beat. No key signature. No melody. No chord progressions. Not even modal scales! Just pure, utter NOISE. My first idea was that you could literally change the titles of the tracks around - Ogunde instead of MFT - and never know the difference.

But after a moment I began to hear tiny, distorted fragments of MFT coming through. I could sense the general spirit of MFT even through the assaultive noise.
I began to be exhilirated by the sound about when I heard the first recogniseable portion of melody - more than eleven whole minutes in! I realised that Coltrane really was keeping the original melody in mind.

The horrid, thunderous noise is not just random. It is as passionate and emotional as any of Coltrane's previous stuff. In fact, with the complete breaking down of musical structure I thought it was even more powerful. I found I could hardly breathe with excitement.

The performance is like watching a thunderstorm, or a bushfire. It's a primitive, crude sound, the sort of music that early people might have played, to drive out evil spirits. I was reminded of the charismatic church when I grew up, all the parishoners speaking in tongues and that indefinable energy surging through the room.


I can't even imagine what this stuff must have sounded like live. At one stage Coltrane leaves the stage (after playing a teeny little fragment of the original tune) and seems to beckon Sanders to come on. The sound of percussion during the pause is absolutely unbelieveable - deafening! - it's literally like hearing the pounding of surf - and then Sanders begins his solo.

Sanders has been criticised for being arrogantly avant-garde in his performances - his playing repetitiously screechy and not very intelligent. But I found his solo very moving. His tenor echoes around the stage. He plays more gently at first, playing fragments of My Favorite Things. He then rises into his famous squeaks and shrieks.

Just before Coltrane comes back in, Sanders amusingly plays the original melody very straight. It is amusing because, having never toured with Coltrane before Trane's avant garde phase, he actually plays the melody more like the original Sound of Music melody than Trane ever did!

Then Coltrane comes back in, and goes into another thunderous solo. At the very end, he seemingly goes back to his old self, playing the old coda ("when the dog bites, when the bee stings...") exactly as before, only now Sanders keeps hooting over it - not exactly an Eric Dolphy.


I have not yet heard Ogunde. I just wanted to comment on what I just heard. I definitely do NOT recommend this disc to everyone. Only get it if you are really prepared for a storm of what is basically random noise.

Unlike most avant garde music, it is not at all cerebral. Quite the reverse. The reason it is hard to listen to is that is is so rawly emotional that there is almost nothing musical in it at all. There is no thought required to disgest this music. Turn off the logical part of the brain, wallow in the sound, and like me you can say "What the...?"

"The Olatunji Concert" is one of the last known recordings of John Coltrane, made three months before he died. Peformed at Harlem's Olatunji Center in the spring of 1967, it finds the late Coltrane quintet (the leader on tenor and soprano, Pharoah Sanders on tenor, Alice Coltrane on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, Rashied Ali on drums) augmented by percussion (Alige DeWitt on bata and possibly percussionist Jumma Santos) for the show. Before going any further-- this is Coltrane's late period, it should be expected that it is not going to sound anything like the Classic Quartet stuff. Melody and rhythm are far less important than emotion, mood, and power. And it is all of those things.

The performance consists of two songs, each around 30 minutes, "Ogunde", a variation on a traditional piece and Coltrane standard "My Favorite Things". "Ogunde" starts with a delicate, bluesy theme statement before really cutting loose-- Trane takes a brief and fierce solo then turning the preceedings over to Sanders (who performs energetically while being pushed by Ali) and Alice (whose solo is somewhat reminiscent of early Cecil Taylor and is totally absorbed into the piece) before restating the theme and beginning his own extended, exploratory solo. It's Ali who steals the show on the piece though, his fantastic accompaniment encourages and brings home as necessary. Of particular note is when Coltrane begins stating the theme after Alice's monsterous solo, Ali sort of resets the energy with a simple, aggressive rolled figure that really gets Trane freewheeling on his solo.

"My Favorite Things" opens with an extended bass solo, as was tradition by this point. Garrison is particularly lyrical in this performance, experimenting with dynamics, tempo, and mood before fading out to allow Coltrane's theme statement on soprano. Coltrane twists and turns, performing in synthesis of dozens of genres and styles.

The package includes an essay by David Wild about the show's history and with details about the performance and an interview with recording engineer Bernard Drayton. Drayton mentions cutting one of the mics off early in the performance-- sonic evidence indicates its about six minutes into "Ogunde", where suddenly the volume picks up and the balance drastically increases. Prior to that, piano and bass were nearly inaudible, although during fiercer moments, the piano is still subsumed under the drums. Add to that Coltrane tenor sometimes distorting (particularly at the end of "Ogunde" and the beginning of "My Favorite Things") and the whole set becomes a frustrating listen.

The truth is, with the sound quality as degraded as it is, it's hard to rate this much higher than I did, but even on equal sonic footing, I find the performances in Japan better. Still, for the converted, this is a worthwhile recording.

Being of fan of later Coltrane (post-"A Love Supreme"), this release comes as a Godsend. Sure the recording is not studio quality, but it much more robust than the currently available version of "Live in Japan." But, especially during the middle of "My Favorite Things," Pharoah Sanders and Rashied Ali are playing with so much gusto that the clashing sounds approximates white noise. This might offend some listeners, but this truly hints at the intensity later-era Coltrane has to offer. Here "Ogunde" (28 minutes) brutally expands upon the studio version included on "Expression" (four minutes), and their performance of "My Favorite Things" ferociously destroys the beautiful studio version from 1961 (and thereby completely mauls the version that originally appeared in "My Fair Lady"!)--while maintaining more focus than the overlong 57 minute performance included on "Live in Japan." As "Interstellar Space," "Expression" and "Stellar Regions" have shown, Coltrane's later quintet--Alice Coltrane (piano), the unbeatable four-drummers-in-one drumming of Rashied Ali, the constant Jimmy Garrison (bass) and Phaorah Sanders (sax)--was as much if not more powerful than Coltrane's classic quartet. But this music is much more difficult and inaccessible than the recordings of Coltrane's peak period (1960-1964). Here, we have Coltrane's last hurrah, and what a hurrah it is. Warts and all, this recording is not only historical, but is a(n) (inter)stellar spiritual document brutally walking on a tightrope between life and death. The fact that it exists should put a stop to people complaints about its (lack of) sound quality.

It occurred to me while listening to this record just now that Coltrane's career had a similar arc to that of James Joyce.

James Joyce wrote "Dubliners". John Coltrane recorded "Giant Steps". An instantly recognized classic in a distinctive new idiom.

James Joyce wrote "Ulysses". John Coltrane recorded "A Love Supreme". A masterpiece so revolutionary that some felt vaguely disturbed by it.

James Joyce wrote "Finnegans Wake". John Coltrane - probably knowing that this would be his final spring on Earth - walked on stage in an African center in Harlem on April 3, 1967 and played this music. Either genius or madness... but only a genius could say with certainty which.

I'll call it genius. Certainly - as even its detractors must acknowledge - all-but-superhuman in its musical and emotional intensity. Knowing as we do the death-shadowed nature of this performance, it can't help but seem as if Coltrane is trying to hurl whatever dwindling force remains in his physical being out towards his Creator through the medium of a Selmer saxophone.

In light of the above drama - not to mention its contribution towards remedying the unfortunate under-documentation of one of the great unheralded free jazz pianists: Alice Coltrane - you'll excuse my not considering it a dealbreaker that it wasn't recorded in Dolby 5.1 Surround. I've got some horizon-expanding for those who consider this below-average bootleg quality... You'd be surprised how low in the fi department a truly passionate fan of the artist can still find the music. There are bootlegs marketed to these people.

To use a what I hope will be a more fixed reference point for most readers: I say it starts about halfway between FM and AM quality, and slowly degrades about halfway closer to AM quality. Is this a level that will require the listener to, you know, actively pay attention to appreciate what's being played? Sure.

But only those who recognize that - whether they end up "liking" it or not - this final, anarchic, soul-shriving stage in Coltrane's decade-long explosion of artistry must be respectfully attended to by any serious student of the work will be interested in such music to begin with.

I personally experience the sound quality as almost a protective shield between my eardrums and the savagery of the rasping overblown notes. While I bet it would indeed have been an almost religiously cathartic experience to attend this concert in person, I also bet that few of those who did left without a headache.

Not the only one you'll need, but if you hear this after having listened to selections from throughout his career, you'll realize that they all lead to this, and everything else will seem inconsequential. His individual playing and group sound were both going in a definite linear direction since the late 50's and, as fate would have it, this is the endpoint. If you're one of those impatient people who turns to the last page of the book in a fit of frustration... this record may or may not be for you. In order to fully appreciate it, you should have at least a few other Coltrane records before this one (although there are dozens which are individually worth owning). Try one from his service in Miles's band, one of his Atlantic records, With Coltrane, you always got the feeling that at the end of every solo he had opened up new avenues and gotten closer to some ultimate enlightenment. It was indeed a spiritual manner of playing.

The first time I listened to this I had to go take a walk around the block afterwards at 3 a.m. The second time I listened to this I had to take a walk around the block at five a.m. The third time I listened to this- you get the point. One of the most intense pieces of music I've ever heard. The so called "shoddy" recording quality adds to the beauty, Coltrane and Sanders overdrive their microphones, the levels go into the red and it sounds like they are playing through guitar distortion, venturing well into Brotzman territory. Extremely more intense then the Village Vanguard again recordings, just incredible in it's intensity, I've seen this record even make Japanese noise fans short of breath. A real godsend for us Coltrane devotees, nothing can hope to describe this music, eh, Ali plays like he's ten different drummers at 78 rpms, when you can hear the drums, or anything else other then Trane and Pharoah. Not for the faint of heart, if your new to late Coltrane either dive in and sink or swim or work your way up to this through "Meditations" and "Interstellar Space". HARDCORE. INTENSE. UNLIKE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WILL EVER HEAR. YOUR LIFE IS INCOMPLETE WITHOUT IT, IF YOU AREN'T READY YET, THEN DO WHAT IT TAKES TO GET THERE. What a curtain call it was. If only the studio recording of Peace on earth might be found soon enough. This music was too good to remain hidden this long, the cosmos rectified this error.