Product Details

• Actors: John Coltrane, Roscoe Mitchell, Rashied Ali, Alice Coltrane, Tommy Flanagan
• Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: BMG Video
• VHS Release Date: August 24, 1993
• Run Time: 59 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302886201
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #295,555 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

John Coltrane is easily one of the key innovators, visionaries, and virtuosos of American Jazz. Coltrane's spiritually influenced and challenging music not only turned the jazz world upside down in the 1960s, but directly impacted all modern music for decades to follow. It is this relationship between music and spirituality that is the core of John Coltrane: The World According to John Coltrane. Produced with his wife's cooperation, The World According to John Coltrane is truly a heartfelt documentary on his work and influence on the music community. The bulk of the 60-minute documentary focuses on Coltrane's eastern spirituality/musical direction in the 1960s as told through the voices of friends, fellow musicians, and admirers. Perhaps the most impressive aspects of this documentary are its live footage clips. Listening to Coltrane is extremely powerful, but watching him pour his heart and soul into his sax is absolutely awe-inspiring. These clips will leave you yearning to see the entire performances, unedited. Unfortunately, this is the DVD's one fault; no extras of the performances in their entirety. Oh well. A fan can dream. --Rob Bracco

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astounding..., June 12, 2002

By 

Will Flannery (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: John Coltrane - The World According to John Coltrane (DVD)

This is it folks. This is as close as you'll get to a John Coltrane solo, and hence, according to some, as close as you will get to God in this lifetime. Not only can you hear the notes, but you can see the riveting intensity that consumed Coltrane when he was playing. All the great jazz players can play lots of notes, but Coltrane can tear you up with one note. In addition to ferocious runs up and down the horn Trane plays lots of long searing notes. Just one note, but the attack, the tone, the intensity, the release, are unparalleled in jazz. If you are new to jazz, listen to these notes, they embody the essence of Coltrane, they will tell you all you need to know, for now.

In the tape of "So What" the camera is right in Miles face as he finishes his solo. The picture is perfectly clear, you can see the minutest detail of the expressions on his face as he creates in the moment classic jazz. As he finishes he steps aside as Trane moves up to the mic, playing a few casual notes. Then, immediately, Coltrane reaches white hot intensity, playing long screaming notes alternating with arpeggios defining his harmonic concept. This is it. The Ultimate. It is interesting to see the other players nonchalantly standing about as Trane plays, Occasionally one will look over. The world had never heard music like this before, and Trane was scandalizing critics and fans by the thousands, but these guys were cool. What a moment!

The video is about the music, and are several extended cuts included, along with commentary by musicians that played with Trane, this commentary is not too compelling, but, it does give some idea of how Trane's contemporaries related to him. The only way I can think of to make it better would be to make it longer. Another astounding thing to me is that this footage of Trane in action exists. It appears from this video that there is lots of it. How about a sequel, now that we really need one!

I like the DVD edition, first, because it's digital, indestructible, etc., and second because you can have immediate access to the individual `chapters' making up the disc without scanning through the commentary, etc.

49 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Coltrane is great - movie is weak, January 2, 2003

By 

Dimitry Feigin (Coconut Creek, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: John Coltrane - The World According to John Coltrane (DVD)

Coltrane and his music is really genius. The same I expect from the movie about him.
Why I consider it weak:
1. It is only 60 min and not all the time is for his music. DVD can fill > 3 h.
2. Comments are interrupting his performance. The sessions are cut at the middle.
I think I need to wait for DVD writer and create the movie that I want by myself. I want to have whole session of performance from Jazz Casual (weak picture, but the sound recording is good). I want to see as much as possible from Kind of Blue, My Favorite Things, Giants Steps and Love Supreme. I saw the parts from these sessions but I want to have all of it. I don't care that the picture can be weak, but I want to see Coltranes fingers and hear his sax.
Also for music DVD it should be the option to play only music without comments, because after couple of times you probable want to hear only music and not listen to the story.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vey well done, March 6, 2001

By 

A. Hogan (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: World According to John Coltrane [VHS] (VHS Tape)

John Coltrane keeps growing larger each year. Prestige, Atlantic and Impulse all have massive box treatments of this man. there are30 books in print from ... that deal with him{from Lewis Porter's definitive biography, to a collection of poetry dedicated to him, DEAR John Coltrane} There is an African Orthodox Church in San Francisco that is called the church of St. John Coltrane.So ,it would seem, there is soemthing profound about coltane that touches many people at their very center. this Video, done in cooperation with Alice Coltrane{hence the somewhat reverant tone] is a compilation of mostly muscial clips taken from the early 60's, with soem nice moments of coltrane with the Miles davis quintet. Some grainy black in white footage{though the sound is surprisingly good},compliments the color footage of Newport ,and the interviews{Tommy FLanigan, Rashid ali}are helpful. The music, though is the real star here. look at Coltrane as he goes into a loong, long solo,what passion and energy he consumes. he was looking, we are told, for God, and the sound of God.With the legacy he left, I think he may have found it. Well done, far from definitive, though a good part of the canon.