Lost John Coltrane Recording from 1963 Will Be Released | Hacker News Reader

Lost John Coltrane Recording from 1963 Will Be Released

nytimes.com

176 pointsohjeez31 comments

If you love jazz and live in the SF Bay Area, I highly recommend putting KCSM (91.1) on your radio -- curated commercial free jazz.

For those outside the area, they stream their broadcast online: https://kcsm.org/jazz91/listen.php

I also recommend going to SF Jazz for live performances. Best acoustics in the city!

Have never been to SF to go to the SFjazz center but I see the ensemble every time they come to Boston. Incredible every time.

Because of where my browser placed the line break, I was scratching my head at (commercial (free jazz)).

Or even ((curated commercial) (free jazz))

Thank you, much appreciated!

That website is straight out of 2003 (not that there's anything wrong with that)

I'm glad HN has an appreciation for the greats of the past, and they aren't completely lost in sands of time.

Highly recommend "Love Supreme" and "Ballads" for a relaxing evening with your favorite peeps.

I can't describe in words how amazing A Love Supreme is, both in terms of it's feel and the technical proficiency in playing the horn like that. It tales me somewhere else, every single time. Those long legato runs are out of this world.

I know many people who adore A Love Supreme, but I wouldn’t recommend it to a novice. I still can’t make head nor tail of it.

_Blue Train_ is probably a better one to start with.

If you're going down this path, I'd say _My Favorite Things_, because people might actually know the song.

I'd say Olé is even better. You can cut the air with a knife when the title track is playing.

Such a rewarding song, Olé. An interpretation of an old Republican civil war song, pure bliss when the melody kicks in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6miDvc52yU

The melody is very strong. Also when Trane's last solo kicks in is something really strong.

What I really like about him is when he just screams like a total madman through the saxophone. That's why one of my favorite albums from him is the last live The Olatunji Concert with Pharoah Sanders, where the sick man just roars like a lion. Horrible sound quality but I'd say his strongest band and absolutely brilliant music.

Live at Birdland was my Coltrane gateway drug.

Afro Blue... Actually more for the McCoy Tyner piano work but the whole ensemble is wonderful.

My deepest sympathies... But I can't agree with that. There were two albums that turned me on to jazz as a teenager. A Love Supreme was one of them. (The other was the Charlie Mingus album Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.)

A Love Supreme more invigorating than laid-back classics like Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, and the harmonies of the first two cuts are grounded enough that nothing is lost from not knowing the original standards. (A lot of jazz is hard to approach today because the context is lost -- nobody knows the tunes or can follow the chord changes, so you can't feel the tension and everything sounds like undirected noodling. The experience is analogous to listening to a remix without knowing the original).

A Love Supreme is literally the first jazz album I recommend to people.

Think of it him talking to God. Close your eyes and let the short album flow from introductions to the ascension of Psalm.

And from there it's nice to jump to the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders.

https://pitchfork.com/features/pitchfork-essentials/9724-ast...

I never understood jazz, but one spring years ago forced myself to just dig in and listen until I got it. The artist that did it for me was Coltrane and until this day I highly appreciate the experimentation and spirit he and his band got. He was out of this world.

I find "A Love Supreme" about as relaxing as a Richard Feynman lecture, that is to say not at all, and for essentially the same reason, being a masterpiece of intellect and passion in which there's a new insight on every listening. If "A Love Supreme" is playing I won't be relaxed. I'll be distracted, provoked and probably quite agitated.

As much as I respect Coltrane and love much of his work, I have to agree that some of his more exploratory efforts are what I could only describe as "not relaxing". I like to fall asleep with jazz albums playing from time to time, and sometimes the playlists have gotten into some Coltrane stuff that tends to pull me awake.

_Ballads_ as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17274137 notes is generally chill and straightforward ballads.

The only time I ever approved of a website generating sound without my permission when I opened it.

That is excellent news.

Although I have to admit I’m not so much an avowed Jazz aficionado as I simply enjoy it as background atmospheric “pairing” when I’m working or reading.

Jazz improvisation to me is like programming; the refactoring of existing themes, and the introduction of new features, under time pressure.

Post-"representational" Painting is also strangely like this as well, even, strangely enough, with a certain time pressure: the first mark/stroke will, most of the time, be be better than the marks that come after that, and a corrected stroke almost invariably worse. Plus, as time continues, the surface ages.

Here's a concept from 19th century music that seems connected to the question of thematic refactoring/development: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thematic_transformation

Holy crap. This track Untitled Original 11383 is a real treat for aficionados of A Love Supreme. Stylistically, it sounds like it could have been an out-take from that album, except that McCoy Tyner's piano style isn't quite as heavy yet, and the form still retains some traditional elements (it's a blues) which are completely purged on A Love Supreme.

I stumbled upon the first of these tracks on Spotify today (linked from Four Tet's awesome unicode heavy playlist [1]). The track is called "Untitled Original 11383" [2]. Great stuff.

When playing it on mobile there seems to be either a new Spotify feature or some kind of easter egg that triggers, showing a pretty funky visualization (could also be an animation).

1: https://open.spotify.com/user/k_hebden/playlist/2uzbATYxs9V8...

2: https://open.spotify.com/track/4Mxv2NpWywFrS477J9dIuC?si=X08...

I'm not sure why this music is relaxing for many people. Any time I hear a Coltrane solo I feel like someone's soul is being ripped apart.

Jazz isn't always relaxing.

The video is great, with a rendition of the "Coltrane fractal" :)

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