John Coltrane 100
Happy 100th. Today I listened to John Coltrane’s “Live in Japan” triple album. It’s not easy to listen to at first because it sounds utterly chaotic. Yowling cats dodging empty beer cans. Coltrane’s bandmates said in the mid 1960’s they’d play free concerts in the park and by a half hour later most people had left. I guess they thought they could hear yowling cats dodging beer cans at home.
The record company didn’t release the “Live in Japan” album until 1973, and it was only a token release in small numbers as a double album. There was a Japanese release in 1973 that was a more complete triple album. Most people didn’t hear the complete set until 1991 as a four disk CD release.
I’m guessing that maybe a portal to the universe next door may have been slightly cracked due to Coltrane’s “Live in Japan” performance. If anything cracks open the universe, I’m guessing this is as good as anything.
I’d tried listening to the complete set in 1996 but couldn’t pull it off. Coltrane lost me. But by 1998, I was doing meditative art making in my Santa Fe home studio working on Raven Art, and the performances finally made sense. You can’t listen to it as in concert music, but more as abstracted sounds that went from the utterly chaotic to the harmonious, just like the chaos and harmonies of real life. While doing very meticulous work that required a new level of patience, the Coltrane Japanese performances had a logic to them, and I’d find myself playing his “My Favorite Things” on repeat for hours. Lost in thought, as in emptying your mind and letting your intuition take over while making the work.
By the way, today is the first day of the autumnal equinox and it is John Coltrane’s 100th birthday (Sept. 23, 2026). He likely shifted the earth a little the day he was born, right?
“COLTRANE, The Definitive Visual Celebration of the Legend” book. You may find it at the Coltrane website.