{"id":1727,"date":"2014-09-23T12:22:55","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T16:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=1727"},"modified":"2014-09-23T12:34:23","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T16:34:23","slug":"beautiful-coltrane-birthday-celebrate-with-offering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2014\/09\/beautiful-coltrane-birthday-celebrate-with-offering.html","title":{"rendered":"Beautiful Coltrane birthday — celebrate with “Offering”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, Sept 23, is a beautiful 88th birthdate of the late revered and intrepid saxophonist\/composer\u00c2\u00a0John Coltrane<\/strong>,<\/a> celebrated with the release of\u00c2\u00a0Offering<\/strong>, <\/em><\/a>the first professionally prepared\u00c2\u00a0cd of his November 1966 concert at \"offering\"<\/a>Temple University. This is the most significant addition to Coltrane’s ouevre since the 2005 discovery by\u00c2\u00a0Library of Congress researcher Larry Appelbaum<\/a> of the concert Trane did in 1957 with Thelonious Monk at Carnegie Hall<\/a>. Coltrane fans won’t want to miss it. Uninitiated adventurers approaching this album may be shocked and\/or awed.<\/p>\n

If you don’t know: Coltrane had attained immortal\u00c2\u00a0status by his death at age 40 in 1967. He was so\u00c2\u00a0committed to exploring the potential of human expression\u00c2\u00a0from the base of jazz’s traditions, the greater scope of music from all over the world (Africa and India, especially) and the extraordinary technical skills he’d attained that he’d become a leader in the quest for esthetic and indeed spiritual\u00c2\u00a0freedom.<\/p>\n

The Offering <\/em>documents these aspects of his mission, as well as Coltrane’s\u00c2\u00a0unusual humility and\u00c2\u00a0generosity to his community: he allowed and even encouraged musicians not on his level — amateurs, really — to sit in. All this, his iconoclastic departure from conventional song form and the extremely\u00c2\u00a0vocal-like\u00c2\u00a0vocabulary he brought to his horns was new and controversial when Coltrane first did it, and still sets his\u00c2\u00a0later music beyond the taste of many listeners. Yet it opened the gates to much of what we take to be serious about improvisational music in every genre today.<\/p>\n

Personally, I cannot say I understood John Coltrane’s music when I first heard him live in 1965, but I was profoundly affected by it. I had already learned from records\u00c2\u00a0about\u00c2\u00a0his preternaturally calm, seemingly methodical\u00c2\u00a0lyricism on Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue,<\/em><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0his sinuous approach to Thelonious Monk’s stark and\/or quirky\u00c2\u00a0melodies<\/a> and his direct, somber embrace of the blues <\/a>in general. I was enthralled by the velocity he brought to modal tears\u00c2\u00a0like “Impressions” and “India”but I didn’t know what to make\u00c2\u00a0