Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary

Coltrane with Miles

 

Miles, Cannonball Adderley, and Coltrane

Coltrane House in Philadelphia

Dix Hills home, Long Island

John Coltrane with Alice

Coltrane with McCoy Tyner

CHASING TRANE:  THE JOHN COLTRANE DOCUMENTARY         B+                               USA  (99 mi)  2016  d: John Scheinfeld                              

An essential portrait in the life of a jazz giant and a companion piece to Stanley Nelson’s Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (2020), as both Miles and Coltrane’s lives were forever altered by experiencing the genius of Charlie Parker in concert at a young age, as he was capable of doing things on his alto saxophone that no one else had ever done, literally blowing the minds of these developing young musicians.  Miles and Coltrane may be the two most iconic figures in American jazz, and they collaborated at the height of their respective careers, with Coltrane initially working with Miles in 1955, believing at the time he had reached a zenith in his career, but he followed too closely in the footsteps of Parker, prey to the seductive pimps and drug pushers that hung around jazz clubs in those days, developing a heroin habit, even at the expense of his career, where he and saxophonist Jimmy Heath were caught getting high between sets, both immediately fired by Davis, who didn’t allow drugs to interfere with the business of making music.  Coming early on in the film, it provides something of a jolt, as immediately he’s canned and out on his ass before the film really had a chance to get started.  Down in the doldrums, he goes cold turkey, something requiring great fortitude, going through withdrawals on his own, with his stepdaughter Antonia Andrews recalling he was vomiting all night and sick with fever, but each successive day he was a little bit better.  Flashing back to his boyhood in North Carolina, both of his grandparents were preachers, so he grew up immersed in the church, where spiritual salvation was at the fiber of his being, fixating on music as a lifeline in the Jim Crow South, as his mother sang and played piano, while his father played clarinet and violin.  According to Dr. Cornel West, who taught classes on Coltrane at Princeton and who himself is the grandson of a Baptist minister, explaining how blacks came out of the brutal conditions of slavery, “We gonna share and spread some soothing sweetness against the backdrop of a dark catastrophe.  That’s black music,” claiming further, “Black music was the response to being traumatized.”  Experiencing some dark times, at age 12 he lost his father, uncle, and two grandparents in the space of just two years.  Out of work and needing a source of income, his mother moved to Philadelphia and made enough money to afford music lessons for her son, buying him his first saxophone, switching from the clarinet to the saxophone.  Coltrane was in the Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor after the war, recording with other enlisted men in an all-white swing band playing jazz standards and be-bop tunes, returning to Philadelphia afterwards to study jazz theory on the G.I. Bill.  According to Wynton Marsalis, listening to those early Navy recordings offer no indication whatsoever of the astounding talent he would become.  Made with the support of the John Coltrane Estate, utilizing astonishing, never-before-seen Coltrane family home movies, footage of John Coltrane in the studio with Monk, Miles Davis and others, along with hundreds of never-before-seen photographs and rare television appearances from around the world, incisive commentary is provided from musicians that worked with him, like childhood friend Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, Wayne Shorter, and the always real Sonny Rollins, but also those who have been inspired by his indomitable artistry, including Wynton Marsalis, Carlos Santana, Doors drummer John Densmore, and Common, along with a surprisingly eloquent President Bill Clinton, who famously plays the saxophone, with more commentary from Coltrane’s own children, two of his biographers, Ben Ratliff and Lewis Porter, and jazz scholar Ashley Kahn.  What separates Coltrane from everyone else is that after he gets clean from drugs and alcohol, he then goes on a creative, artistic and spiritual quest the likes of which we have perhaps never seen over a 10-year period by any artist in any medium, becoming one of the seminal figures of jazz.  It might recall the legendary bluesman Robert Johnson whose life and death remain shrouded in mystery, growing up in the Mississippi Delta during the Great Depression, whose musical skills, according to bluesman Son House, were less than stellar.  But after going down to the proverbial crossroads and traveling across the Delta for two years (making a mythological deal with the devil), he returned a bona fide genius of his craft, summoning skills seemingly from out of nowhere, Robert Johnson: The Life And Legacy Of The Blues Giant, doing an infamous recording session over the course of five days, producing just 29 songs, but nearly all of them have become classic standards in the blues canon, forever known as a master of the blues.  Entirely scored with the music of John Coltrane, as access was granted from the entire catalogue, music becomes the major focus of the film, serving as an unspoken narration heard throughout, as he never speaks onscreen, instead Denzel Washington reads from his own interviews and liner notes published between 1957 and 1967.  One major drawback is the persistent use of paintings from the colorfully animated artwork of Rudy Gutierrez in Gary Golio’s children’s book Spirit Seeker – John Coltrane’s Musical Journey.  Rather than enhance the emotional barometer of the artist, this feels somehow indulgent, not so much about Coltrane as another man’s artistic vision.     

In the late 40’s and early 50’s Coltrane worked with Dizzy Gillespie, but it wasn’t until he worked with Miles Davis that his career took off, known as the “First Great Quintet,” which disbanded after Coltrane’s heroin addiction, with Davis aggravated by his unreliability, but once he experienced what he described as “a spiritual awakening,” getting completely off drugs and alcohol, where he’s more clear-headed and sharper mentally, his music changed.  Spending time under the tutelage of Thelonious Monk, with his unique sense of time and composition, refining his skills, learning about harmonic progression, he worked alongside Monk at the Five Spot Café in a 6-month residency in the latter half of 1957 before rejoining Miles Davis in 1958, recreating a small band that simply changed the course of jazz, performing in a quintet/sextet that primarily spotlighted the introverted Coltrane, who was solitary yet driven, serving as a catalyst, providing a greater depth of expression that Davis was seeking.  Miles saw in Coltrane an intelligent, deeply probing and creatively inventive artist mirroring the professionalism in how he viewed himself, often lacking in fellow musicians.  What sustained and influenced Miles in his relationship with Coltrane was not only his sound and the innovation of his improvisations, but the quality of their musical dialogue together, exploring various relationships of intervals in chord construction and melodic variation, reacting in conversations to one another onstage, where Miles was lyrical and succinct, while Coltrane was more rhapsodic.  Offstage they had diametrically opposite personalities, as Coltrane was quiet, pensive, and self-critical to a fault, practicing obsessively, while Davis was arrogant, cocksure, and demanding, surrounded by the company of friends, often venturing into the public eye.  But once they took the stage they reversed roles, as Coltrane was more freely uninhibited in his constant exploration, while Davis became the more sensitive introvert, often muted and hushed, exuding vulnerability.  Miles quickly realized that Coltrane was not just a great sideman, but the perfect counterpoint to his own subdued trumpet.  According to Miles, “After we started playing together for a while, I knew that this guy was a bad motherfucker who was just the voice I needed on tenor to set off my voice.”  Their contrasting approach was even more pronounced during impromptu performances, as Coltrane was obsessing over harmonic variation and would take even more extended time for his improvisations, as his solos grew longer and longer, rare for Davis to allow, but he couldn’t silence this magical voice.  When they stepped into a recording studio, they first recorded Milestones - Miles Davis - (Full Album) (48:00), legendary in its own right, and then M I L E S D A V I S - Kind Of Blue - Full Album (1:18:05), the most successful jazz album in history.  In 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution that honored it as a national treasure, sumptuous and vital music that’s alternately exhilarating and emotive, rhythmically dynamic and smoothly flowing, complex and easy on the ear.  It’s music that defies classification.  What had been great jazz from the earlier 1955-57 Davis quintet, now broke through to a category of timelessness, finally fulfilling the promise of their collaborative magic.  But Coltrane’s self-assurance only grew in stature, literally outgrowing the group, feeling straightjacketed by the small combo format, needing more time to explore on his own, heading his own group and releasing his own album John Coltrane - Giant Steps (2020 Remaster) [Full Album] (37:32) just a few weeks afterwards, writing all of the compositions himself, including the hauntingly beautiful composition named after his wife, Naima - YouTube (4:25), allegedly Coltrane’s favorite.  It was a declaration of creative independence, acknowledging Coltrane’s arrival as a fully matured, triple threat, a soloist, bandleader and composer.  His musical vision was leading him in a direction away from Miles, who sensed Coltrane drifting away.  While there’s nary a contrary word spoken against him in the entire film, which, in itself, is remarkable, Coltrane was a man of few words, who let his music speak for him.  Jazz critic Ira Gitler coined the term “sheets of sound” to describe his style, as he strung together arpeggios so dense that his saxophone seemed to play multiple notes at once.

A creative restlessness continually propelled John Coltrane, becoming fanatical about practicing and developing his craft, practicing “25 hours a day” according to Jimmy Heath, who recalled an incident in a San Francisco hotel after a complaint was issued, so Coltrane took the horn out of his mouth and silently practiced fingering for a full hour.  Before Coltrane, jazz was urban music, expressing a mournful, existential sound of the city, but Coltrane took that sound and honed it down to its transcendent core, becoming an affirming and ecstatic sound of faith.  First he moved to the soprano sax to produce variations on a mainstream show tune from The Sound of Music that became an extremely popular crossover hit, My Favorite Things - John Coltrane [FULL VERSION] HQ (13:46), featuring Jimmy Garrison on bass, the free-flowing style of Elvin Jones on drums, and the remarkably inventive McCoy Tyner on piano, whose foundational layers of chordal support were complimentary, yet revolutionary in their own right.  Coltrane divorced his first wife, where heated acrimony in the household was simply never previously seen, as both were inwardly reserved, but he met pianist Alice McLeod at the club Birdland, got married and raised a family with three children.  By all indications both were gentle spirits, quiet and inwardly spiritual, yet home movie videos reveal these were the happiest years of his life, relaxed and content with his new role as a father, seen smoking his pipe in the back yard, playing with a dog and the couple’s children, while continuing to explore the outer and inner realms of his spiritual dimensions, disappearing into an attic above the garage in their home on Dix Hills, Long Island, eating only sporadically while remaining sequestered, working on a new musical composition, but when he was finally finished, sheet music in hand, according to his wife, “it felt like Moses coming down from the mountain.”  Shaped by his inner faith, it would be his opus jazz record, a four-part suite called A Love Supreme, John Coltrane - A Love Supreme [Full Album] (1965) YouTube (32:48), which was released in 1965, his pinnacle studio outing and one of the most acclaimed jazz records ever, surpassed only by Kind of Blue, Top 25 Jazz Albums of All Time, widely recognized as a work of deep spirituality with an underlying religious subtext, a journey into the realms of religious exaltation, a hymn-like anthem of love offering peace and supreme praise to God.  Carlos Santana insists that he plays the music whenever entering hotel rooms, cleansing the surroundings of any lingering evil spirits, keeping the bad vibes away.  Among the more compelling aspects of the film is its drive to an emotionally poignant finale, where one of the film’s most powerful sequences comes with the stark black-and-white footage of protesters being attacked with water hoses and police dogs in the wake of the tragic Birmingham bombing as Coltrane’s haunting Alabama plays, John Coltrane - Alabama YouTube (5:09).  He wrote the song in response to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing (1963) - National Park ..., a moving lament written in memory of four little girls who were murdered by a Ku Klux Klan bombing, where the mournful melody was inspired by the spoken cadence of Rev. Martin Luther King at the eulogy, as Elvin Jones’s drumming rises from a whisper to a pounding rage.  When Dr. Cornel West speaks of the work, “Martin Luther King Jr. and John Coltrane, hand in hand, represent the best of the human spirit.”  Coltrane’s group grew more avant garde, free from all constraints and barriers, where the music was pure improvisation, throwing themselves into abstract world music and the free jazz movement where solos could last for more than an hour, with many in the audience walking out, as Coltrane was going further out there in the cosmos than most listeners wanted to go.  According to John Densmore, “He had the right to go out as far as he wanted,” while saxophonist Wayne Shorter claimed Coltrane was preoccupied with the “seeking of universal truth.”  Coltrane’s last tour was across Japan, where he was embraced as a national hero.  In Nagasaki he asked to be taken to the Nagasaki Peace Park Memorial constructed on the site where the atomic bomb was dropped in WWII, a sacred place to the Japanese people, where he stood for some time meditating on the ghastly experience.  The centerpiece of the music played that night was entitled Peace On Earth, Peace On Earth (Live At Shinjuku Kosei Nenkin Hall, Tokyo ... YouTube (25:01), a transcendent work demonstrating not just a deep compassion for the country and its people, but the suffering they endured after the atomic bombing.  Introducing Coltrane that night was Yasuhiro “Fuji” Fujioka, who has authored five books on Coltrane, and may be the #1 collector of Coltrane memorabilia in the world, building a shrine called The Coltrane House in Osaka, コルトレーン・ハウス - livedoor, filled with every record and all the memorabilia he could attain.  His obsession with Coltrane started in high school when he heard him on the radio, feeling it was an utter revelation, a feeling that never left him.  During the end of the tour Coltrane complained of side pain and died suddenly at the young age of 40 from liver cancer, happening very quickly, taking the world by surprise.  Coltrane left behind a catalogue of musical recordings that include all the various phases he went through in his creative development, with President Clinton indicating “He kind of did everything Picasso did, in about 50 years less time,” while his wife Alice Coltrane observed, “He always explored higher vistas knowing that there is always something higher, something greater.”

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

Miles with Charlie Parker in 1947

 

Miles with Frances Taylor

Miles with Gil Evans

Miles with John Coltrane

Bill Evans (left to right), Miles, Cannonball Adderley, and Coltrane

Miles with Cicely Tyson

Director Stanley Nelson

MILES DAVIS:  BIRTH OF THE COOL – made for TV               B                                         USA  (114 mi)  2020  d:  Stanley Nelson

Listen.  The greatest feeling I ever had in my life — with my clothes on — was when I first heard Diz and Bird together in St. Louis, Missouri, back in 1944.  I’ve come close to matching the feeling of that night, but I’ve never quite got there.  I’m always looking for it, trying to always feel it in and through the music I play.                                                                       —Miles Davis, opening line from The Autobiography of Miles Davis, with help from Quincy Troupe, 1989

Documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson makes another PBS American Masters film, moving from one radical piece of black history, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2015), to another, this time documenting the life of jazz great Miles Davis, one of the most innovative and influential jazz musicians of the twentieth century.  Using much of the narration taken directly from The Autobiography of Miles Davis (421 pages), published in 1989 with help from Quincy Troupe, spoken by longtime TV actor Carl Lumbly in a raspy voice meant to sound like that of Miles, it’s a fairly straightforward documentary style that mainstreams an unconventional artist into a conventional format, easy to digest, wall-to-wall music playing in the background, plenty of vintage photographs, never really delving under the surface, instead standardizing his legacy.  Since the story is told by the artist himself, it has a ring of authenticity, but what’s lacking is material that refutes his greatness or offers any divulging opinions, as it’s basically a puff piece celebrating his status of jazz royalty.  While that was never in dispute, there were quite a few musicians who had their run-ins with Miles, Charles Mingus among them, finding him too egotistic and wrapped up in himself, making too many demands of others, where he refused to play with him after some early sessions, finding his irascible personality too easily provoked, as there was always tension in the room.  Jazz music, on the other hand, usually took the tension out of the air, so at least as a young artist there was an enigma associated with his name (An open letter to miles davis — CHARLES MINGUS).  Yet you won’t find any comments from Mingus in this film, or Monk, who Miles harassed and tried to change or alter his peculiar playing style, wanting the piano to accompany his trumpet in a supporting role, a vision not shared by Monk, to his credit.  So none of the abrasive moments butting heads with other jazz musicians are mentioned here.  Instead it appears that his career was all smooth sailing, where a child prodigy simply took the celebratory Mozartian road to success, where everything he touched was beloved by the public.  Only Stanley Crouch, a black cultural critic known for his jazz criticism, takes issue with the music he’s playing late in his career, wondering out loud why people are drawn to it, as at least in his mind there’s nothing about it that feels the least bit interesting.  And this touches on what’s not mentioned in the film, how jazz as a commercial form was largely directed towards white audiences, as they’re the ones buying the records, while jazz as an art form is a uniquely black cultural expression.  Late in his career, Miles wanted to be a rock star, doing live shows, like Hendrix or the Rolling Stones, selling out venues that appealed to mostly white audiences.  Certainly some purists in the jazz industry would call that selling out to make a buck, yet because he’s Miles Davis, legendary jazz artist, no one questions his motives.  The almighty dollar certainly plays into this as a driving motivation, yet so is success and popularity.  Miles wanted to be as popular as Michael Jackson or Prince.  In that vein, the difference between the unembellished portrayal of Monk in Charlotte Zwerin’s Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988) and Miles in this film couldn’t be more profound, as Monk was never searching for the money or accolades associated with winning over white audiences. 

Something of a contrast to Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead (2015), showing Davis in one of his dark periods, which veered into the ridiculous and surreal, Nelson’s film may lack flair or originality, but it does provide much of the music that Miles is known for, even if it’s presented in a greatest hits manner.  Davis was born in Alton, Illinois, but soon moved to East St. Louis where his father set up a dental practice, owning 200 acres of land in Arkansas, while his grandfather owned acres of nearby farmland as well, spending his summers there, so he didn’t grow up poor, as his family was among the wealthiest black families in the region, but he witnessed his father physically abuse his mother, a trait he inherited in his own relationships with women, repeating the same mistakes, becoming a major flaw in his character that was often overlooked.  He was gifted a trumpet by his father at age 13, playing in the high school marching band, while also playing in local bands.  While still in high school, he filled a seat on a band called Eddie Randle’s Rhumboogie Orchestra, becoming the musical director, but the most significant event after high school was sitting in on the Billy Eckstine Band on tour in St. Louis, featuring both Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, where the three of them comprise the future of modern jazz, Groovin High - Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie (5:14).  This gave Miles the musical inspiration he needed, knowing his future would lead him to 52nd Street in New York, known as the Mecca of Jazz clubs, with various establishments lining both sides of the street.  His father urged him to attend Juilliard School, learning music theory, but he hit the clubs in the evenings, eventually dropping out to join a bebop quintet with Charlie Parker, who struggled with mental health issues and heroin addiction problems, gaining plenty of weight, going on alcohol binges, where his physical condition just deteriorated.  So he worked with a collection of LA artists, including Gil Evans, who specialized in small orchestra arrangements, both seemingly bringing out the best in one another, giving birth to his first legendary recording session in 1949-50 with Birth of the Cool, but it was a trio of later albums that helped separate Miles from the field, Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy and Bess (1958), and Sketches of Spain (1960), all examples of re-inventing the limits of jazz parameters using non-jazz music, deeply introspective, master of the muted sound, with each showcasing a more lyrical, mournful anguish rarely heard in jazz.  Often overlooked in Miles’ career is the success he had in Europe in the mid 50’s, which embraced American jazz music after the war as a sign of freedom, where black musicians were more appreciated in Europe for their artistry, as opposed to the continued legacy of racism in America, with Miles Davis greeted alongside the likes of Picasso and Jean-Paul Sartre, all celebrated for expanding the realms of consciousness.  During a brief Parisian tour in 1958, film director Louis Malle asked Miles to improvise a musical score for his latest film, Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud) (1958), an existential film noir starring Jeanne Moreau about distanced lovers who never meet, with Miles improvising on the spot by watching the completed film footage in the recording studio, where his music plays as Moreau wanders the streets endlessly at night, perfectly capturing her loneliness and growing sorrowful detachment, Miles Davis - Générique - YouTube (2:49). 

Among his greatest collaborations is working with John Coltrane in Kind of Blue (1959) prior to Coltrane’s own break-out ascendancy to becoming a legendary star, but also Julian “Cannonball” Adderley and the compositional genius of Bill Evans before they formed their own bands, where the intimate setting allowed each musician their own space, with Miles providing a spare outline of a melody, becoming what is regarded as the greatest jazz album ever recorded and still the best-selling jazz album of all time (Kind of Blue: how Miles Davis made the greatest jazz album in ...), largely due to its accessibility, appealing to audiences that aren’t necessarily jazz devotees, as it perfectly captures the spontaneity of the moment, Miles Davis - So What (Official Video) - YouTube (9:06).  Let’s not forget the recent Barry Jenkins film based on a James Baldwin novel, If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), which prominently features the achingly sad Blue in Green by. Miles Davis - YouTube (5:37) in one of the more harrowing scenes.  As Coltrane demanded his own independence, however, wanting his own spotlight, Miles had to re-invent himself once more in the mid 60’s, creating a quintet with relatively unknown talent, adding Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock to the mix, and a 17-year old drummer extraordinaire in Tony Williams, priding themselves on rehearsing in performance, as they wanted to capture the explosive freshness each time, “Footprints” - The Miles Davis Quintet Live In ... - YouTube (9:08).  And when jazz lost its popularity to the cultural fascination of rock music, Miles re-invented himself again going totally electric in one of his most neglected albums in 1969, In a Silent Way, which is never mentioned, yet rivals his best work, introducing jazz fusion.  The film gushes over one of his more demonstrative phases, using echo and reverberation effects in crafting an experimental new sound, Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (Live In Copenhagen ... - YouTube (15:34).  Miles experienced his own Rodney King-like beating at the hands of the New York Police Department, standing in front of a club where he was the headliner, smoking a cigarette, but was ordered by cops to move along, which he refused to do, leaving his suit splattered with his own blood while his head was battered by nightsticks.  He suffered his own battles with drug dependency, especially in dealing with the constant pain from hip surgery gone wrong, but he had several episodes with drug addiction, which was a contributing factor in ending his marriage to dancer Frances Taylor, who may be the most welcome presence here, where they were the talk of the town, a chic and sophisticated New York City couple, both extremely fashion conscientious and both extremely talented, where her face appears on an album cover for Someday My Prince Will Come.  But drugs and alcohol, a toxic mix, only accentuated his jealousy, not wanting anyone else to show any extra affection to his wife, showing up in rehearsals for West Side Story and taking her home, refusing to allow her to have her own career, then belting her to the floor when she happened to mention she thought Quincy Jones was cute, the first of several instances, eventually walking out the door for good.  Plenty of faces offer commentary throughout, none offering any definitive historical view, so in equal measure they all weigh in during certain stages of his life, including his son Erin Davis and nephew Vince Wilburn, former girlfriends French singer/actor Juliette Gréco, Marguerite Cantú (mother of Erin), and painter Jo Gelbard, with brief appearances from Betty Mabry and Cicely Tyson, but also childhood friends and musical collaborators Gil Evans, Jimmy Heath, Jimmy Cobb, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Ron Carter, but also Marcus Miller and Lenny White.  Quincy Jones makes an appearance and Clive Davis, manager Mark Rothbaum, also concert organizer George Wein, who recalls how influential it was for Miles to play at the Newport Jazz Festival, which was like a trial run for signing with Columbia records.  Perhaps most surprising is the adoration expressed by Carlos Santana, but also reflections offered from scholars Farah Jasmine Griffin and Tammy L. Kernodle, which reveal surprisingly little.  However his own dire reflections carry over through the end credits, revealing what could amount to a fitting epitaph, “When God punished you, it’s not that you don’t get what you want.  You get everything you want and there’s no time left.”