Sun Ship - John Coltrane

Mar

15

Sun Ship - John Coltrane

≡ Category: 1960s, Free Jazz, Post Bop, Recommended, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Rating:

I have a feeling I’m going to get a lot of flack for recommending this session. Make no mistake, Sun Ship is one of the most challenging recordings in the Coltrane discography.

This was the penultimate studio recording of the classic quartet consisting of Coltrane on sax, McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums and Jimmy Garrison on bass (First Meditations was recorded the week after). At this point, the quarter weren’t really recording songs anymore. Someone would bring in a melodic fragment or a scale and that would be all the quartet would need to build on. Increasingly, Elvin Jones was playing free instead of linear swing, floating around the rhythm, inserting kicks and fills, only occasionally referencing the ostensible rhythmic pattern the tunes were built on.

For example, the 1st tune, Sun Ship, is built on a four tone fragment from the augmented scale. Elvin mostly plays free. Coltrane states and restates the theme, there is a short drum solo and then Coltrane is into his solo, screaming in the altissimo range.

I guess what’s so impressive to me is the way the band communicates musically almost like they have one mind shared between them. Still, in all good conscience, I have to dock Sun Ship a couple of stars just because it is such a difficult listen. Let the buyer beware.