The posters I saw on Phila Street and Caroline advertising this event, part of the perennial Jazz Institute Concert Series each summer at Skidmore College, were quite compelling. Usually I note such concerts when they are already past, or they occur when I am already booked with evening appointments. For this one, featuring John Coltrane’s own son, I made it a point to keep that Tuesday evening free. Better yet, I connected with my buddy Dave Casner, notorious Jazz freak and record collector, who rarely misses any such events in Saratoga.
His bandmate Crispin Catricala knew people involved with the Institute and managed to wangle two tickets for us, which was good considering that this beautiful (relatively) new Zankel Center seemed full to capacity by the time we got there on that stunning and storm-free evening. It was my first time to the much-praised facility and I was in awe of the natural light and view afforded with a huge wall of southwest-facing windows that formed the back of the stage, and thus the backdrop to the concert itself. The greenery of the campus lawns and mature trees caught the late-day sun in such a way that the glow emanated through the glass like a living terrarium. I thought about how interesting SPAC would appear were it to have the same glass wall behind the stage– with a view to the waterfall perhaps. But this concert was au naturel… no lighting tricks or video images being flashed behind the masterful musicians as the more flamboyant bands at SPAC might require; this was just true music.
I am not the pure jazz fanatic I was from about ’78 to ’92 in my radio-dj years, but I still enjoy original music of this nature, just more sporadically than I used to. The audience was filled, I would guess, with more than 50% musicians and those-in-training to become a musician. Though I myself am in neither category, one thing I do know is when to applaud after particularly awesome solos– as a longtime habitue of jazz clubs past. My listening skills were acute once I forced myself to focus, after many restless minutes of scattered thoughts about the day’s business.
There was also a contingent of (more) elderly folks (than me) who sat politely through the roughly 100-minute concert without registering any applause whatsoever, and seemed to have expected something more familiar than the vigorously new music which Ravi Coltrane’s quartet provided that evening.
A very relaxed grey-haired guy who looked like he could be your favorite philosophy professor shambled out to introduce the proceedings, and his improbably cool name was Todd Coolman. Like an impromptu comedian he began, and then as a jazz historian he painted the portrait of the man we were assembled to see– describing the phases of jazzdom– first trying to master your instrument to the requisite level; then secondly learning to acquire and substantiate your own VOICE within the musical pantheon; and then, in Ravi Coltrane’s case, having to emerge from the shadow cast by his own father as an icon of the Saxophone in the 20th Century. Can any of us with merely mortal parents, much less deeply flawed, ever understand what that pressure is like, to have a last name that is usually spoken in hallowed tones, at least in the world of Jazz. After finding his voice and identity in his chosen profession, he has ultimately created his own name for himself, in his late 40’s.
For those seeking a trace of the father in the son’s work that evening, there was one piece that played out like a fractured, Picasso-esque version of My Favorite Things–
the early-60’s “Sound of Music” classic which Coltrane-pere made his own. Guitarist Adam Rogers began the sequence during a solo where hints of the key melody were hinted at, and when Ravi answered, playing soprano sax, there were more hints of his father’s keening sound, but never the same full-blown phrasing. It was tantalizing but refreshing in a way that he paid respect in that way, but did not come close to mimicking John’s highly recognizable signature piece. It was a form of Favorite Things re-imagined for the 21st century.
There were also wisps and reminders of his father’s sound on other tunes, carefully placed, with reverence, more on the soprano than the tenor. In fact, even though he began and ended with the tenor, most of his best work in my mind was on soprano.
There was one throwback homage to the be-bop era with a Charlie Parker tune called Segment which I felt was one of the highlights. Much of the concert was focused on originals from his newest CD release Spirit Fiction, a beguiling title.
Normally I would’ve been scratching down song titles and notes but on this night in question, having forgotten to bring any wriitng instrument, I decided to turn off the analytical part of my brain and just experience the fluid beauty of Ravi Coltrane’s music, and honestly, it was like a cleansing therapy for my tangled brain. The setting was so pristine and the sound was so pure and crisp and unpredictably new, that I felt fully refreshed and free of work-anxiety by the end. I will not attempt any kind of formal review except to say that the work of Jonathon Blake on drums was a revelation— a huge man with adept hands and a soft but emphatic touch, a force of controlled nature. I would love to hear more of his stuff, and am kicking myself for not shelling out twenty for the CD that was for sale in the lobby afterwards. Bass player Dezron Douglas was sturdy and adept, but according to my smarter musician friends afterwards, his sound was largely lost in the room, and some people said the acoustics were less than perfect at the Zankel Music Center. I am not qualified to comment along those lines, but can tell you it is an awesome place to see a concert such as this, and I look to take more advantage in the future of Skidmore’s fine facilities, and what it offers the Saratoga community that can’t be found elsewhere, nearby.
One last note is this– Ravi noted the beauty of the setting in his first words upon coming onstage, and seemed to be in a reverential mood from the start. Humble and looking healthy, much younger than 48, I thought how his father had had to play his way through raucous jazz bars and crowded Greenwich Village dives back in the day, and his son had now ascended to this kind of academic paradise in which to perform– it seemed kind of a spiritual evolution for his lineage, and well-deserved.
May we all see our children exceed our own upbringings and surroundings in such a fine fashion.
Peace,
Wayne