Ravi Coltrane Teaches Us How to Listen to his Father’s Catalog

The Track Star Podcast

In this episode, Ravi Coltrane joins Jack Coyne to navigate the profound musical and spiritual legacy of his father, John Coltarne. The pair

Key takeaways

Ravi describes the perfect tonal blend between John Coltrane and Miles Davis on the 1955 recording of 'Round Midnight'.
Thelonious Monk's harmonic complexity and freedom helped reshape modern jazz and pushed Coltrane to expand his playing.

Main topics

John Coltrane's musical evolution
Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk collaborations

Notable quotes

One note can be a meditation.

Conclusion

An insightful guide for listeners looking to understand the technical

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) I'd always had some copy of that solo whenever I was flying. My idea was like, OK, if the plane starts going down, I'm going to put this on. If we're going down, I want to go out listening to this solo. And maybe the first thing you Speaker 2 (0:12) hear when you get to the other side. Hopefully, yeah. Speaker 2 (0:30) Just introduce yourself to this camera and Speaker 3 (0:32) then we'll just talk. Hi, my name is Ravi Coltrane. Thanks Speaker 2 (0:35) for coming. Excited to have you here. Thank you, Jack. I have a few songs queued up and they're a little bit career spanning, but I want to try and arrive at a better understanding of John Coltrane. Me too. As a musician. And I think like the beauty of this and these speakers is we could just, we could just listen to the music. Speaker 3 (0:58) Around midnight, this is the first recording that John does with Miles for Columbia Records. 1955. Speaker 3 (1:09) Miles is not only an innovator in terms of what he was able to do throughout his lifetime, through the course of his music, but there's like an innovation in sound, sound production. You know, the harmon mute especially. You can't listen to any trumpet player play with a harmon mute and not think of that, not think of Miles Davis, you know. That changed everything, you know. And he tended to pick players who also had beautiful sounds. Speaker 3 (1:38) John Coltrane is doing the accompanying there and the harmony there. The blend between them is so perfect. It's really just sumptuous just for the ears, just to listen to the tones of these players. It's really striking. Speaker 2 (1:54) What do you think they potentially learned from each other? Speaker 3 (1:58) Well, I think John Coltrane learned about space. There's a density to his playing. Speaker 3 (2:07) You know, there's a famous story about John getting caught up in a solo and then apologizing to Miles saying, I just didn't know how to end it, you know? And Miles said, just take the horn out of your Speaker 2 (2:17) mouth. Yeah, Speaker 3 (2:19) their styles were contrasting, you know? But that's, again, another strength that they had together, that they were individuals. They had individual approaches. Masterful players, yet with their own thing, with their own... sound with their own vibe. Uh-oh. It's gotta be the craziest jazz tune ever written. Speaker 3 (3:17) See, that was as much space he wanted to use before he launches into space there. Speaker 2 (3:22) Fast, fast, and back and forth, and everyone. Tinkle Speaker 3 (3:26) Tinkle, yes, it's a classic. That's one of the first Monk tunes that I ever heard. And I actually didn't know they were playing a melody there. I just thought it was just a bunch of wild notes coming in. It's like, how did they do that? But that is one of the most wild melodies that Monk ever written. And obviously John Coltrane was up to the task of playing a melody like that. That's a tricky tune. That group... Speaker 3 (3:56) with Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Shadow Wilson, I think, playing drums. They did a stint at a club called The Five Spot for about six months. I think the band was there each night for six months. And Amiri Baraka used to live near there, the great poet. He said he was going almost every night. In the beginning of that run, John, he said John was scuffling like crazy on those tunes, couldn't play any of these Monk tunes. But by the end, yeah, they had... They had kind of moved the ball forward, you know, that really reshaped a lot of modern jazz music. 1957, and it gave John another push, you know, dealing with the kind of harmonic complexity of Thelonious Monk's writing and also the freedom that Monk gave him. Monk would comp for a few choruses, then he'd get off the piano and start dancing, and then John could stretch out even more, you know, so it really helped him expand. you know, at this period in his career. Speaker 2 (4:54) When did you discover this music? Was it always there? Was there a time in your life when you said, I got to get into this and start exploring this? Speaker 3 (5:05) Yeah, it happened later for me. You know, I wasn't listening to the music when I was younger. You know, my mother would play some of the records for me, you know, but when you're a kid, you want to listen to what your friends are listening to, you know, so. Speaker 3 (5:19) I'm listening to R &B music and rock and roll music. Speaker 2 (5:22) I Speaker 3 (5:23) liked a lot of classical music as well. The music of my father's that she would play for me, it's usually some of the music that was later, like his impulse years. Speaker 4 (5:32) So Speaker 3 (5:33) I had an ear for that and an appreciation for it as well, but I wasn't really checking it out. I played the clarinet in junior high school and in marching band in high school, I was playing clarinet. And as I got older, I think I was meeting a lot of people who knew more about John Coltrane's music than I did. So it's a little embarrassing. You're at a party somewhere and someone says, what's Speaker 2 (5:57) the Speaker 3 (5:57) second tune on the second side of Impressions? What date was that? It's one thing when you're little and you don't know shit. Speaker 4 (6:05) But Speaker 3 (6:05) as you get older, even just on principle, you kind of have to know certain things. So I started playing the records. Just so I would have something to talk about at parties, you know. Speaker 2 (6:18) You gotta be able to answer these questions. Yeah, and for shows like this. Speaker 3 (6:22) So yeah, I was maybe 18 or 19 when I started to really listen. to the records again just to get information. But what happened instead was I fell in love with the music, Speaker 2 (6:34) which Speaker 3 (6:35) was unexpected. I'd heard the music before and listened to it before. But at that period in my life, it hit me in a very different way and had another effect on me completely. And I just shifted. Everything was about jazz and consuming those recordings and that music. Speaker 2 (6:54) Yeah, I can't imagine that there was pressure on you in any way to be a musician yourself, right? No. From your mom. It was there. It was like, oh, being the band in high school, you kind of figured that out yourself that you wanted to do that. Speaker 3 (7:08) Absolutely. And I think it's important for any artist, any musician, any creative person. It's something that you have to really choose. You have to really want to do that. It's almost like a sacrifice. giving up a part of your life and dedicating it to the pursuit of an art form, you know. And so you really have to mean it if you're only doing it because you feel compelled to do it or somebody, your parents want you to do that. They want you to be this and you have to kind of, you're trying to please them or society in some kind of way. If you don't go in it all the way, you know, as much hard as you can, yeah, it's not going to be a fun ride for you, I guess, you know. Speaker 3 (7:54) Still 1957. I guess we got a ways to go. Speaker 2 (7:57) We're making our way. Speaker 3 (8:01) But there's Speaker 2 (8:04) still, I mean, even in a year, in two years, in a couple years, there's a lot of change and discovery and moving the ball. I mean, isn't that part of the story of John Coltrane, the growth and the exploration that happens so, like, just prolific and expansive and exploratory? Speaker 3 (8:28) We're essentially, I'm assuming, we're going to listen to music from 55 to, well, when he passes in 67. That's 12 years. 12 years. I think we could all think about what we were doing 12 years ago and how much we've progressed and grown since then. I mean, we all grow a little bit in each moment, each stage of development. But what he does in that span of time is... Speaker 3 (8:58) I mean, it's barely something you can describe. You either have to be there and witness it, or put these records on and say, well, how did he get from Speaker 2 (9:07) playing this way to playing this way? And Speaker 3 (9:10) now he's playing this way. And also, he's surrounded by other great, great musicians who were also trying to find their own voices. That was an important component of being a jazz musician during this era, that you had to have your own voice. Like they would call you out if you were copying somebody else's style. Today that seems to be kind of encouraged. Yeah. Speaker 4 (9:33) You Speaker 3 (9:33) know, if you play like somebody else, then that means you're good. That means you're a jazz player if you sound like someone else, you know. But that wasn't really part of what they were doing as artists. They were looking to be unique and have their own voices, you know. So you would have to, you'd have to stretch. You'd have to. search and find things, you know? So he was obviously a seeker, you know, and someone very, very, very intellectually curious about music and sound and the universe and how it all related to what was coming out of his saxophone. And I think he was looking for a universal language, a universal voice, a universal sound. And again, as music started to expand, it started to expand, you know? Speaker 2 (10:21)