Ravi Coltrane
Released June 2012
JazzTimes Top 10 Albums of 2012
YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=oS9bdKGvB0A&list=OLAK5uy_kar2-4o3k-rs-hYzutztb2ievM3jbTC8g
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1BMOMhs3hpzW6PblKlGZcU?si=unG1WVqGQZa8c88UwpQaRQ
About:
Born on Long Island, New York in 1965, Ravi is the second son of John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane. His father (who recorded the landmark Blue Train for Blue Note Records in 1957) died when Ravi was only two. Alice, a renowned composer and pianist, raised Ravi on the West Coast and proved a strong role model in her own right. Ravi had the honor of producing and playing on Alice Coltrane’s Translinear Light, released three years prior to her death in 2007.
A move back east to New York and pivotal stints with Elvin Jones, Wallace Roney, and Steve Coleman led Ravi to begin asserting himself as a leader in the mid 1990′s. Ravi first appeared as a sideman on Elvin Jones’ album In Europe in 1991. He followed his debut album, Moving Pictures (1998), and sophomore album, From the Round Box (2000), with Mad 6 (2002), In Flux (2005), and Blending Times (2009). He also continued appearing as a sideman with the likes of McCoy Tyner, Jack DeJohnette, Jeff “Tain” Watts, and Flying Lotus (a.k.a. Steven Ellison, Ravi’s cousin), and as a co-leader of the Saxophone Summit with Lovano and Dave Liebman.
Praised for his music’s “elusive beauty”, and for his “style informed by tradition but not encumbered by it”, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane takes a bold step in his creative journey with Spirit Fiction, his Blue Note Records debut.
Spirit Fiction features two different band lineups, each with a unique expressive urgency. Several tracks feature Ravi’s long-term quartet with pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Drew Gress and drummer E.J. Strickland. Coltrane also enlisted a quintet featuring trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist Geri Allen, bassist James Genus and drummer Eric Harland — the personnel featured on From the Round Box, his acclaimed sophomore release from 2000.
“There was something about that lineup that I knew I wanted to revisit someday,” Coltrane says. “The energies of the two groups on Spirit Fiction are unique. The quintet stuff is looser, and the quartet has played together for close to 10 years so it has that particular sound.”
Joe Lovano, a Blue Note recording artist since the early 1990s, served as producer of the quintet sessions. Lovano also joins the quintet on tenor saxophone for an explosive version of Ornette Coleman’s “Check Out Time,” from Coleman’s 1968 Blue Note album Love Call.
“I’ve always produced my own recordings except for the first one, Moving Pictures, which was produced by Steve Coleman,” says Coltrane. “Joe was a truly supportive producer on this project. He has been an important figure in my life for over 20 years — the first record I heard him on was Monk In Motian, with Geri Allen.” Lovano also plays alongside Ravi and Geri Allen in an intimate reading of Paul Motian’s “Fantasm.”
Having helped mark Blue Note’s 70th anniversary as a member of the Blue Note 7 (documented on the 2009 release Mosaic), Ravi is thrilled to join the Blue Note roster. “Bruce Lundvall has been very supportive of my work and this project. I’m honored to be on Blue Note under his watch. He’s very music-driven, which is incredibly encouraging. He’s continued the Alfred Lion example of putting music first and taking chances.”
According to Coltrane, “The title, Spirit Fiction is an abstract turn of phrase that came out of a stream of consciousness. The phrase seemed to mesh with the layered, superimposed nature of the title track. It also felt like a gentle indicator of the “science” involved in recording that track. In some ways, it ultimately refers to the open ended idea of simply embracing imagination.”
The mysteriously grooving title track is a “mashup,” Coltrane explains: “The technique layers separate recordings together. Half the quartet records with a specific direction in mind, then the other half records with their own direction in mind. The idea is not to assemble but to imagine instead how things may interact. What is interesting is that the way we played on that piece is not unlike how the four of us would play together traditionally speaking.”
Ravi brings all of this rich experience to bear on the music of Spirit Fiction. His leadoff track, “Roads Cross,” is a quartet improvisation with a subtle plan: “We are performing as two duos, each duo with a reciprocal agenda regarding pulse and tempo. The directions overlap and even intersect and keep moving – a real energy and wholeness hopefully is created.” Later in the program, on “Cross Roads,” the quartet pursues the same improvisational idea with remarkably contrasting results.
Of the drum and tenor saxophone duet “Spring & Hudson,” Ravi recalls: “I always like playing duets. I sketched out a simple form with some odd measures and some breaks – something I thought would be fun to play in that context. E.J. and I faced each other directly when we played it, and you get a different energy that way. This title is a nod to the Half Note. The tiny stage above the bar compelled the musicians to literally face each other and that kind of proximity always affects the way musicians play together.”
“the change, my girl” is a title that came to Ravi in a dream. “People were at a session in the dream and someone said, ‘Let’s play “the change, my girl.”’ My reaction was, ‘OK, great.’ It was just another tune that we all knew. The ballad uses some delayed voice leading and harmonic rhythms that imply looking at one thing in more than one way.” The fiery soprano saxophone feature “Marilyn & Tammy” is named for Ravi’s aunt, songwriter Marilyn McLeod and her late daughter, Tamra Ellison. “Marilyn wrote ‘Love Hangover,’ ‘Same Ole Love’ for Anita Baker, she was under contract with Motown in the ’70s. She and Tammy were like best friends, and this tune reminded me of their energy.”
Spirit Fiction also features three striking pieces by Ralph Alessi, Ravi’s longest-standing musical associate. “I’m an admirer of Ralph’s compositions. I’ve always enjoyed playing his tunes and of course I wanted to record a few. I said to him, ‘Here’s what I’m planning, whadda ya got?’” We also hear the compositional voices of Paul Motian and Ornette Coleman — and it’s fitting that Ornette’s “Check Out Time” and Motian’s eerily evocative “Fantasm” (from Keith Jarrett’s Byablue) both featured the late saxophonist Dewey Redman, another of Ravi’s notable forebears.
One of the most personally informed song choices on the recording arose from a request from Ravi to Joe for suggestions on a Paul Motion tune (Motian passed away just one month prior to Ravi’s quintet session). Lovano had played “Fantasm” on Motian’s 1981 album Psalm and suggested the tune. “I felt a trio with Geri and Joe would be the most relevant setting”, says Coltrane. “I love the sound of two tenors, and with Geri you know you’re going to hear things that are really unique, the way she supports. It was a real privilege to play Paul’s music with Geri and Joe.” Even as he foregrounds his own development and eschews any attempt to recreate the hallowed jazz past, Ravi Coltrane knows as well as anyone the importance of the music’s lineage. Reflecting on the place of Ornette and Motian, and implicitly his father, in the story of his own career, Ravi concludes: “If it weren’t for those guys, we wouldn’t be here.”
Track Listing:
1. Roads Cross (Ravi Coltrane / Drew Gress / Luis Perdomo / E.J. Strickland) 5:04
2. Klepto (Ralph Alessi) 7:30
3. Spirit Fiction (Ravi Coltrane / Drew Gress / Luis Perdomo / E.J. Strickland) 2:28
(Ravi Coltrane, Grammy Nominee for Best Improvised Jazz Solo 2013)
4. The Change, My Girl (Ravi Coltrane) 6:46
5. Who Wants Ice Cream (Ralph Alessi) 6:32
6. Spring & Hudson (Ravi Coltrane) 2:21
7. Cross Roads (Ravi Coltrane / Drew Gress / Luis Perdomo / E.J. Strickland) 4:03
8. Yellow Cat (Ralph Alessi) 6:50
9. Check Out Time (Ornette Coleman) 7:26
10. Fantasm (Paul Motian) 4:11 11. Marilyn & Tammy (Ravi Coltrane) 5:42
Personnel:
Ravi Coltrane: saxophones
Luis Perdomo: piano (1, 3, 4, 7, 11)
Drew Gress: bass (1, 3, 4, 7, 11)
E.J. Strickland: drums (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 11)
Ralph Alessi: trumpet (2, 5, 8, 9)
Geri Allen: piano (2, 5, 8-10)
James Genus: bass (2, 5, 8, 9)
Eric Harland: drums (2, 5, 8, 9)
Joe Lovano: saxophone (9, 10)
Tracks 1, 3, 4,
7, 11 recorded at Bennett’s Studios, Englewood, NJ, mixed at Capitol Studios,
Hollywood, CA.
Tracks 2. 5. 8. 9. 10 recorded and mixed at Sear Sound.
Track 6 recorded at Systems Two Recording, mixed at Capitol Studios.
Executive-Producer – Bruce Lundvall
Mastered By – Allan Tucker
Mixed By – Joe Lovano (tracks: 2, 5, 8 to 10), Ravi Coltrane, Steve Genewick (tracks: 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 11)
Photography By – Darlene Devita
Producer, Liner Notes – Joe Lovano
Recorded By – Dave Kowalski (tracks: 1, 3, 4, 7, 11), Joe Marchiano (tracks: 6)
Recorded By, Mixed By – Chris Allen (4) (tracks: 2, 5, 8 to 10)
Review:
Depending on how you think about it, Ravi Coltrane was either blessed with inspiration or burdened by expectations when he was named after three such imposing musicians: his parents John and Alice Coltrane and Ravi Shankar. The son handled it much better than most children of celebrities: The younger Coltrane has managed to slowly but surely build an impressive musical career without sounding very much like any of his famous namesakes-despite playing his father’s instruments, the tenor and soprano saxophones.
Ravi Coltrane risks those comparisons again by sharing his new album, Spirit Fiction, with co-producer Joe Lovano, an acknowledged John Coltrane heir who plays tenor sax duets with Ravi on two tracks. The legend-saddled son can afford these risks, because he has developed such a distinctive voice on his horn that there’s no danger of confusing him with his dad, Lovano, Dewey Redman or anyone else.
When Coltrane and Lovano lock horns on Ornette Coleman’s “Check Out Time,” Lovano’s full, fluid, buttery tone is easy to pick out. But so is Coltrane’s more tightly focused blues sound. What’s remarkable about his tenor voice is the way his slightly raspy, slightly nasal inflections add an edge to his phrases, while his relaxed phrasing and melodic invention disarm the listener, allowing the knife-edge phrasing to slip in easily. It’s a wonderful paradox of a sound-abrasive and pleasurable at once.
On the album’s title track, for example, E.J. Strickland’s jittery cowbell figure and Luis Perdomo’s contemplative piano chords anticipate the two aspects of the leader’s sound. Coltrane enters after half a minute with a patient, breathy tenor line that suggests a tuneful slow hymn marked by troubled yearning. For Coltrane, it’s not enough for a melody to be pretty; it has to be knotted by dramatic conflict.
Something similar happens in the ballad “the change, my girl,” where the melody (which echoes Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed”) is articulated first by Perdomo and only later picked up by Coltrane. There’s a sultry romanticism in the tenor solo but also a strain of melancholy, as if the romance hasn’t quite gone as expected. The mood is so infectious that even bassist Drew Gress reflects it in a solo based on the melody rather than the changes. Coltrane’s second solo quickens into eighth notes and a higher register, as if encouraged by his lover into optimism, only to have the third solo subside into the same bittersweet musings. His R&B influences are explored further on “Marilyn & Tammy,” Coltrane’s soprano tribute to his aunt, Motown songwriter Marilyn McLeod and her daughter Tamra Ellison.
With the exception of “Check Out Time,” the tracks described above and three more were recorded over the winter of 2010-2011 with Coltrane’s former road quartet. The album’s other five tracks were recorded the following winter with a combo featuring pianist Geri Allen, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, bassist James Genus, drummer Eric Harland and sometimes Lovano. You can hear the difference between the two sessions, because each group tackles the same tune-called “Roads Cross” with the Perdomo band and “Cross Roads” with the Allen group. Both are soprano sax improvisations that begin as minimalist abstractions that become denser and more concrete over the course of four or five minutes. The first version starts out sparser and resists definition longer, allowing a longer, steeper build, while Coltrane and Allen lock into a darting give-and-take from the beginning of the second version.
Coltrane’s longtime collaborator Alessi contributed three compositions to the project, all of them ingenious settings for tenor/trumpet interaction. “Who Wants Ice Cream,” for example, begins with a minute of unaccompanied, counterpointed tenor and trumpet before the head is even articulated with the rhythm section. The two horns then trade eight-bar solos, each featuring a rising-then-falling pattern, before another counterpoint duet. This kind of thoughtful arrangement is so much more interesting than the usual parade of solo turns.
The two Lovano appearances summon the ghost of Dewey Redman, who played tenor on the first version of “Check Out Time” (on Coleman’s 1968 Love Call) and the first version of Paul Motian’s “Fantasm” (on Keith Jarrett’s 1977 Byablue). The latter tune, performed without drums or bass by the trio of Coltrane, Lovano and Allen, lives up to its otherworldly title with a reverb-heavy, breathy tenor duet that seems to rise from damp graves like early-morning mist. For someone who has so often been haunted by the past, Coltrane sounds unafraid to raise old spirits and affectionately dispel them.
Geoffrey Himes (JazzTimes)