It Was A Pretty Good Year (for John Coltrane)

The year 1965 was a pretty frigging good one for one of jazz's most important musicians ever, John Coltrane. After the success of A Love Supreme, one would be inclined to think that Trane was planning to make history repeat when his next recording session came up. Unfortunately, he was only looking forward as he would always do, continuing to search as it were for new ways to express himself musically. And without a doubt, that's exactly what Trane would do over the course of 1965: move forward & never look back on his past accomplishments.

1965 was a pretty turbulent year in general for the United States: the Civil Rights movement, racism, our first earnest involvement in the Vietnam War...things were getting intense. For John Coltrane and his bandmates for 3 years running (pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison & drummer Elvin Jones), they were a jazz quartet to be reckoned with & Trane's recordings for the Impulse! label have figured to be some of his best output ever. But this same year, Trane would be more prolific than ever in terms of recording & more experimental in the process: in February, he featured two bassists on a recording session (which would wind up on The John Coltrane Quartet Plays album); then in June, he would diverge from playing straight rhythms & rely on pulse as much as free tempo on certain tracks (which can be heard on Transition and Living Space). Later on, he would reach a Mount Everest of his own when he made a free jazz equivalent of a big band recording, and one of his most challenging pieces period, Ascension. Some folks didn't get it (& still don't), yet Trane was making a statement with this 40-minute long composition. Win a few fans or lose a few fans, he felt that there could be no turning back on his musical journey from this session forward. And yes, things were indeed getting intense with Trane's output as the summer of '65 wore on.

This wasn't to say that the Classic Quartet was MIA. But from the accelerated changes taking places within Trane's music that year, there were signs of tension which fueled his fellow bandmates' performances even more. Sun Ship & First Meditations were the last recordings Trane did with an actual quartet; by this time, he added more folks into the musical equation (to be heard on Kulu Se Mama, Selflessness & Meditations) so that by the end of the year the lineup of Tyner, Garrison & Jones ceased to exist. (In 1966, Trane regrouped with Garrison as the lone holdover from that previous lineup; his wife Alice took over on piano, Rashied Ali took over on drums, & Pharoah Sanders occupied the second spot on tenor saxophone.)

1965 was a pretty good year for John Coltrane as he approached the first crucial peaks & summits of his musical career. Once he got past those peaks & summits, Trane knew there were other mountains to climb & up to his checking out in 1967, he would do just that. Who knows where he would have gone with his music had he not passed on so soon in the prime of life.