Coltrane insight

Press, 13 December 1986, Page 22

Coltrane insight

The final “Jazz Seen” of the year tomorrow (Sunday) looks at one of the prime innovators of modern music, John Coltrane. Coltrane who, as the ’’Encyclopaedia of Jazz” says, was “almost totally dedicated to the musicospiritual search,” went much further with his innovations than any supposed boundaries of the jazz category. Born in North Carolina in 1926, Coltrane became resident with his saxophone in Dizzy Gillespie’s group of the early 19505. Soon he was to work with another legendary figure, Miles Davis, in 1955, and thereafter Thelonius Monk.

By 1959 he was out on

his own. His playing reached a new discipline, and yet he forged ahead into uncharted territory which has proved the basis of much of the new jazz to grace the stages over the last 25 years. His experimentation could be difficult and taxing on the listener, but also fierce and exhilarating. Unfortunately, his death in 1967 ended his musical explorations while they were at their most fertile. Tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon’s programme at 2 p.m. on Two is a rare insight into his world, and shows almost allknown footage of the saxophonist, plus interviews with musicians he worked with.