It is generally regarded that John Coltrane is one of the greatest American musical artists of all time. Here at the ARC, we tend to concur. His saxophone playing, compositions and philosophy have been extremely influential over the years. He was born 100 years ago on September 23, 1926. Several official events are being planned to celebrate that date. One of them is the release of a six-LP box set—a comprehensive collection of key recordings in his career, from 1951 to 1967, that pulls together tracks from several record companies. The box set has been compiled, researched and will be released by the good folks at Rhino Records in October.
On August 4, ARC was invited to attend an event to celebrate this release. A fellow named Free Oribhabor has been hosting listening parties for various albums as part of his The Record Club series of audio happenings. He started this series in Los Angeles, but often hosts them in New York City, too. The John Coltrane 100 event was held at the elegant upstairs lounge of a place called Public Records, not far from the Gowans Canal in Brooklyn.
Free, as Mr. Orbhabor is usually called, was an amiable host. He discussed John Coltrane’s life and music, occasionally incorporating actual recordings from Coltrane interviews. He announced each track, along with the dates of the recordings, the musicians who played on them and discussed the importance of each one in the great scheme of things. The music was played fairly loudly on an extremely high-end audio system, which made for a very pleasurable experience for his audience, which included several other artists and members of the Coltrane family.
The box set is called John Coltrane 100 – Selections from 1951 – 1967 and the street date is October 2. The collection starts with Trane’s first recorded saxophone solo on “We Love to Boogie” by the Dizzy Gillespie Sextet and concludes with “Stellar Regions,” recorded just months before his death in July 1967. In between the listener will experience some fantastic music, including sessions where Trane was a sideman (Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk), some of his key compositions (“Giant Steps,” “Blue Train,” Naima,” “A Love Supreme”) and so much more.
There will be a copy at ARC to grace our new location
In the photo below we have John Coltrane’s son Ravi, The Record Club host Free, and the jazz singer Samara Joy, who, by shear coincidence, will be appearing at the Ridgefield Playhouse on September 20 (Ridgefield, CT, of course will soon be the new home of The ARChive of Contemporary Music!!).
Special thanks to Chris Taillie at Shore Fire Media for the invitation to this cool event.