John Coltrane - One Down, One Up Live at the Half Note
This most recent of the John Coltrane archives is a document that is almost too amazing. One moment in particular catches the intensity of these performances as they’re stuffed inside boxes, at the end of the first disc, as the band literally torches the place to the ground, the DJ comes on to wrap up the show. As he wraps up his credits, the band in the background is so inspired that it’s almost blasphemous to be saying anything. But that’s the Coltrane quartet in 1965, possible one of the greatest groups in any genre to walk the planet, all of them at their respective peaks and somehow it almost comes off too easy, making me feel almost sympathetic to Coltrane’s desire to mix up the band soon after. Because at this point, it doesn’t sound like there was such a thing as good or bad performances, every night out was something special. After a few listens, I’m not sure whether to give this a 12 or a 15 (or anywhere in between) as there’s something about the nature of the recording that removes a bit of the punch and the DJ talking tends to get older with every listen. But wow, it’s just hard to imagine any other band being on the same level as this, it feels … posthuman.
Ornette Coleman - Panel Discussion 4/21/64
While this panel discussion hails from the 60s, the subject could have fit right into the Wynton Marsalis era of jazz, as Coleman, Cecil Taylor and the like discuss the outer fringes of jazz, the differences between the old guard and new guard and a lot of other things that bore me half to death. The avant-ers always make the old guard of any genre uncomfotable, and the old guard reacts by getting protective and definitive about what the genre actually is. Here there is also a voice or two I don’t recognize that ask a lot of awkward and stupid questions, although the political climate of the time made it possible to talk about things that seem somewhat taboo now. Personally I’d rather listen to any of these guys play jazz or not-jazz or whatever rather than talk about it.
Gong - Watchfield People’s Free Festival, Watchfield, UK 8/23/75
A rather average to slightly less than average Gong show from the Steve Hillage-fronted era, maybe a little too early for the Shamal material to start showing up. This band generally covered the You material and music from Fish Rising, however at the end of this show there’s some sort of jam or song I don’t recognize that came as something of a nice surprise. I tend to like this era of the band quite a bit as it goes off the map in terms of lining them up next to the studio albums and presents a transition one doesn’t tend to see. Maybe not the best of the era in terms of a show, but quite interesting nonetheless.