Coltrane: The Story of a Sound | 
| Author: Ben Ratliff
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 49861
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0374126062
Dewey Decimal Number: 788.7165092
EAN: 9780374126063
ASIN: 0374126062
Publication Date: September 18, 2007
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Product Description
A major work about the great saxophonist—and about the state of jazz.
What was the essence of John Coltrane’s achievement that makes him so prized forty years after his death? What was it about his improvising, his bands, his compositions, his place within his era of jazz that left so many musicians and listeners so powerfully drawn to him? What would a John Coltrane look like now—or are we looking for the wrong signs?The acclaimed jazz writer Ben Ratliff addresses these questions in Coltrane. First Ratliff tells the story of Coltrane’s development, from his first recordings as a no-name navy bandsman to his last recordings as a near-saint, paying special attention to the last ten years of his life, which contained a remarkable series of breakthroughs in a nearly religious search for deeper expression. In the book’s second half, Ratliff traces another history: that of Coltrane’s influence and legacy. This story begins in the mid-’50s and considers the reactions of musicians, critics, and others who paid attention, asking: Why does Coltrane signify so heavily in the basic identity of jazz?Placing jazz among other art forms and American social history, and placing Coltrane not just among jazz musicians but among the greatest American artists, Ratliff tries to look for the sources of power in Coltrane’s music—not just in matters of technique, composition, and musical concepts, but in the deeper frequencies of Coltrane’s sound.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
Brilliant, contentious and absorbing March 3, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
John Coltrane is an endlessly fascinating musician, whether or not you like his music - he was both traditional and forward-looking, immensely disciplined and constantly striving for more freedom, technically brilliant yet willing to work with musicians considerably less able than himself. He made a series of relatively undistinguished recordings before suddenly emerging as a phenomenon when hired by Miles Davis, and then he went from one level to another, taking jazz to terrifying levels of complexity before breaking it down into something starkly simple.
Ben Ratliff's book is about two things: what Coltrane wanted to do, and what people have wanted from Coltrane. He is clearly a good listener, and someone acutely aware of how Coltrane was coming across at the time. He is also very sensitive to the depths people have sometimes sunk to in both praise and dispraise of the man, citing as evidence both Frank Kofsky's absurd description of 'Live at the Village Vanguard Again!' as the greatest recording in the history of jazz, and Philip Larkin's bilious and vindictive article, written shortly after Coltrane's death, about how much he hated Coltrane's music - Larkin surely wanted to make other people agree with him that it was worthless, which is never a very noble ambition in a critic.
Unusually for a jazz writer, Ratliff is also aware of how Coltrane's enormous influence has spread beyond jazz and into rock and punk (never thought I would see the great jazz-punk bass player Mike Watt mentioned in a book on Coltrane). He argues, if I take his point correctly, that Coltrane's influence has often been to make subsequent players sound like Coltrane, whereas the influence of an equally gifted player such as Sonny Rollins has worked more obliquely, helping players to sound more like themselves (perhaps because Sonny is not as imitable as Trane). It's true that, of the players (at least the sax players) who were most influenced by Coltrane, the majority have not been able to overcome his influence and develop truly distinctive voices - people on the level of Dave Liebman, etc., being the exceptions rather than the rule.
This book does not require a degree in music theory to read, or any musical talent whatever. It helps if you've listened to a lot of music. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and my only quibble is that it wasn't longer. I can read about Coltrane forever.
 This story needs more story February 25, 2008
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
I found this book disappointing and the subtitle misleading. Ratliff does not really provide a story or history of Coltrane's sound. He strings together some anecdotes and some opinions about Coltrane and that's about it. There was no coherent thematic thread drawing it all together. The fact that Coltrane's sound became pervasively influential is obvious to any jazz listener. The truly interesting story describing how that came to be, or even accurately describing this "sound" in the first place (Coltrane had a distinctive sound - what precisely made it distinctive? Also, since his sound changed over time, when did it really become "his" sound? Etc.), let alone the story explaining why this sound become so dominant, is sadly absent from these pages. There are some intriguing moments when Ratliff suggests that the Coltrane sound was actually a collective sounds generated by the "classic" quartet, but, like I said, that's about it.
 a musical gem January 15, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
i love john coltrane's music. thanks to this book, i know i lot more the things these musical jazz giants went through and i understand why i could not always follow the chords. this author dies a good job. well done
The Searcher January 13, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
It's hard not to be amazed by John Coltrane's music, even for interested fans who are not expert musicians themselves (that applies to your current reviewer). Here Ben Ratliff digs deep into the substance of Coltrane's creative process - and most of all that elusive entity known as SOUND. Trying to do this in writing is an immediately incongruous prospect, though Ratliff does pretty well with prose that is full of precise musical adjectives and technical terminology that is reasonably easy for the non-expert reader to follow, all things considered. Though just watch out for the frequently congested prose that becomes necessary for Ratliff to transmit the sheer complexity of the music, such as "the meditative and semierotic aesthetic of endurance, of repetition, of ecstatic religion..." Here we can see how technical jazz really is as a genre, with Coltrane perhaps amongst the most knowledge-intensive. Another revelation here is evidence of Coltrane's lifelong search for musical perfection, as he passionately studied various instruments and genres, and even literature and languages, in a quest for the perfect sound. However, there is an underlying irony to Ratliff's entire endeavor, in that there is no proof that Coltrane (or any jazz musician of his caliber) saw the musical process in the same way as critics and writers, no matter how knowledgeable they are. One must wonder if such passionate technical analysis truly makes one appreciate the music, or if a less obsessive attitude is necessary to really feel the sound. What kind of love did Coltrane seek? [~doomsdayer520~]
Beginner's view of Coltrane December 11, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
As a beginning student of jazz piano it was enlightening to understand how the various modalities, rhythms, and chordal structures are used by one of the greats. Wonderful to have this perspective.
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