On purely musical terms, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane’s performance Tuesday night at the Chicago Jazz Festival offered moments of real substance and lyric inspiration.
But the world premiere of his “Reflections on `A Love Supreme'”–a response to the most celebrated album of his father, jazz icon John Coltrane–proved a monumental disappointment.
So much, in fact, that the younger Coltrane would have done himself, and his audience, a greater service simply by avoiding any references to John Coltrane’s epic, four-movement suite, “A Love Supreme.”
Recorded 40 years ago this December, John Coltrane’s signature album has come to hold a prized position in American musical culture, its themes of sin and salvation, spiritual crisis and redemption reaching audiences far outside the realm of jazz. Though steeped in blues vocabulary and innovative improvisational techniques, “A Love Supreme” has spoken to pop audiences, rock artists and anyone else open to its extraordinarily candid exploration of one man’s journey toward the divine.
No doubt any musician attempting to address this work would face a formidable challenge, all the more when the protagonist happens to be John Coltrane’s son.
So one had to admire Ravi Coltrane’s gumption in accepting a commission from the Jazz Institute of Chicago, which shrewdly conceived the idea of marking the forthcoming 40th anniversary of “A Love Supreme” by inviting the 39-year-old saxophonist to attempt to scale an Everest of jazz. Even if Ravi Coltrane had produced a noble failure–trying vigorously to wrestle with the message of “A Love Supreme” but ultimately falling short–no one could have held it against him.
The original is simply too imposing to be matched by mere mortals. The value of the exercise would be in beholding the struggle.
But Ravi Coltrane barely took on the challenge at all, fronting his sextet at the Harris Theater. Offering a comparatively slight jazz tune that was dwarfed even by individual movements of “A Love Supreme,” Ravi Coltrane gave neither the original composition nor the bold commission from the Jazz Institute serious attention. Instead, he simply closed an over-long concert with a grandly titled work that amounted to little more than a sizable encore.
The opening passages of “Reflections on `A Love Supreme,'” however, had seemed promising. Pianist Luis Perdomo’s lush solo evocatively recalled Elvin Jones’ percussion statements at the start of the original album, and Ravi Coltrane’s subsequent statement–with its wide-open intervals and twisting melodic paths–suggested that an intellectually hefty discourse was about to commence.
Better still, the predominantly major scales and sustained rhythmic serenity of the opening pages implied that Ravi Coltrane was picking up where his father’s album ended, a potentially ingenious idea. Rather than try to cover the same ground as “A Love Supreme,” in other words, the new “Reflections” would head off into new directions.
Fair enough, but what followed were merely workmanlike solos, long stretches of rhythmic torpor and a nearly complete lack of thematic cohesion or purpose.
This was remarkable, considering the nature of the rest of the program, in which the virtuosity of Coltrane’s sextet and the rigor of his compositions were beyond question.
The sheer elegiac beauty of his “For Zoey,” a new work, and the plangent lyricism of his “Narcine” attested to the man’s skill as jazz composer. With intelligently constructed, sleekly delivered solos from trumpeter Ralph Alessi and exquisitely layered rhythms from percussionist Luisito Quintero, drummer E. J. Strickland and bassist Drew Gress, this band elegantly conveyed multiple strands of sound.
Some of the ensemble’s best work rang out in John Coltrane’s intricate “26-2,” its irregular meter crisply telegraphed by six players functioning almost as one.
Unfortunately, as far as the commission went, Ravi Coltrane may owe the Jazz Institute a refund.
