Reflections on Coltrane's A Love Supreme Live in Seattle

     Let me start by saying that A Love Supreme is far from my favorite recording, or even my favorite John Coltrane recording.  Now, before you get all excited about this, please take a breath and read on.

By the time I had my first listening experience with the original album, I already knew that this music had been placed on a pedestal before I was even born.  There was no chance of me being able to have an authentically original opinion, and even if I had an opinion, it was irrelevant.

An Immutable Stone Tablet

So A Love Supreme entered my world as a 2,000 year old stone tablet, an immutable monolith that had critically shaped a certain view of the jazz world for so long that nobody could remember a world without its influence.

I own a copy on cd, and a very nice copy on vinyl, and I never listen to either of them.  I can listen to Coltrane's Sound or Live at the Half Note on infinite loop for days at a time, but A Love Supreme for me is like a heavy meal that you eat once every five or ten years, and maybe you enjoy it more because the Michelin star chefs tell you that it is the best meal in the world, but you find yourself half passed out somewhere between trauma and regret.

A Torch to the Heavens

With all that unpacked (whew!), I have that music in my musical DNA as much as any other modern jazz musician - whatever that means, but you can interpolate that as you like.  I find it a little cringey when musicians quote from it, but on my first concert after the pandemic lockdown, I found myself extending a solo by a chorus and uncontrollably witnessing A Love Supreme coming out of my horn like a torch to the heavens as the band responds in kind (link below)

                                                         Madison Jazz Collective: Jack

When the newly recovered live version was released, I admittedly dragged my feet before purchasing it on vinyl.  I bought it more as scholar than fanatic - I mean, I cannot be a saxophone professor and not study this alternate universe that we can see through some dark and dirty mirror through time and space.  And then, it sat on my shelf for two months.  I couldn't bring myself to even unwrap the cellophane, never mind place it on the turntable.  What will it say about me if I hate it?  Or if I love it?

On December 26, 2021, I could no longer reasonably procrastinate.  The time had finally come.

There are some important considerations that make this live version very unique.  Obviously, it is performed live with a few extra musicians moderately contributing (Pharoah Sanders and Donald Garrett).  The movements and the soloing are extended, stretching over two generous vinyl discs.  The setting is not exactly what you would call "sacred."  The Penthouse was a jazz club that capitalized on the Playboy image of the time, with stylized rabbits in the decor and waitresses dressed as one might imagine.

The recording itself is like having a bad seat in the club.  The drums are too close, and Trane seems to be far away, maybe on the other side of the piano.  You strain to hear him, even though his sound is clearly massive and encompassing.  But, this is a time machine and like many of the rare recordings, it is worth a bit of squinting to see through the fog of history to get a glimpse of real magic that was nearly lost forever.

Upon the first listening, I settled into the sound and established a mental focus on the scene.  I hear some noodling, people talking, some applause - I am in the room.  About 15 minutes into the first movement, tears well up in my eyes for no particular reason.  I suppose that the intensity of the music and the auspiciousness of hearing any previously unheard music by this ensemble is always a heavy load to process.

The music itself is familiar, yet strangely different.  Pieces of the old stone carvings are spaced out with more extended soloing.  At times, it sounds less like the holy sacrament of the studio album and more like . . . well, like the classic quartet blowing in a jazz club.  Because that is what it is - the John Coltrane Quartet at work.

Conclusions

The end result for me is quite unexpected.  For the first time in my life, A Love Supreme is a living thing, as if the weight of that stone tablet is lifted.  I feel a greater connection between this and my own work.  When we place art/artists on pedestals, we tend to forget that they are made of the same star dust as everything else that we have ever known.  Yes, A Love Supreme is a particularly unique and powerful masterpiece, but it is only music, created by musicians that walked the same streets and gazed upon the same sky as the rest of us.

I look forward to going back to the original recording to see how it will change with this new perspective, but I think that I will give it some time.  After all, no matter how you experience it, this music is a heavy dose of jazz expressionism that requires attention and space.

Imposter Syndrome and Social Media

    I had a brush with imposter syndrome last week that I am compelled to share in the hopes that it will help anyone that finds themselves in a similar situation.  It all started when I posted a video two weeks ago . . .

I collaborated with my friend and colleague at James Madison University on a project where he recorded some sounds that I made on my tenor saxophone, and then used granular synthesis to make virtual instruments to compose a kind of dreamscape, with the intention of me improvising with his soundtrack.  He describes it as a kind of improvisational feedback loop, where the genesis and the final product are my improvisations, with his masterful sonic creation in between.  You can learn more about Eric Guinivan, this project, and his work at his website:  ericguinivan.com/howl.html

The performance had already been shared from my JMU concert back in September, but I finally got around to isolating the piece and syncing the video from the livestream with the fantastic audio recording by JMU's sound designer, Tom Carr.  I honestly wasn't expecting much of a reaction, but I wanted to share the video with the intent of promoting the piece.  The idea from the beginning was that the piece could be played by anyone, on any instrument, and I personally find Eric's work to be very compelling, a kind of sci-fi tone poem.  In the first few days, the video slightly did better than my usual posts.  Then, it suddenly caught fire.  On Friday morning, I thought that it might hit 10,000 views.  Soon, it was doing that much per hour!  Eric and I were texting back and forth with excitement and awe at what was happening.  In a matter of days, we passed 250,000 views.

Now, this was not the first time that I have had successful videos.  My YouTube channel had well over a thousand subscribers and over 400,000 views.  Somehow, Howl surpassed all my other videos in a few days.  I made no unusual effort to attract attention, and the video is far from clickbait.  It is a 7 minute piece of fairly abstract art, and honestly, it seemed pretty unlikely to go viral.  It was thrilling to accidentally hit the mark with something that we made with vision and integrity.

Then, the negative comments started.

Someone snarked that the ratio of likes to views was sad and posted a barf emoji.  Another user called it "appalling."  Another comment was so nasty that YouTube took it down before I could even process it.  I suddenly turned dark inside and my inner voice said, "This video is popular because people are making fun of you."  Every bone in my body told me to take the video down before this got even more out of hand.  I had a full blown panic attack.

I thought back to the recital, and how I was nervous because I was operating a lot of electronics for this first time in a live setting.  Howl was the third piece on the program, and I started with a very challenging new work on tenor where I used a looper pedal, followed by a performance on duduk (a traditional Armenian instrument) where I created drones live with a pedal.  When I went back to the tenor to play Howl, my reed was a little dry and I squeaked.  I really don't like squeaking, but it happens, and I made the decision to not edit the video because I wanted to present an honest performance.  Suddenly, I found myself rethinking that decision, now that 100,000 people had heard me squeak, and the views were growing exponentially.

After about an hour of self-loathing, I had a moment of clarity.  I took a look at the negative comments and noted that one of the users had very few followers and only one video that is four years old.  Another had no followers or content at all!  How could I have allowed myself to feel like an imposter over nasty comments by three one-thousandths of a percent of 100,000 viewers?  It is so important to remember how much social media messes with our sense of reality.

I have been making pretty esoteric and abstract music for my entire career, and it isn't for everyone, but it is music that comes from my heart and soul.  I am very proud of this work that I did with Eric Guinivan, and I am grateful that it reached such a large audience online.  I am also grateful for this brush with imposter syndrome and how quickly I was able to shake it off.

To me, the lesson is pretty clear:  share your work and never let "likes" or comments determine your self-worth.  The integrity of your preparation and efforts will be evident, and as one of my heroes, Bob Brookmeyer once told me, "If everyone likes your music, write better music!"

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If you are interested in performing Howl, you can find the score video below, and Eric can supply you with a score transposed for whatever instrument you play.  I hope you will give it a try.  The audience loved it and because the sounds originated from my saxophone, it will be a little like playing a duet with me.  How cool is that?

https://www.ericguinivan.com

#impostersyndrome #socialmedia #howl #ericguinivan #YouTube

Building Technical Dexterity for Jazz Improvisation (aka, the superfly exercise)

This article originally appeared in Saxophone Journal, March/April 2007.  Volume 31, No. 4

[An interesting aside to this article is that my right hand is now completely recovered from the old injuries.  I credit this mainly to reinventing my physical approach to the instrument, but also to learning to write in cursive with my right hand as a kind of physical therapy to develop the intrinsic muscles of my "opposite" hand]

 

            It is a well-known fact that speed can only be developed by slow repetition.  As with so many aspects of craft, the solution to a problem seems counter-intuitive.  Any level of musical maturity allows us to see that the house is only as good as the foundation; effortless dexterity is the inevitable result of attention paid to the slow-motion details of technique.  Obviously, it is important to practice playing rapidly, but there must be a balance that is weighted more towards perfection of the technique through slow-motion practice and analysis.  The following is an exercise that I have been doing for the past several months.  While the specifics of the routine may need to be altered to match the level of individual development, the core ideas of this exercise should be useful to any saxophonist.

 

When I was in my early twenties, I suffered tendonitis-related injuries in my right hand.  I went from experiencing occasional pain while playing to being in constant pain, even when I was not on the horn.  I had no choice but to take some time off and heal.  My teacher at the time, Lynn Klock, had recently recovered from a broken hand.  With his guidance, I assessed my technique and unlearned the bad habits that led to my injury.  My main problem was that I held the horn up with my thumb in the hook, pulling my hand out of its natural position.  This forced me to grip the horn, and to hyper-extend the first joint of my right ring finger.  As a temporary measure, I removed the thumb hook from my horn completely.  I learned to let the weight of the instrument hang from the neck strap, so I could float my right hand on the saxophone without trying to hold the horn up.  In time, I was able to put the hook back, but only as a means of balancing the instrument.  In other words, I unlearned my habit of applying upward pressure in the thumb rest.

 

While my hand eventually came back, the injuries were serious enough that the recovery has never really been 100%.  If you play in pain, and most of us do, STOP and figure out what is causing the pain.  I often wish that I had solved my issues sooner.  I can only be grateful that my experience helps me to teach others, so that they might stave off injury.  Do not play in pain!  If you cannot solve your problems on your own, seek the advice of a great teacher.  I have students who have had great success studying Alexander Technique with a qualified teacher.  We must never forget that musicians are elite athletes, using the tiny muscles that no one ever really sees.  We must warm up, refine our technique, and protect ourselves just as a professional athlete does.  While it may be impossible to avoid every injury, it should be possible to play without pain.

 

I am left-handed, and my right hand is weakened from injury, so I always start by warming up my left hand.  For the following, refer to Basic Dexterity Builder- Left Hand Emphasis.  These passages should be executed at sixty beats per minute.  Each measure should be repeated as many times as necessary, until it can be performed with comfortable ease.  It is extremely important to keep every part of the body relaxed.  Focus your strength on diaphragmatic air support.  Keep the shoulders low, the elbows loose, and the wrists fluid.  Do not think about pushing the keys down, but rather think of getting the fingers out of the way of the keys.  Let the springs do most of the work.  The fingers should be low to the keys, and the hands should keep a relatively rounded position.  Reach out as if you are going to shake hands with someone.  This is the natural hand position that must be maintained:  wrists straight, fingers curved, and thumbs approximating a 90° angle to the rest of the fingers.  DO NOT move on to the next measure until you are satisfied that you can perform the current group of notes in a relaxed fashion. If tension is introduced into the process, the entire point of these exercises is lost.

 

As the notes come at a faster rate, concentrate on lifting the fingers.  Again, keep them low to the keys, but emphasize the negative action (releasing the keys), instead of the positive pushing down on the pearls.  At a certain point, it will become impossible to evenly divide the beat by thinking of the numbers.  I have had success using the Indian syllable to divide fives and sevens (for more on this, check out Ronan Guilfoyle’s excellent book Creative Rhythmic Concepts for Jazz Improvisation), but anything from elevens on is more of a feel.  If you can stay relaxed, just work on hitting the target notes on the downbeats and making the notes between as even as possible.  When you really get down to it, the notes should feel like water flowing between the beats.  This takes time and patience, and one must never attempt to play at a speed that requires pounding on the keys.  The body, the hands, and notes should all be fluid, like liquid.

 

As I said, I am left-handed, so I begin with the left hand emphasized.  On any given day, I will only work as far as I can without becoming tense.  Once I reach the point of tension, I slow back down and begin the right hand emphasis exercises.  The tempo should remain at sixty beats per minute throughout.  Take great care in maintaining good posture, active air support, and gentle fingers.  Repeat each measure at least ten times, increasing repetitions with the increased subdivisions of the beat.  I will often play the faster measures for several minutes at a time.  When a true feeling of effortlessness is achieved, and only then, it is time to move on.

 

The astute student will notice that these exercises only address the key of C.  I alternate between two methods of taking these patterns through the keys.  The first way is to go all the way through, and then begin again with an added flat.  Subsequent repetitions will continue to add a flat until it makes sense to switch to sharps, again letting the sharps accumulate one at a time.  If a particular cell of notes does not include the newly altered note, ignore the fact and play on until the changed note appears.  A second approach is to stay on one measure, adding flats and then sharps, until all variations have been performed.  Then move forward to the next measure, again working through all the variations.  Clearly, some versions of each measure will be more difficult.  When you have reached an alteration that you cannot perform with ease, slow it down, or move on to the next measure.  In certain extremely challenging note configurations, I will perform the measure at half-speed.

 

This strategy for building dexterity is only the beginning of what is possible.  These patterns could begin on different notes, or extend into the altissimo register.  In certain keys, I will extend the upper register to altissimo D, E, or even F.  Another great variation is to invert the intervals and play from the top down.  Do not limit yourself to scalar motion, but try playing in thirds to make extended arpeggios.  I can only imagine that the great John Coltrane practiced in this manner, developing a technique that freely fit as many notes between the beat as he desired.  If you cannot perform at your speed goals, spend more time with the slower measures.  Build a solid foundation for the house!  Be creative with the concept behind this exercise and try to create your own variations.

 

Speed is the illusive goal of many musicians.  Never lose sight of the importance of proper technique as the vehicle towards speed.  Tension, heavy handedness, and lifting the fingers up straight are all enemies in the process.  The most benefit will be derived from the time spent working slowly for consistency.  Over the course of several months, you should notice an increase in precision, speed, and relaxation.  I hope this is helpful, and I welcome your thoughts at popesax@mac.com.  Practice well!  §

#superfly #dexterity #warmup #oppositehand #tendonitis