Cashbox : 10/14/1961

The intensive probing, searching Coltrane sax style reaches a high point in the 16 1/2 minute (all of side one) Africa, in which the quintet achieves a Mingus-like fury of neatly thought-out abandon. It’s a wild thing with Coltrane standing out as a giant on his instrument. This same idea is carried out in the two tracks on side two, Greensleeves and Blues Minor. Interest abounds here.

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California Eagle (Los Angeles)
“The Reviewer” : 03/08/1962

The provocative tenor sax of Mr. Coltrane is involved is involved in playing every harmonic permutation possible on these three quartet performances. This record is probing, extracting, absorbing and moving. The other three fourths of this group consist of Eric Dolphy, a reed player of much talent, pianist McCoy Tyner and Reggie Workman on bass. Whether we dig Coltrane or not, we must agree, his style is shocking, intriguing and groovie. It’s good to listen to a musician who is not tied down by chords.

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San Francisco Examiner
John Bryan : 01/07/1962

On Coltrane‘s last visit here he described his experimentation in new areas of expression. Here’s one. Using African polyrhythms, a driving brass group including French horns, euphoniums and a tuba, Coltrane creates some fascinating and highly provocative sounds. The title tune is a terribly compelling interweaving of introspective tenor and trembling rhythm.

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Van Nuys Valley News
Mike Davenport : 11/09/1961

Two new John Coltrane albums were released this month. Since they have many characteristics in common I decided to review them together.

Olé Coltrane – The major track on this album is Olé, a Latin flavored thing in 6/8 that runs for 18 minutes.

Architecturally, the tune is similar to My Favorite Things. ‘Trane, on soprano sax, states the melody and solos briefly, followed by Lane (on flute) (TJT note: Eric Dolphy is credited as George Lane on this one), Hubbard, Tyner, the two bass players, then returns for an extended solo.

So much has been written and said about ‘Trane that anything else would be redundant. Let me merely say that his playing here is perhaps the best I have ever heard him do. He has mastered the soprano to the same degree that he has the tenor.

Lane and Hubbard solo well, but the other strong man in the group is pianist McCoy Tyner. On tunes in the 6/8 idiom he uses basically a higher rhythmic chording approach in his solos, a style that is perfectly wedded to the tremendously powerful drumming of Elvin Jones.

The use of two bass players heightens the rhythmic intensity. So compelling is the rhythm, and so hypnotic is ‘Trane’s soprano, that I was emotionally spent by the time it finished.

Dahomey is a blues with a simple line and complex blowing. ‘Trane switches to tenor and Lane to alto.

Aisha is a beautiful ballad and is done by ‘Trane alone with the rhythm section.

Africa/Brass – This album, like the first, has a major track and two shorter ones.

The major track is Africa. This is a very fast piece built on African rhythms. ‘Trane, on tenor, solos almost from beginning to end, with the melody stated behind him by the brass.

The overall effect is raw primitiveness, with the brass at times almost shrieking. Elvin Jones takes one of his infrequent but memorable solos.

Greensleeves, with ‘Trane on soprano and done in 6/8 time, is again constructed along the lines of My Favorite Things.

Blues Minor is an uptempo blues with ‘Trane doing the majority of the blowing and the band wailing behind him. The arrangement is a head and has a loose yet driving feeling.

If I had to choose between these two albums, I don’t think I could. Together they constitute what might be called The Complete John Coltrane, and must be considered as two of the most important jazz albums of the year.

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Down Beat : 01/18/1962
Martin Williams : 2 stars

Certainly no one could question Coltrane‘s particular skill as a tenor saxophonist. Nor that his ear for harmony, his knowledge of it, and his use of it, can fascinate. Nor do I question that his playing his honestly emotional, if, to me, somewhat diffusely so.

What I do question is whether here this exposition of skills adds up to anything more than a dazzling and passionate array of scales and arpeggios. If one looks melodic development or even for some sort of technical order or logic, he may find none here.

In these pieces, Coltrane has done on record what he has done so often in person lately, making everything into a handful of chords, frequently only two or three, and run them in every conceivable way, offering what is, in effect, an extended cadenza to a piece that never gets played, a prolonged montuna interlude surrounded by no rhumba or son, or a very long vamp ’til ready.

Africa is African by the suggestion of its rhythms. It has some brass figured that, for me, get a bit too monotonous to add variety and which are also in general too much in the background to add much of their own.

I must say that Workman and Davis, particularly when they work together, fascinated me, and that Tyner plays a good solo. These three also manage to swing, and they provide one of the few instances of real swing in this recital.

Greensleeves is converted into a 6/8 Gospel-like meter, but once you have the hang of that, after a chorus or two, you have the hang of that.

On Blues Minor, which seems to me uncomfortably close to Bags’ Groove, Coltrane again begins a kind of ingenious workout on a couple of repeated chords after a chorus or so.

The point is not that it is impossible to make high art out of very simple materials. Many a blues player can make fascinating music on three chords, two chords, one chord – even no chords really. Nor that it is impossible to make fine jazz solos out of arpeggios: Jimmy Noone did it, Coleman Hawkins does it, Coltrane has done it. Perhaps my remark in the beginning about emotion does hold an answer. After all, Noone and Hawkins both have a directness and organization of feeling within each piece and a variety of feeling from one piece to the next.

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Liner Notes by Dom Cerulli

John Coltrane is a quiet, powerfully-built young man who plays tenor saxophone quite unlike anyone in all of jazz. His style has been described as “sheets of sound” or as “flurries of melody.” But, despite the accuracy, or lack of accuracy, of such descriptions, it is a fact that Coltrane’s style is wholly original and of growing influence among new tenor players.

Perhaps he himself best described his dazzling style in a recent Down Beat article with writer Don DeMichael. “I started experimenting because I was trying for more individual development. I even tried the long, rapid lines that Ira Gitler termed “sheets of sound at the time. But actually, I was beginning to apply the three-to-one chord approach and at this time the tendency was to play the entire scale of each chord. Therefore, they were usually played fast and sometimes sounded like glisses.”

Although Coltrane has absorbed this experiment into his present style and moved on, its effect was shocking, and intriguing, in the jazz world.

Most recently, as this album will attest, Coltrane has become absorbed by the rhythms of Africa. During the editing session for this album he noted, “There has been an influence of African rhythms in American jazz. It seems there are some things jazz can borrow harmonically, but I’ve been knocking myself out seeking something rhythmic. But nothing swings like 4/4. These implied rhythms give variety.”

This restless probing, extracting, absorbing, and moving on is characteristic of Coltrane. His earliest influence was Lester Young, but his first horn was an alto sax, so he became attracted to Johnny Hodges at the same time.

Toward the end of the 1940s he fell under the musical influence of Charlie Parker. But when he joined Eddie Vinson‘s band it was a tenor player and, as he noted, “a wider area of listening opened up for me. On alto, Bird had been my whole influence, but on tenor I found there was no one man whose ideas were so dominant as Charlie’s were on alto.”

His playing experience included stints with Vinson’s band and those of Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Hodges, Earl Bostic, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk. Today he leads his own group.

For this record, Coltrane composed two of the three selections, then discussed the orchestration thoroughly with Eric Dolphy, a reed player of enormous talent. Pianist McCoy Tyner of Coltrane’s group was the third member of the discussion group.

“Actually,” Dolphy recalled, “All I did was orchestrate. Basically John and McCoy worked out the whole thing. And it all came from John; he knew exactly what he wanted. And that was, essentially, the feeling of his group.

Africa has an unusual form. Its melody had to be stated in the background because Coltrane is not tied down by chords. “I had a sound that I wanted to hear,” Coltrane remarked of this composition. “And what resulted was about it. I wanted the band to have a drone. We used two basses. The main line carries all the way through the tune. One bass plays almost all the way through. The other has rhythmic lines around it. Reggie and Art have worked together, and they know how to give and take.” This work began with Coltrane’s quartet. He listened to many African records for rhythmic inspiration. One had a bass line like a chant, and the group used it, working it into different tunes. In Los Angeles, John hit on using African rhythms instead of 4/4, and the work began to take shape. Tyner began to work chords into the structure, and, in John’s own words, “it’s been growing ever since.”

The instrumentation – trumpet, four French horn, alto sax, baritone sax, two euphoniums, two basses, piano, drums, and tuba – is among the most unusual in jazz. But, Dolphy explained, “John thought of this sound. He wanted brass, he wanted baritone horns, he wanted that mellow sound and power.”

Coltrane heard the playbacks and nodded. “It’s the first time I’ve done any tune with that kind of rhythmic background. I’ve done things in 3/4 and 4/4. On the whole, I’m quite pleased with Africa.

Greensleeves is an updating of the old, revered folk song. It’s included in this set because Coltrane, in recent months, has been studying folk music. “It’s one of the most beautiful folk melodies I’ve heard,” he said. “It’s written in 6/8, and we do it just about as written. There’s a section for improvisation with a vamp to blow on.”

The quartet has been playing this theme recently, and the arrangement is based on Tyner’s chords. Dolphy notated. “For me,” Coltrane said, “Greensleeves is most enjoyable to play. Most of the time we get a nice pulse and groove. It was a challenge to add the band to it. I wanted to keep the feeling of the quartet. That’s why we took the same voicings and the same rhythm McCoy comps in.”

Blues Minor is a piece the quartet has been playing of late. It was assembled at the recording session. “It’s a head,” Dolphy said. “McCoy gave me the notes. I wrote out the parts, and the band did it on one take.” It swings loosely with the ease and drive of a head arrangement.

All in all, this album is representative of the state of musical mind of John Coltrane, 34, but on his way to something new and exciting, but pausing along the way to sum up the fresh and provocative work he has accomplished this far.

[note: Dom repeatedly referred to McCoy “Turner” instead of Tyner. I made the editorial decision to correct this error instead of using [sic] as, imo, it was simply too distracting.]