Posts tagged John Coltrane

February 3, 2007

We Shall Overcome: Civil-Rights Jazz

There was a strong relationship between jazz and civil rights in 20th-century America, and artists sometimes addressed the cause explicitly in their music.

The Avant-Garde Plays the Great American Songbook

Takes on the standards from Eric Dolphy, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman and more.

Red Trane: the Collaborations of John Coltrane and Red Garland

John Coltrane and pianist Red Garland, who both worked in Eddie Cleanhead Vinson’s late-1940s group, began playing together again in 1955 as part of Miles Davis’ quintet. Davis sought Garland out for his relaxed, block-chord style and his ability to impart an Ahmad Jamal-like sound; Coltrane, nearly 30 years old, was at a troubled juncture in his personal and professional life, still dogged by a drug addiction that would force Davis…

Jazz Goes Disney

Goofin' on Disney: how movie songs for kids made their way into the jazz world.

Jazz Advance: Early Cecil Taylor

Pianist Cecil Taylor is one of the most influential pioneers of late-20th-century improvised music; as author John Litweiler says in his book The Freedom Principle, “One of the running threads in the story of today’s jazz is that so many of the advances first appeared in Cecil Taylor’s music.” Taylor’s musical universe, often perceived…

Songs of Peace

Coltranepeace This week on Night Lights it’s “Songs of Peace.” We’ll hear instrumental themes using “Peace” as a title from John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Horace Silver, as well as Louis Armstrong’s 1970 take on John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance,” Bill Evans’ improvisation on Leonard Bernstein’s “Some Other Time” that came to be known as “Peace Piece,” Mahalia Jackson’s a capella version of Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday,” and more.