JOHN COLTRANE
One Up, One Down: Live at the Half Note
Impulse!
· A treasure trove of jazz.
John Coltrane left behind a wealth of material when he died, which his family has slowly shined up and released over the years. Some sound like throw-offs (Stellar Regions) while others are brilliant (The Olatunji Concert). One Up, One Down falls into the latter category, a gorgeous set that lays out Coltrane’s famed quartet in all their glory, contextually filling in the gap for fans looking for the bridge between Crescent and Sun Ship, and most importantly, illuminating why, within a matter of months, these musicians would never play together again.
Taken from recordings at the Half Note jazz club in 1965, the last year of the quartet’s existence, it’s remarkable to think that later that year Coltrane would be off into the sonic experiments that would occupy him until his death two years later. That said, this is his show, and while the band is as tight as it ever was, the seeds of implosion are laid throughout the sets. At times he plays against the others, scraping every corner of sound he can, the others half a beat away from losing him. They don’t, though, and it’s an eerie testament to the skill of each (McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison) that they maintain form while what is so precious is about to fall apart.
Each of the four compositions touch on the tropes that occupied the quartet in its brief period together – meditation ("Afro Blue"), sheer speed ("Song of Praise") and deconstruction ("My Favorite Things"). One Up, One Down is the jewel of the collection – long bootlegged by fans, it’s now getting the proper treatment it deserves. Coltrane gives a performance to rival the improvisational scouring of Chasin’ Another Trane, flipping between precise harmonics and free excursions across registers, the band guiding the composition from growing exponentially into chaos.
If you find Coltrane’s later work harsh and impenetrable, hopefully this might entice you to have another look. Lest the word "transcendental" appear too bombastic, remember that Coltrane sought nothing short of seeking a spiritual exegesis in his art. Forty years after his death, he’s still challenging, still beautiful.
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