Consequences

John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders (tenor sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass) and Elvin Jones and Rashied Ali (drums). From the album Meditations (1966).

In 1961 Coltrane released his first album My Favorite Things with his quartet, in which he used for the first time the soprano saxophone and was a great commercial success. As a result, the newly founded Impulse! Records bought his contract with Atlantic, Steve Davis was replaced by Reggie Workman as double bass player and the group recorded Africa/Brass. Eric Dolphy joined the band and Coltrane was influenced by the emerging free jazz style playing lengthy and apparently formless solos that some listeners found amazing and others denounced as noise.

In 1962 Dolphy left and Jimmy Garrison replaced Workman forming the so-called “classical quartet”. In 1963 they recorded three more conservative albums to appease the critics. Impressions was also published, in which Coltrane explores blues, Indian music and modal jazz. In 1964 the quartet recorded the album Crescent, in which it found a balance between conventional and free playing and was well received by critics. Coltrane also recorded his masterpiece A Love Supreme, which was the culmination of his work and a declaration of his faith in God, as well as his best-selling album.

The composition opens with a conversation between Coltrane and Sanders while the rhythm section is out of control. They use short and sharp phrases that are exchanged with each other as if they were playing ping-pong. Little by little the intensity increases until Coltrane stops and Sander makes an exalted and insane solo using his instrument as a noisemaker machine. His continuous screaming and yelling makes the hair stand on end. At some point, Coltrane starts to accompany him below trying to imitate him. Next the bizarre conversation comes back until they get tired of playing. Then it’s Tyner’s turn, whose melodic line is intrepid and passionate until he’s left alone with Garrison and begins to play in a more measured way. Later Garrison also leaves and Tyner’s discourse becomes unintelligible and abstract, but then it acquires a more conventional look and calms down before his last notes sound.