John Coltrane: "My Favorite Things"

Music on Sunday @ The Reaction

By Richard K. Barry

I like jazz. I even understand it after a fashion having played sax and guitar for a lot of years. On good days I even make a few bucks in a local band, though no one will ever confuse me for a talented jazz musician, in fact, it's blues and rock we play in our band. Still, I get some of the music theory behind jazz and know what I'm listening to when it's being played. Best of all, I know enough to be especially amazed and delighted when real geniuses pick up their axes and do the things they do.

Speaking of which, I've been listening to John Coltrane today. I can't get into everything the man did, particularly the spacier, atonal stuff, but there is so much in his repertoire that is incomparable.

Much as Coltrane's version of "My Favorite Things" may by now be a musical cliche for some, maybe like Brubeck/Desmond on "Take Five," I still rank it among my favorite (both of them, really).

The thing about "My Favorite Things," the title track from a 1961 album, is that it is a modal rendition of the classic. Without getting into too much detail, modal music allows the jazz improviser to really forget about the changes the rhythm section is playing and just get into, as completely as possible, an improvisational head space.

In other words, in more typical jazz improvisation, the soloist has to be thinking a little bit more about what the accompanists are playing and play, more or less, within those chord changes -- with an emphasis on what is changing. In modal music, for reasons that have to do with the purity of the musical structure and the fact that it doesn't change, the soloist can climb inside his or her performance in a way that can be truly magical. Now, I am sure that every Berklee grad can give you ten reasons why what I just said is wrong or oversimplified, but I'm close enough.

This is what Coltrane is doing on "My Favorite Things," as are the other players when it comes their time to improvise.

The instrument Coltrane is playing in the clip is a soprano saxophone, or straight sax. It sounds higher than other saxes but it is played in exactly the same way. I once read that Coltrane liked it because it could be played faster than other larger saxes, like a tenor, which is the instrument with which a lot of people associate him.

Coltrane was known as someone who took very seriously the spirituality of music. The clip is about 10 minutes long, and, if you are anything like me, and have the time to listen all the way through, I think you will notice it is simply and purely a meditative experience. Very cool.

I should say that it's McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and Steve Davis on bass.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)