Serenity

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

In his final stage, Coltrane was more and more involved in free jazz influenced by the dissonances of Albert Ayler’s trio. He defended many musicians of this style, like Archie Shepp, and thanks to him Impulse! became the main free jazz record label. In a series of posthumous recordings published with the classical quartet in the first half of 1965, he introduced techniques such as multiphonics, the use of harmonics, rendition on the altissimo register and a comeback to the “sheets of sound”, and the group replied to him with greater freedom. In 1965 he recorded Ascension with ten other musicians, a 40-minute piece of music in which the solos of the avant-garde musicians were separated by collective improvisations.

Afterwards Coltrane offered Sanders to be part of his group. While Coltrane often used overblowing to increase emotional energy, Sanders did so for whole solos. Rashied Ali’s added arrival as a second drummer was the end of the quartet, and after the recording of Meditations, Tyner and Jones abandoned Coltrane. He later formed a quintet that included himself, Sanders on tenor sax, his second wife Alice Coltrane on piano, Garrison on double bass and Ali on drums, with wich he recorded Expression, whose publication was approved by him a few days before his death in 1967 from liver cancer at 40 years of age. During the 1970s Impuse! Records released much of his unknown material.

Coltrane starts the composition playing a gentle and simple melody accompanied by a quite moderate rhythm section. However, as time goes by, the speech becomes more complicated and the accompaniment gains strength. After a while Coltrane returns to perform the initial melody and the exaltation diminishes until it turns into a whisper that eventually is turned off.