How John Coltrane Launched the World to His Radical Sound with His Recording of “My Favourite Issues” (1961)

John Coltrane launched “extra sig­nif­i­cant works” than his 1960 “My Favourite Issues,” says Robin Wash­ing­ton in a PRX doc­u­males­tary on the clas­sic rework­ing of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broad­approach hit. “A Love Supreme” is commonly cit­ed because the zenith of the saxophonist’s profession. “However when you tried to elucidate that track to an aver­age lis­ten­er, you’d lose them. [“My Favorite Things”] is a defin­i­tive work that each­one is aware of, and any­one can lis­ten to, and the fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry of its evo­lu­tion is a few­factor each­one can share and revel in.” The track is acces­si­ble, a com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful hit, and it is usually an exper­i­males­tal mas­ter­piece.

Certainly, “My Favourite Issues” could be the per­fect intro­duc­tion to Coltrane’s exper­i­males­tal­ism. After the dizzy­ing chord adjustments of 1959’s “Big Steps,” this 14-minute, two-chord excur­sion pat­terned on the ragas of Ravi Shankar introduced Coltrane’s transfer into the modal varieties he refined till his demise in 1967, in addition to his embrace of the sopra­no sax­o­cellphone and his new quar­tet. It turned “Coltrane’s most request­ed tune,” says Ed Wheel­er in The World Accord­ing to John Coltrane, “and a bridge to a broad pub­lic audi­ence.”

Coltrane’s take can be mes­mer­iz­ing, trance-induc­ing, “usually com­pared to a whirling dervish,” notes the Poly­phon­ic video above, a ref­er­ence to the Sufi med­i­ta­tion tech­nique of spin­ning in a cir­cle. It’s an not like­ly track selection for the exer­cise, which makes it all of the extra fas­ci­nat­ing. The Sound of Music, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s closing Broad­approach col­lab­o­ra­tion, was an “on the spot clas­sic,” and each­one who’d seen it walked away hum­ming the tune to “My Favourite Issues.” By 1960, it had grow to be a stan­dard, with sev­er­al cov­er ver­sions launched by Leslie Uggams, The Pete King Chorale, the Hello-Lo’s, and the Nor­man Luboff Choir.

Hun­dreds extra cov­ers would fol­low. None of them sound­ed like Coltrane’s. The modal kind—through which musi­cians impro­vise in dif­fer­ent sorts of scales over sim­pli­fied chord constructions—created the “open free­dom” in music explored on Miles Davis’ path­break­ing Form of Blue, on which Coltrane performed tenor sax. (It was Davis who purchased Coltrane his first sopra­no sax that 12 months.) Coltrane’s use of modal kind in adap­ta­tions of pop­u­lar stan­dards like “My Favourite Issues” and George Gershwin’s “Sum­mer­time” from Por­gy and Bess was an explic­it strat­e­gy to court docket a wider pub­lic, utilizing the famil­iar to ori­ent his lis­ten­ers to the brand new.

The video essay brings within the exper­tise of musi­cian, com­pos­er, and YouTu­ber Adam Neely, who explains what makes Rogers and Hammerstein’s clas­sic distinctive amongst present tunes, and why it appealed to Coltrane because the cen­ter­piece of the 1961 album of the identical title. The track’s unusu­al kind and struc­ture permit the identical melody to be performed over each main and minor chords. Coltrane’s mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the track reduces it to the 2 ton­ics, E main and E minor, over which he and the band solo, intro­duc­ing a shift­ing tonal­i­ty and temper to the melody with every chord change.

Neely goes into larger depth, however it’s over­all an acces­si­ble expla­na­tion of Coltrane’s very acces­si­ble, but ver­tig­i­nous­ly deep, “My Favourite Issues.” Perhaps just one ques­tion stays. Coltrane’s ren­di­tion got here out 4 years earlier than Julie Andrews’ icon­ic per­for­mance within the movie adap­ta­tion of The Sound of Music, evok­ing the obvi­ous ques­tion,” says Wash­ing­ton: “Did he influ­ence her?”

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jazz Decon­struct­ed: What Makes John Coltrane’s “Big Steps” So Floor­break­ing and Rad­i­cal?

John Coltrane Attracts a Pic­ture Illus­trat­ing the Math­e­mat­ics of Music

Dis­cov­er the Church of St. John Coltrane, Discovered­ed on the Divine Music of A Love Supreme

Behold John Coltrane’s Hand­writ­ten Out­line for His Mas­ter­piece A Love Supreme

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian based mostly in Durham, NC.