Live in Seattle (John Coltrane album)

Live in Seattle is an album by the jazz musician John Coltrane on Impulse! Records, recorded in 1965 and released posthumously in 1971. The original Double LP issue was expanded to 2 CDs for the reissue.

Live in Seattle
Live album by John Coltrane
Released	1971
Recorded	September 30, 1965
Venue	The Penthouse, Seattle WA
Genre	Free jazz, avant-garde jazz
Label	Impulse! Records

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz	[2]
Rolling Stone	[3]

The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow comments, "Coltrane experts know that 1965 was the year that his music became quite atonal and, with the addition of Sanders, often very violent. This music, therefore, is not for fans of Coltrane's earlier sheets of sound period or for those who prefer jazz as melodic background music... This is innovative and difficult music that makes today's young lions (not to mention the pop saxophonists) sound very old-fashioned in comparison".[1]

Background

During September 14 - 26, 1965, the John Coltrane Quartet played an engagement at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco.[4] The saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, whose music Coltrane admired, and who had previously recorded with Coltrane on Ascension, went to hear the group and was invited to sit in. According to Sanders, "[H]e told me then that he was thinking of changing the group and changing the music, to get different sounds. He asked me to play with him."[5] At the same time, the multi-instrumentalist Donald Garrett, who had played with Coltrane's group in 1961 as a second bassist,[6] was also asked to sit in. At the end of the two-week gig, both Sanders and Garrett were asked to join the band, and accompanied it to the next engagement, September 27 - October 2, at The Penthouse in Seattle.[4]

During the stay in Seattle, Coltrane decided to document the newly-expanded group at his own expense, hiring the recording engineer Jan Kurtis for the September 30 gig.[7] Roughly 3½ hours of music were recorded that evening and, roughly four years after Coltrane's death, four pieces, "Cosmos", "Out Of This World", "Evolution" and "Tapestry In Sound", were selected to appear on the original double LP, with "Out Of This World" and "Evolution" split over two sides.[8] Two additional pieces, "Body And Soul" and an incomplete version of "Afro Blue", were added for the CD release, and the previously-split "Out Of This World" and "Evolution" were restored to create continous versions.[9] ("Afro Blue" features an alto saxophone solo by an unidentified player; it has been speculated that this may have been Carlos Ward or Joe Brazil.)[10] Most of the remaining music recorded that evening was released on CD by Rare Live Recordings in 2011 on The Unissued Seattle Broadcast, which was created from a fan's recording of a radio broadcast, Jazz from the Penthouse on KING-FM, hosted by Jim Wilke.[11][10] It contains four tracks: "Untitled Original", which ends with a bass duet that apparently precedes "Cosmos" from the original disc in terms of the actual running order; an incomplete continuation of the version of "Afro Blue" that appeared on the original CD; "Lush Life"; and an incomplete version of "My Favorite Things".[10][12]

The following day, October 1, Coltrane's group, along with Joe Brazil, went to Jan Kurtis's studio, Camelot Sound Studios in Lynnwood, Washington, to record Om.[13][11]

Track listing

Live in Seattle: original LP release

Side one

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Cosmos"	10:49
2.	"Out Of This World (Part One)"	8:44

Side two

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Out Of This World (Part Two)"	15:34

Side three

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Evolution (Part One)"	21:13

Side four

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Evolution (Part Two)"	15:09
2.	"Tapestry In Sound"	6:07

Live in Seattle: CD release

Disc one

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Cosmos"	10:49
2.	"Out Of This World"	24:20
3.	"Body and Soul"	21:03
4.	"Tapestry in Sound"	6:07

Disc two

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Evolution"	36:10
2.	"Afro Blue"	34:15

The Unissued Seattle Broadcast: CD release

Disc one

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Announcement"	0:38
2.	"Untitled Original"	29:55
3.	"Afro Blue"	18:32
4.	"Lush Life"	9:54
5.	"My Favorite Things"	10:09

• Recorded September 30, 1965, in Seattle.

Personnel

• John Coltrane — tenor saxophone/soprano saxophone
• Pharoah Sanders — tenor saxophone
• McCoy Tyner — piano
• Jimmy Garrison — double bass
• Donald Garrett — clarinet[nb 1]/double bass
• Elvin Jones — drums

Notes

1. The credits on the album jacket state that Garrett played bass clarinet on the recording. However, the authors of The John Coltrane Reference, who occasionally present updates to the book on their website,[14] provided an update dated 2008 which states that the Dutch musician Cornelis Hazevoet sent the following information via an email to the author Yasuhiro Fujioka: "Over the years, in liners, books and lists, Don Garrett has been attributed with playing bass clarinet. This is wrong. The man only played bass and clarinet (the small and straight horn, that is)... In 1975, Garrett played in my band and I've specifically asked him about it (because I already felt something was wrong with it). He most specifically and pertinently told me that he never played bass clarinet in his entire life, only the small, straight horn (which he played in my band too)... Perhaps, the error originated from the fact that Garrett was listed somewhere as playing 'bass, clarinet', which subsequently evolved into 'bass clarinet'. Whatever is the case, Garrett did not play bass clarinet on any Coltrane record nor anywhere else."[15]

References

1. Allmusic Review
2. Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 291. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
3. Rolling Stone review
4. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. p. 330.
5. Porter, Lewis (1999). John Coltrane: His Life and Music. University of Michigan Press. p. 264.
6. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. p. 217.
7. Porter, Lewis (1999). John Coltrane: His Life and Music. University of Michigan Press. p. 265.
   - Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. p. 744.
8. "John Coltrane Featuring Pharoah Sanders – Live In Seattle". Discogs. Retrieved June 1, 2020.
9. "John Coltrane – Live In Seattle". Discogs. Retrieved June 1, 2020.
10. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. pp. 743–744.
11. Stoesz, David (September 28, 2010). "Coltrane, Live at 45". Seattle Weekly. Retrieved June 1, 2020.
12. "John Coltrane – The Unissued Seattle Broadcast". Discogs.com. Retrieved June 1, 2020.
13. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. p. 745.
14. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf (2008). The John Coltrane Reference. Routledge. pp. x.
15. Porter, Lewis; DeVito, Chris; Fujioka, Yasuhiro; Wild, David; Schmaler, Wolf. "The John Coltrane Reference: 1965 Updates: Correction to session 65-0930". wildmusic-jazz.com. Retrieved July 12, 2020.