By Frank Housh

Editor’s Note: This is a review of a concert which took place in Buffalo a year ago as part of an annual John Coltrane birthday celebration. On September 30, 2023 Ravi Coltrane joined the Pappy Martin Jazz Collective at Buffalo State University’s Rockwell Hall performing John Coltrane’s music. The Coltrane 2024 birthday celebration takes place with concerts tonight, September 27 and tomorrow, September 28, at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Click here for more information.

This review was originally published at Media Room: The Arts in Real Life.

Calling John Coltrane a “jazz musician” is like calling the Buffalo Bills “an NFL franchise.” It’s not wrong but rather enormously incomplete, as it fails to describe the depth of its emotional connection to its many fans.

This is a concert review, and I will not attempt to summarize John Coltrane’s legendary career and its effect on on western music. I will not chronicle his early work with Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and Charlie Parker; I will not attempt to describe how he revolutionized western music by radically restructuring harmonic theory.

I will not describe the lasting influence of Kind of Blue, Giant Steps, or A Love Supreme, some of the most important recordings of the 20th Century.

I will merely say that for John Coltrane, creating music was an act of worship and for his many fans (this writer among them) listening to his music is often a spiritual experience.

Ravi Coltrane is the son of John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane, a great musician in her own right (Alice Coltrane’s grandnephew is Flying Lotus, an accomplished multi-media artist). Ravi is one of contemporary jazz’s most popular artists, appearing on dozens of records and recording six albums as a leader. 

The Pappy Martin Jazz Collective’s “Coltrane Celebration” brought Ravi Coltrane to Buffalo State’s Rockwell Hall on Saturday, September 30, 2023. He exclusively performed his father’s music with the Curtis Lundy Trio, featuring Lundy on bass, George Caldwell on piano, and Jonathan Blake on drums.

The concert began with Curtis Lundy playing an extended, slightly overamplified bass introduction to “Resolution” from John Coltrane’s 1964 masterpiece, A Love Supreme. The musicians quickly corrected the wonky sound system, however, and Ravi raised the intensity level with a brilliant cascade of sound.

The band’s second selection, “Lonnie’s Lament,” Crescent (1964), embraced the same, floating, lyrical quality as John Coltrane’s original. The band made it their own; Lundy beautifully utilized his bow and Jonathan Blake chose a harder, more aggressive attack than John Coltrane’s drummer Elvin Jones.

In a moving tribute, the band dedicated the song to the victims of the May 14, 2022 white-supremacist-terrorist murders at a Buffalo TOPS Market. I have written about this incident and published a Letter to the Editor in the Buffalo News. Click here to read it.

Ravi channeled his father’s sweet, complex sound in “Central Park West” from Coltrane’s Sound (1960). Lundy’s playful bass and George Caldwell’s references to Thelonius Monk filled the hall with depth and beauty.

The band followed with Equinox, also from “Coltrane’s Sound.” As they played, I couldn’t help but take a moment and admire Ravi Coltrane both as a musician and a person. He took up the saxophone knowing that he would forever play in the shadow of his famous father, yet forged his own sound and his own remarkable body of work.

For any other jazz musician, performing “Equinox” could be regarded as an act of hubris, the arrogant overconfidence of a dilletante, mocking one of the jazz gods with what could only be a pale imitation of the original. Ravi, however, has earned his own place in the pantheon and he and the band brought the audience to its feet in a stunning, sonic deluge.

My concert notes simply read: “holy sh!%.”

“Cousin Mary” from Giant Steps (1960), and “After the Rain” from Impressions (1963) were a clinic in the complexities of the Coltrane sound. Although it was a product of its time and followed many “hard bop” conventions, the quartet built upon the original recording’s revolutionary sound.

The evening concluded with the epic “Giant Steps.” It is difficult to write about this song, as books have been written about its profound and enduring influence on world music; it is no exaggeration to say that its represented a turning point in western music. 

I quote Doug Ramsey:

[T]he harmonic steeplechase is generally regarded as the most significant—at least the most prominent—milestone on the tenor saxophonist’s path out of bebop on his way to what he called a “universal sound.”

The moment was not too big for the quartet, who at once honored the original and sounded like themselves. Jonathan Blake’s aggressive, cymbal-heavy sound propelled the song forward to a spectacular climax. 

The concert was a rare, unforgettable musical experience.

Frank Housh is the Managing Editor of The Buffalo Hive.