Thread

1. diego_moita · 1790533985 · focus · HN ↗

   John Coltrane has a special meaning in jazz for me.

   I don't see any other musician creating harmonies as rich as him. Yes, not even Miles Davis, Bill Evans or Tom Jobim (other jazz musicians that I like a lot).

   It is surprising how fresh and accessible his music remains today. He never became a top hit, but also never stopped being relevant.

   1. breezybottom · 1790536535 · focus · HN ↗

      When you say accessible I guess you're excluding his free jazz period. And "rich" harmonies doesn't really mean anything. If you're saying that he stacks more extensions than Bill Evans, that seems hard to quantify.

      1. viccis · 1790544852 · focus · HN ↗

         >And "rich" harmonies doesn't really mean anything.

         I can't even begin to comprehend how you can't understand that someone can write harmonically rich music.

         1. breezybottom · 1790564006 · focus · HN ↗

            That's still not a definition, that's just you saying how you feel about it.

            1. viccis · 1790620428 · focus · HN ↗

               Rich can easily be given with an example rather than purely aesthetics. Coltrane introduced more advanced harmonic movement via "Coltrane changes" as one example. It had been done in one-off cases in classical music (like just about anything), and occasionally in show tunes (Have You Met Miss Jones) but Coltrane was the first to isolate the specific pattern and make it into a reusable substitution technique to reharmonize other tunes.

               Aside from that, Coltrane's contribution to modal jazz is significant. Though not singularly from him (or anyone else), he contributed quite a few standards and recordings to a style that was a pretty radical and rich departure from functional harmony. And if you don't consider the harmonic system this resides in (Russell's LCC is a common one used to analyze it) as "rich" then I think you might be too harsh a critic.

               1. breezybottom · 1790639262 · focus · HN ↗

                  Modal harmony is the definition of rich? That seems like literally the opposite. It's often vamping on single chords.

                  1. viccis · 1790660812 · focus · HN ↗

                     Absolutely. The definition of "harmony" doesn't begin and end with functional harmony.

                     1. breezybottom · 1790780357 · focus · HN ↗

                        It doesn't, but almost any word other than rich would be better. Sparse, for example.

                        1. viccis · 1791008751 · focus · HN ↗

                           Chord scale theory is born out of modal harmony. No idea what you're talking about lmao

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