Ascension

Artist: John Coltrane
Label: Polygram Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Original recording remastered
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 731454341325
EAN: 0731454341325
ASIN: B00004TA40

Release Date: 2000-06-06

Related Categories:

Avant Garde & Free Jazz

| Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Listmania:

'Difficult' Albums
Coltrane's ten finest
Music That Is A Bit More Challenging (incomplete)
Interesting Coltrane
My Favorite Coltrane Recordings
favorite jazz albums
Amazing Albums In No Particular Order
My Favorite Things.
Yet another best of John Coltrane list
soundtrack to my life

Tracks:

Ascension-Edition II
Ascension-Edition I

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Customer Reviews:

This ain't no Love Supreme, folks!.......2006-11-22

Either you love this album or you hate it. Although I would not listen to this album on a regular basis, I do, in a way, "understand" it. Throughout his career, Coltrane was constantly exploring new ways of achieving higher artistic and spiritual ground. With "Ascension" Trane explored free jazz (inspired by Ornette Coleman), and began a new direction in his music. To this day, Trane's avant-garde period still pisses off even the most hardcore jazz enthusiasts.

Despite it sounding like total chaos (drummer Elvin Jones doesn't even have a consistant beat throughout the record), there is somewhat of a structure to it. It begins with five notes that run as a motif throughout the record, and then everyone plays whatever they like at once. Between these chaotic moments, each player takes turns soloing. First off is Coltrane, who's "sheets of sound" are still mind-blowing Freddie Hubbard is amazing, too. The only annoying solo is Pharoah Sanders on Edition 2. He plays like a dying duck.

If you're brave enough to give is a try, I suggest borrowing it from the library first. It's not as good as "A Love Supreme" or "Blue Train," but it's still an important album.

A 'Big Band' Like No Other.......2006-05-12

Purchased this album one evening. The next morning I drove from Indianapolis, Indiana to Columbus, Ohio while playing this album front-to-back and on repeat. Ever since that day my driver's seat has had a skidmark on it.

The ultimate blow?.......2006-05-04

I came late to enjoying Coltrane's music, having tried it off and on throughout my twenties. I came from liking the noisier kinds of rock, the more modernist kinds of 'classical' music (i.e. Schoenberg/Webern/Berg) and bebop's bracing mixture of the familiar and the abstract. Coltrane tended to seem either too simple or too complex. But my ears must have adjusted, because when I finally sat down and listened to 'Ascension' I loved it.

It's not really 'atonal', no music is; that's like saying that James Joyce is 'averbal'. Some scholar has tentatively identified a handful of harmonic regions that the music churns around in. Within those regions, the players solo more or less 'outside', but they all start on the same riff and they all end on the same riff. The result is quite simply one of the most colossal blowing sessions ever assembled. Coltrane wanted to give a bit of exposure to some of the newer kids on the block (Archie Shepp, John Tchicai) and he put this one-off ensemble together and had them tear the roof off for forty minutes. Twice. The only thing I've ever heard that compares to this is the Peter Br?tzmann Octet's mighty 'Machine Gun' session from 1968, which is at an even higher level of intensity but in a harsher, less transcendent, more European vein. And the Octet doesn't keep up it for as long at a time.

After hearing this I went back to the rest of Coltrane's music and it all made a great deal more sense. Others will champion 'A Love Supreme', but this is my favourite Coltrane album. Having said that, I only wish I had more times in the day when I had forty minutes to spare to listen to it.

Interesting..........2006-04-14

Ascension is, along with Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" and Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew", one of the most controversial jazz albums of all time. Ascension marks the beginning of Coltrane's avant-garde period, when pure sound began to replace classic music theory as the basis for improvisation.

That said, I find "Ascension" infinitely more listenable than "Free Jazz", or even Coltrane's "Live in Seattle". Here, there is still a regular jazz beat, with a nice five note theme based on the "Love Supreme" riff. There is much less "Collective" improvisation than I expected - often a euphemism for pretentious quacking - and the piece is more of a series of short solos by the various people.

While the soloing tends towards free jazz, this is actually not nearly as far out as I expected. Coltrane's solo is very effective, and even Pharaoh Sanders' solo is less tooth-grinding than usual. Other soloists include Archie Shepp, the hard-bopper Freddie Hubbard, and the altoist John Tchicai. In a blast from the past, McCoy Tyner has a lengthy solo that is little different from his work in 1961!

I agree with those people who say that this album is much less hard on the ears than people often assume. Think of it as a gigantic jam session.

Noise!!!!!!!!.......2006-03-28

Although the last couple of years I mainly listen to jazz from The phenomenal period of music between the early 1950's and late 1960's, I am continually amazed at the abundance of quality output. The Blue Note re-issues of works by Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, Grant Green, Larry Young, Hank Mobley, Art Blakey and Blue Mitchell to just name a few are true musical expressions of a fine art.

But Ascension by Coltrane is noise and certainly does not fit in with the works of the above artists which represented great musical milestones. Only his early stuff can really be classed as music.

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