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David Dalle
Thursday October 28th, 2021 with David Dalle
John Coltrane's newly discovered "A Love Supreme" recorded live in Seattle. Gidon Kremer performing Sofia Gubaidulina.

Today I am featuring two very different works by two very different composers, John Coltrane and Sofia Gubaidulina. However, both composers held spirituality as central to their works. The first piece we will hear is a newly discovered live recording of "A Love Supreme". Coltrane is known to have only performed "A Love Supreme" three times, in July 1965 at the famed jazz festival in Antibes, France, a performance in October 1965 in a small jazz club in Seattle, and once more at a fundraiser in Brooklyn in 1966. The Antibes performance was recorded and, until very recently, thought to be Coltrane's only live recording of "A Love Supreme". The newly discovered Seattle recording was recorded by Joe Brazil, a saxophonist and jazz teacher in Seattle who was playing daytime sets at the same club Coltrane was performing a weeklong engagement. On the last day, Brazil recorded Coltrane's performance using the house system and Coltrane chose to play his masterpiece. This performance is very different from the live performance in Antibes and the original studio recording, both of which featured his famed classic quartet with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. The Seattle performance showed where Coltrane was headed, featuring the classic quartet but augmented by a young Pharoah Sanders and Carlos Ward on tenor and alto sax, and Donald Rafael Garrett on a second bass. This performance is much longer and freer than the studio recording with the four movements of the suite interspersed with four interludes, three of which are solos for the basses and one for the drums. It is ecstatic music making, superb musicians losing themselves in making a joyful sound!
A Love Supreme Pt. I - Acknowledgement
John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Ward, Donald Rafael Garrett - A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle - Impulse! New
Interlude 1
John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Ward, Donald Rafael Garrett - A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle - Impulse! New
A Love Supreme Pt. II - Resolution
John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Ward, Donald Rafael Garrett - A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle - Impulse! New
Interlude 2
John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Ward, Donald Rafael Garrett - A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle - Impulse! New
A Love Supreme Pt. III - Pursuance
John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Ward, Donald Rafael Garrett - A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle - Impulse! New
Interlude 3
John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Ward, Donald Rafael Garrett - A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle - Impulse! New
Interlude 4
John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Ward, Donald Rafael Garrett - A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle - Impulse! New
A Love Supreme Pt. IV - Psalm
John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones, Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Ward, Donald Rafael Garrett - A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle - Impulse! New
The second piece we will hear today is by the great ex-Soviet composer Sofia Gubaidulina who has just celebrated her 90th birthday this past Sunday! Gubaidulina has a mixed Tartar and Russian family, with a mixed Russian Orthodox and Muslim background. This is important because spirituality has always infused her unique music. She was on the fringes of the very conservative Soviet musical establishment of the 1970's when she had a chance encounter with the extraordinary violinist Gidon Kremer who had heard a couple of Gubaidulina's pieces and requested a violin concerto from her. Kremer then embarked on a two year tour outside of the Soviet Union, after which he defected to the West, settling in Germany in 1981. Gubaidulina had started work on the concerto and finished it in 1980. She was worried it would now never be performed by Kremer and had dismal prospects of it being performed within the Soviet Union. Eventually she had her publisher smuggle the score outside of the Soviet Union and it ended up in Kremer's hands where he premiered it in 1981 in Vienna. The work is entitled "Offertorium" and takes the haunting theme of Bach's "The Musical Offering". She offers up the Bach theme as a sacrifice: deconstructing the theme one note at a time with the violinist playing variations on the diminishing theme. After the theme is destroyed, the violinist plays an intense rhapsody before the final hymn-like section where the theme is rebuilt in reverse and the work ends in luminous redemption.

Gidon Kremer is turning 75 this coming February and has embarked, with his Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra, on a 75th birthday tour for the 2021/22 season. Unbelievably, he is coming to Ottawa next week! I have an enormous collection of recordings by Gidon Kremer. He has exceptionally wide love for music and is responsible for introducing me to so many incredible composers such as Alfred Schnittke, Giya Kancheli, Gubaidulina and many others! His concert will feature Bach, works inspired by Bach, and music by Kancheli and Piazzolla! I was so excited when I first saw this concert advertised. However, it sold out almost instantly and I was heartbroken, but the Chamberfest added a second matinee concert which still has tickets available as of this recording. This will be my first time seeing Gidon Kremer live, do not miss your chance!
https://www.chamberfest.com/event/2021/kremerata-baltica-2/
Offertorium
Sofia Gubaidulina/Gidon Kremer, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Dutoit - Offertorium - Deutsche Grammophon
Interactive CKCU
hb
WOW!!! JC lives!!!

3:02 PM, October 28th, 2021
Jj
Yes!

3:26 PM, October 28th, 2021
David Dalle (host)
Glad you enjoyed JC!

3:27 PM, October 28th, 2021