It's almost the most wonderful time of the year here in Montreal. The Jazz Festival kicks off next week and Just for Laughs begins soon after. Not only do I love both of these festivals, it also means some really fun work for me with Hour, the Montreal weekly I write the Explainer column for. I know, I haven't updated my Explainers in a while, but here's some good news: You can read every recent Explainer by going to my online archives here. I know, it's almost too much to handle at once. Deep breaths...
I was lucky enough to write the cover story for Hour's Jazz Fest issue this week, and it's about Ravi Coltrane. (Yes, John Coltrane is his father.) Ravi was in a bit of a hurry when we spoke last Saturday morning (he was taking his kids to a baseball game), but he was a very laid back guy to interview. I was particularly excited to hear him tell me about playing with Elvin Jones, one of my all time favorite drummers. (I saw him do a solo show in Montreal a few years back and got to shake his hand afterward. He almost crushed mine; it was awesome.) Jones played a big role in helping a young Ravi develop as a musician.
I've pasted a short excerpt from the article below, and you can read the full piece here.
It was 1990 in California, and Ravi Coltrane had a secret.
Elvin
Jones, the muscular, polyrhythmic drummer who was the driving force
behind saxophonist John Coltrane's legendary quartet, was in town for a
show. It had been years since he played on the West Coast, and Ravi
Coltrane, the then-25-year-old son of the famous saxophonist, spent
time with Jones, hanging out at the venue and heading to music stores.
"You know, doing the things that musicians do," Coltrane says by phone
from a New York City cab. (It's Saturday and he's taking his kids to a
Mets game.)Coltrane's secret was that he had started playing the
saxophone a few years earlier. He chose not to tell Jones, but word got
out anyway."By the end of the week he found out I was playing,"
Coltrane says. "Then months later he called me and asked if I was
available to do some gigs. I told him that, yeah, maybe in a year
because I'm still in school, I'm not ready."Coltrane was at the
California Institute of the Arts studying music, but as he
self-deprecatingly describes, "I could barely string two notes
together. I can do three or four now." Coltrane came to the music late,
but Jones wanted to make sure he benefited from an appropriate
apprenticeship. Still, the young saxophonist with the famous name was
hesitant."I was an Elvin fan and I didn't want me having the
name Coltrane to be a distraction for me and the other guys in the
band," he says. "I try to avoid that whole 'Coltrane' thing. It was
never an angle for me."Jones said he wanted him in the band in four months' time.
"Elvin doesn't take no for an answer," laughs Coltrane. "He said, 'I want to help you.' You don't say no to Elvin."
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