Four For Trane
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''Four for Trane'' is a studio album by tenor saxophonist
Archie Shepp Archie Shepp (born May 24, 1937) is an American jazz saxophonist, educator and playwright who since the 1960s has played a central part in the development of avant-garde jazz. Biography Early life Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but ...
released on
Impulse! Records Impulse! Records (occasionally styled as "¡mpulse! Records" and "¡!") is an American jazz record label established by Creed Taylor in 1960. John Coltrane was among Impulse!'s earliest signings. Thanks to consistent sales and positive critiques ...
in 1965. Four of the five tracks were composed and originally recorded by
John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...
(released on his albums ''
Giant Steps ''Giant Steps'' is a studio album by the jazz musician John Coltrane. It was released in January or February 1960 through Atlantic Records. This was Coltrane's first album as leader for the label, with which he had signed a new contract the previ ...
'' and '' Coltrane Plays the Blues'') and rearranged by Shepp and trombonist
Roswell Rudd Roswell Hopkins Rudd Jr. (November 17, 1935 – December 21, 2017) was an American jazz trombonist and composer. Although skilled in a variety of genres of jazz (including Dixieland, which he performed while in college), and other genres of musi ...
. The other featured players are trumpeter
Alan Shorter Alan Shorter (May 29, 1932 – April 5, 1988) was an American free jazz trumpet and flugelhorn player, and the older brother of composer and saxophone player Wayne Shorter. Biography Shorter was born in the Ironbound District in Newark, New Jers ...
(brother of Wayne, here playing flugelhorn), alto saxophonist
John Tchicai John Martin Tchicai ( ; 28 April 1936 – 8 October 2012) was a Danish free jazz saxophonist and composer. Biography Tchicai was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to a Danish mother and a Congolese father. The family moved to Aarhus, where he s ...
(Shepp’s fellow member of the
New York Contemporary Five The New York Contemporary Five was an avant-garde jazz ensemble active from the summer of 1963 to the spring of 1964. It has been described as "a particularly noteworthy group during its year of existence -- a pioneering avant-garde combo" and "a ...
), bassist
Reggie Workman Reginald "Reggie" Workman (born June 26, 1937) is an American avant-garde jazz and hard bop double bassist, recognized for his work with both John Coltrane and Art Blakey, in addition to Alice Coltrane, Mal Waldron, Max Roach, Archie Shepp, Tri ...
and drummer
Charles Moffett Charles Moffett (September 6, 1929 – February 14, 1997) was an American free jazz drummer. Biography Moffett was born in Fort Worth, Texas, where he attended I.M. Terrell High School with Ornette Coleman. Before switching to drums, Moffett ...
(who had worked extensively with
Ornette Coleman Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Ja ...
). Coltrane himself co-produced the album alongside
Bob Thiele Robert "Bob" Thiele (July 27, 1922 – January 30, 1996) was an American record producer who worked on numerous classic jazz albums and record labels. Early life and career Bob Thiele was born in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York, United Sta ...
. The album was Shepp's first release for Impulse!


Background

According to Coltrane biographer
Ashley Kahn Ashley Kahn (b. 1960) is an American music historian, journalist, and producer. He was born in the Bronx, New York, and was raised in Cincinnati. Kahn graduated from Columbia University in 1983. While attending Columbia, he hosted a jazz and blues ...
, ''Four for Trane'' "was a direct result of Coltrane’s intervention, and his faith in the young tenor saxophonist from Philadelphia." Shepp recalled his efforts to get a recording date with Impulse!: "I had spent months trying to get Bob hieleon the phone and he never answered the phone. Every time I'd call, his secretary, Lillian, whom I got to know very well, but at that point I hated her because she said, 'Well he's gone out to lunch,' or 'He's gone home and he's not coming back.' I was living in a fifth-floor walk-up and I'd save a dollar a day just to make ten calls. I'd run down and put a dime in the phone in the drugstore. This went on for months... So this one night I sat in with Trane at the Half Note. I got up enough courage to ask if he would intercede. So John gave me a look — the first time he really sort of looked at me in a very critical way, very questioning. He said, 'You know, a lot of people think I'm easy.' Then he took a very hard look at me. I said, 'Well, John, you can be sure I'm not trying to take advantage. I need this.' He knew I loved him. It wasn't about just trying to get off easy. So he looked at me and he says, 'Well, I'll see what I can do...' The next day I called Thiele's office and lo and behold the secretary says, 'Well, he's not in now but he will be back at three o'clock and he's waiting for your call.' So when I did talk to him, the first thing he said is, 'You guys are avant-garde. I know you're into your own thing. If you do this recording you're going to have to record all of John's music.' I had just been waiting for the chance to do that. I loved Trane's music and I had my own ideas about how to work with it. That became the ''Four for Trane'' date..." Regarding the recording session, Shepp said: "When we did the ''Four for Trane'' date, it went down almost take by take, because we had rehearsed nightly for months. After the third song, Bob, who had been really terribly rude at the beginning, smoking his pipe like a chimney, he brightened up a bit, sat down and said, 'I've got to call John and tell him this stuff is great.' He said, 'John, you got to come out and hear this!' Well, Coltrane already knew. He had been listening to this stuff for the last couple of years because the avant-garde was all around New York... John was very gracious. He drove out from his home in Long Island to Englewood, at about eleven o'clock at night. I assumed he got out of his bed, because when we took that photo they put on the album cover
e was E, or e, is the fifth letter and the second vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''e'' (pronounced ); plu ...
with no socks, you know."


Reception

''
The Penguin Guide to Jazz ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled b ...
'' selected this album as part of its suggested "Core Collection" calling it "one of the classic jazz albums of the '60s and a fascinating glimpse into how thoroughly different what was already thought of as the Coltrane revolution might sound." The
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
review by Thom Jurek states that "When it came to sheer exuberance and expression, heppwas a force to be reckoned with in his youth, and it shows in each of the tunes recorded here. ''Four for Trane'' is a truly fine, original, and lasting album from an under-celebrated musician". Tom Terrell wrote: "Shepp and his crew of iconoclasts... took four of the master's best known tunes and made 'em new again." Robert Spencer wrote that Shepp's arrangements "succeed beautifully, not in restating Coltrane's work on these pieces, but making them something new... While Coltrane’s songs were widely thought of as empty platforms for blowing, Shepp shows here that they have the depth to stand a different treatment."
Leroi Jones Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He was the author of numerous b ...
stated that " is group that Shepp has gotten together for this date cannot fail to delight and inspire anyone really interested in moving human expression." He wrote: "the fact that this album is called ''Four for Trane'' demonstrates how much of an emotional allegiance Shepp feels he owes John Coltrane. But even with such acknowledged 'allegiance,' don't think for a moment that you're going to hear J.C. played back at you intact. Archie is so much his own self that it is finally impossible to name one influence as having been the guiding one... his range of expression is so broad that he seems to take in or to have digested most of the ways of playing tenor saxophone."


Track listing

All compositions by
John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...
, except where noted. #"Syeeda's Song Flute" – 8:30 #"Mr. Syms" – 7:41 #"Cousin Mary" – 7:14 #"Naima" – 7:09 #"Rufus (Swung His Face At Last To The Wind, Then His Neck Snapped)" (Shepp) – 6:24


Personnel

* Archie Shepp –
tenor A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...
saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...
*
Alan Shorter Alan Shorter (May 29, 1932 – April 5, 1988) was an American free jazz trumpet and flugelhorn player, and the older brother of composer and saxophone player Wayne Shorter. Biography Shorter was born in the Ironbound District in Newark, New Jers ...
 –
flugelhorn The flugelhorn (), also spelled fluegelhorn, flugel horn, or flügelhorn, is a brass instrument that resembles the trumpet and cornet, but has a wider, more conical bore. Like trumpets and cornets, most flugelhorns are pitched in B♭, though ...
*
John Tchicai John Martin Tchicai ( ; 28 April 1936 – 8 October 2012) was a Danish free jazz saxophonist and composer. Biography Tchicai was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to a Danish mother and a Congolese father. The family moved to Aarhus, where he s ...
 –
alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgians, Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in the key of E♭ ( ...
*
Roswell Rudd Roswell Hopkins Rudd Jr. (November 17, 1935 – December 21, 2017) was an American jazz trombonist and composer. Although skilled in a variety of genres of jazz (including Dixieland, which he performed while in college), and other genres of musi ...
 –
trombone The trombone (, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the Standing wave, air c ...
,
arranger In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestrat ...
*
Reggie Workman Reginald "Reggie" Workman (born June 26, 1937) is an American avant-garde jazz and hard bop double bassist, recognized for his work with both John Coltrane and Art Blakey, in addition to Alice Coltrane, Mal Waldron, Max Roach, Archie Shepp, Tri ...
 –
double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...
*
Charles Moffett Charles Moffett (September 6, 1929 – February 14, 1997) was an American free jazz drummer. Biography Moffett was born in Fort Worth, Texas, where he attended I.M. Terrell High School with Ornette Coleman. Before switching to drums, Moffett ...
 –
drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Four For Trane 1965 albums Archie Shepp albums Impulse! Records albums John Coltrane tribute albums Albums produced by Bob Thiele Albums produced by John Coltrane Albums recorded at Van Gelder Studio