Live review: Ravi Coltrane revives 'Africa/Brass' at the PDX Jazz Festival

Ravi Coltrane performs with the Africa/Brass Ensemble at the Biamp PDX Jazz Festival at the Newmark Theatre on Feb. 26, 2016. (David Greenwald/The Oregonian)

By David Greenwald | The Oregonian/OregonLive 
on February 27, 2016 at 11:06 AM, updated February 27, 2016 at 11:11 AM

"Africa/Brass" didn't get a thorough introduction at the Biamp PDX Jazz Festival on Friday night, so here's one: if 1960's "Giant Steps" was John Coltrane at his most athletic, the 1961 release tested his breadth. As its title implies, the album added a more expansive ensemble to Coltrane's quartet, translated as an eight-piece brass band at the Newmark Theatre on Friday. In Coltrane's stead stood his son Ravi, rocking and bending into his saxophones—his first performance of this week's Coltrane-themed festival, with a tribute to Ravi's mother, Alice, set for Saturday.


Portland's own Charles Gray conducted the ensemble, which added lush power to the five songs of the "Africa/Brass" sessions: "Greensleeves," with Coltrane on soprano sax, was an easy highlight as the song pushed from familiar melody to a boiling performance. Before taking on "Africa/Brass," the quartet alone played for a striking half-hour, Coltrane playing sweetly against pianist Orrin Evans' ferocious, Jenga-stacked notes. One revelation was drummer Mark Whitfield Jr., who brought punk volume along with his jazz effortlessness.

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Blue Note's Magnificent 7....

Blue Note Records' 70th Anniversary was the catalyst for the Blue Note 7, a septet featuring some of our best musicians (Nicholas Payton, Steve Wilson, Ravi Coltrane, Bill Charlap, Peter Washington and Lewis Nash) playing new workings of the classic repertoire. The band recorded an album, Mosaic, and then started touring.
I caught up with them in Tucson, where they ended the first leg of a nearly six month schedule that will bring their music all over the US. Like any working group, the musical interplay gathers momentum the longer they stay together. Sadly, working bands on extended tours are something of a rarity these days. Group chemistry doesn't happen in an instant, its an organic process that must be nurtured.
Before their Tucson concert, the group allowed me to film them performing Steve Wilson's arrangement of Thelonious Monk's Criss Cross. I've shot other groups playing music, but this is really the first time I was able to get right up on the stage, in their faces, and feel like I was part of the music.
In addition to my moving camera, I used a stationary camera for a wide shot. Each musician took one chorus, and like the true professionals they are, each was able to infuse that one chorus with some serious musical intensity. This is my best performance video to date, and I look forward to working with other musicians in this intimate, exciting way. Many thanks to the Blue Note 7 for their remarkable performance, and cooperation and to their Road Manager and Ace Soundman Richard Battaglia.
The Jazz Video Guy Newsletter

Ravi Coltrane: Live At The Village Vanguard

WBGO, November 17, 2008 - He bears the name of jazz royalty, and he's spent many hours curating, archiving and producing his parents' recordings. But when he picks up his own saxophones, Ravi Coltrane blows an original and distinctly modern strain of jazz, distilling but never seeking to imitate his family's adventurous improvising spirits. Now one of today's top saxophonists, Coltrane takes his own quartet into the same Manhattan venue where his father John Coltrane so famously held court: The Village Vanguard. Hear the Ravi Coltrane quartet perform live from the Vanguard at 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Nov. 19, broadcast live on air by WBGO and live online here at NPR Music.

Musically, Ravi Coltrane can be aligned with today's generation of progressive jazz musicians. His compositions experiment with shifting textures and intricate forms, and his soloing tends toward the exploratory and delicate rather than the "heavyweight" bravura associated with his father. In developing his own style, he's been abetted since 2003 by a fantastic working group: Venezuelan modernist Luis Perdomo on piano, jack-of-all-trades Drew Gress on bass, and bright young drummer E.J. Strickland. That band's latest record, 2005's In Flux, was well-received, and almost universally described as the first document of Ravi Coltrane's mature personal concept.

"John Coltrane's music is always there with you," Coltrane told NPR's Liane Hansen in 2003. "So I'm more into dealing with a person's influence not in such a technical way. I want to sound like myself, and I'd rather be more influenced by the process of what they did, how how they achieved this personal sound and got this, really. You know, that's really the goal for me, to be as personal as possible."

Ravi Coltrane hardly knew John Coltrane, who died before his son was 2 years old. He got to know his father's musical legacy in the same way most jazz musicians of his age did: through recordings, primarily. It was only when he decided to take his own musical career seriously that a teenaged Ravi Coltrane begin to listen intently to his father's music. The younger Coltrane has since surfaced several previously unreleased recordings of John Coltrane, and contributed liner notes to other reissued albums. He's also worked closely with his late mother, the pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane, in producing and playing on Translinear Light, her lauded comeback album after a 26-year musical retirement.

After making a name for himself as a versatile sideman — most notably with fellow saxophonist Steve Coleman — Ravi Coltrane has created three albums under his own name since 1997. In addition to performing with his quartet, Coltrane will join the Blue Note 7, an all-star ensemble created to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records, on a four-month tour of the U.S. in early 2009.
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