JOHN COLTRANE — Kulu Sé Mama (review)

JOHN COLTRANE — Kulu Sé Mama album cover Album · 1966 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Sean Trane
Another seminal Coltrane album, KSM is one of John’s musical endeavours investigating his African roots, and probably his most-advanced one ever. For this session, Trane added some extra musos to his usual quartet (Tyner-Elvin-Jimmy), namely Pharoah on sax and Garrett on bass clarinet, while Butler and Juno Lewis had more drums and percussions.

The album opens slowly on the sidelong Kulu Se Mama track, a 19-mins monster that can curdle your blood as it seems to come from Trane’s guts via Pharoah’s crazy sax and Garrett’s deep bass clarinet. Over the flipside, the almost 10-mins Vigil is definitely a harder track to digest, hinting more towards dissonance in the Ascension manner, while the closing Welcome sounds like an alternate take of ALS’ final movement.

Oh btw, try to find a newer version than the first CD reissue, because it’s filled with mistakes in the booklet, most notably attributing the recording date in 56, instead of late 65. KSM is definitely one of Trane’s more important albums (despite its shortness) in my book, but it is mainly because of the title track, which is reallY one of the more inspired and spiritual quest of the master.
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