Coltrane: The Story of a Sound by Ben Ratliff

Amazon.com: Coltrane: The Story of a Sound: Books: Ben Ratliff

This month's book choice. The image I am linking to ironically has Amazon's "search inside" tag on it.  Coltrane did just that, for the elusive sound. I almost wasn't going to read this book about jazz musician John Coltrane because I thought I had read a pretty definitive version called Ascension. I am glad I didn't stop there. Ratliff the jazz critic for the New York Times, has a wonderful style of writing, enabling you to hear the music in his words without the music. He structured the book in two halves, the first half a straight head accounting of his Coltrane's career with some analysis of the music. The second half discussed the impact of his music on the rest of the jazz community and beyond, the mythical status he and his music has after his death.

While the first half gets quite deep into the musical theory, to a non-musician like myself, it was fascinating. If you can't make sense of bebop or free jazz, realize there some pretty deep theories seated inside that noise, and Ratliff does a great job of enlightening some of them. My eye glaze over when discussed the different scales used and the chord progressions, but he writes about it in a way that you are still intrigued.

The documentary Helvetica I saw last night, reminds me my fascination's for vernaculars used to describe things you can't really describe. With Jazz music, like typography, you need to almost use a different language to communicate with. Ratliff is deft with that language allowing a non musician like myself a peak into Coltrane's elusive sound.

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