Review Summary: The jazz king's last album before his death gives a glimpse of what could have been...
John Coltrane may be the greatest musician that ever lived. His vast and varied catalog can stand against the greatest and most innovative musicians since the beginning of music itself. I have had the pleasure of going through his discography throughout this year and while albums like
Blue Train,
My Favorite Things and
A Love Supreme are without a doubt worthy of their statuses as all time greats, it seems as though Coltrane’s later and more experimental albums don’t get as much love as they should and
Kulu Se Mama is no different.
It really is a shame that John passed away shortly after this album because he was headed towards a sound that was way more experimental than a lot of his previous output. In fact, this album could be considered the one that REALLY pushed the boundaries of what Coltrane and company were capable of. It’s almost tribal in nature with the chanting vocals and the unique drum patterns, all complimented by John’s spastic improvisational genius on the sax. The title track is almost 19 minutes long and it has a bit of everything for jazz lovers new and old. It can be relaxing and meditative at times, but can also sound dark and downright nerve wracking in the best possible way. John’s often schizophrenic style is complimented by the (also) legendary Pharoah Sanders, who provides some percussion for the album as well. Hell you even have the appearance from a conch shell as an instrument (courtesy of Donald Rafael Garrett) and that kind of gives you a feel for the avant-garde style that Coltrane was going for later in his career. The latter two tracks bring back more of the free jazz that Coltrane fans were accustomed to while still pushing boundaries of what jazz was at the time.
As I mentioned earlier, it really is a tragedy that John passed at such a young age. It seems as though so many musical geniuses have passed well before their time and John Coltrane is at the very top of that sad list. He really was hitting his stride as far as the experimental side of jazz was concerned. Everyone knew that he was the master of free jazz. Sadly what he could’ve done with the “jazz fusion” sound could never be fully realized and that is a catastrophe itself…BUT we can most definitely be thankful that he was able to record
Kulu Se Mama before his young life was cut short.
