I recently finished some piece of work after quite a while and I found the following Coltrane Quartet performance of “Vigil”, aka “Modal Excursion” (live in Comblain-La-Tour, Belgium, 1 August 1965), such an inspirational company during the period. Bassist Garrison appears to have just walked onto the bandstand, steadying and steadying that instrument of his that he plays with deftness and assiduousness as Coltrane, on tenor, begins the timely conversation with Jones on drums. Coltrane soars and soars in this continuously creative polytonal torrent of sound that is unmistakeably his signature. His commentary on the crucial challenges of his day is profoundly honest, insistent, multilayered and optimistic, a mood shared equally by the exhilarating inventiveness of Jones’s drumming. Note the resultant sweating and sheer exhaustion of the duo even before Coltrane’s brief break! As Tyner, on piano, joins the conversation, he takes 20-30 seconds of dizzying phrasing to restate the cardinal theme of the excursion and then essays his own contribution along a serene plateau of disarming contemplation, punctuated by Garrison’s impeccable percussive engagement and Jones’s continuing testament. Coltrane finally returns for the quartet to studiously sum up the goal for the vigil by declaring firmly and unreservedly: “Now is the time!” Today, we are most honoured and privileged to have inherited the priceless legacy of these selfless geniuses.
John Coltrane - Untitled (Vigil)
About Me
- Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
- Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is specialist on the state and on genocide & wars in Africa in the post-1966 epoch – beginning with the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-present day, the foundational and most gruesome genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of this nation’s population were murdered by Nigeria and its allies, principally Britain. Africa and the rest of the world largely stood by and watched as the perpetrators enacted this horror most ruthlessly. The world could have stopped this genocide; the world should have stopped this genocide. This genocide inaugurated Africa’s current age of pestilence. During the period, 12 million additional Africans have been murdered in further genocide in Rwanda (1994), Zaïre/DRCongo (variously, since the late 1990s) and Darfur – west of the Sudan – (since 2004) and in other wars in Africa. African peoples have, presently, no other choice but exit/dismantle the extant genocide-state (the bane of their existence & progress) & construct own nation-centred states that serve their interests. He is author of several books & papers on the subject and his new book is entitled The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019).
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