Screamin' John …

…Catastrophic Coltrane by Geoff Dyer | The Gallery | The New York Review of Books. (Hatt tip, Dave Lull.)

The novelty or specific interest of this set is the way that Trane sort of sings, or vocalizes, or makes noises and beats his chest in the midst of “Leo” and “My Favorite Things.” These eagerly anticipated moments actually sound a bit daft—which is not to say that they were without value. Perhaps they stayed with Pharoah and provided inspiration for the occasion when, while tearing up Coltrane’s “Ole” at the Keystone Korner on January 23, 1982, he takes the horn out of his mouth and screams. The scream is like fuel thrown on a fire already blazing with the power of Pharoah’s solo and the gale force of the rhythm section. That kind of propulsive force—saturated with elements first harnessed by Coltrane’s classic quartet—was considerably diminished in the sonic shimmer of Trane’s last phase: something he felt he no longer needed, that he may even have regarded as restricting his journey to…