Alabama

My favourite song by John Coltrane (jazz saxophonist) is Alabama. You can watch a performance of it at Jazz Casual on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j_TDoOPnIA or listen to it on the album: John Coltrane - Live at Birdland (Impulse!).

The next quotation stands on the inside cover of the original lp and cd.

"If you have heard Slow dance or After the rain, then you might be prepared for the kind of feeling that Alabama carries. I didn't realize until now what a beautiful word Alabama is. That is one function of art, to reveal beauty, common or uncommon, uncommonly. And that's what Trane does. Bob Thiele asked Trane if the title "had any significance to today's problems". I suppose he meant literally. Coltrane answered, "It represents, musically, something I saw down there translated into music from inside me."

Which is to say, listen. And what we're given is a slow delicate introspective sadness, almost hopelessness, except for Elvin, rising in the background like something out of nature... a fattening thunder, storm clouds or jungle war clouds. The whole is a frightening emotional portrait of some place, in these musicians' feelings. If that "real" Alabama was the catalyst, more power to it, and may it be this beautiful, even in its destruction."

I can't write anything else as Leroi Jones did - which is to say, listen. Listen to the deep rumbling of the piano and above the melody of the saxophone which shows something new about this world.