John Coltrane has been the center of critical controversy ever since he unfurled his sheets of sound in his days with Miles Davis. At first disparaged for his sometimes involved, multinoted solos, Coltrane paid little heed and continued exploring music. In time, his harmonic approach-for the sheets were really rapid chord running, in the main-was accepted, even praised, by most jazz critics. By the time critics had caught up with Coltrane, the tenor saxophonist had gone on to another way of playing. Coltrane II, if you will, was much concerned with linear theme development that seemed sculptured or torn from great blocks of granite. Little critical carping was heard of this second, architectural, Coltrane.
But Coltrane, an inquisitive-minded, probing musician, seemingly has left architecture for less concrete, more abstract means of expression. This third and present Coltrane has encountered an ever-growing block of criticism, much of it marked by a holy-war fervor.
Criticism of Coltrane III is almost always tied in with Coltrane's cohort Eric Dolphy, a member of that group of musicians who play what has been dubbed the "new thing."
Dolphy's playing has been praised and damned since his national-jazz-scene arrival about two years ago. Last summer Dolphy joined Coltrane's group for a tour. It was on this tour that Coltrane and Dolphy came under the withering fire of Down Beat associate editor John Tynan, the first critic to take a strong-and public-stand against what Coltrane and Dolphy were playing.
In the Nov. 23, 1961, Down Beat, Tynan wrote, "At Hollywood's Renaissance club recently, I listened to a horrifying demonstration of what appears to be a growing anti-jazz trend exemplified by those foremost proponents [Coltrane and Dolphy] of what is termed avant garde music.
"I heard a good rhythm section ... go to waste behind the nihilistic exercises of the two horns. ... Coltrane and Dolphy seem intent on deliberately destroying [swing]. ... They seem bent on pursuing an anarchistic course in their music that can but be termed anti-jazz."
The anti-jazz term was picked up by Leonard Feather and used as a basis for critical essays of Coltrane, Dolphy, Ornette Coleman and the "new Thing" in general in Down Beat and Show.
The reaction from readers to both Tynan's and Feather's remarks was immediate, heated, and about evenly divided.
Recently, Coltrane and Dolphy agreed to sit down and discuss their music and the criticism leveled at it.
One of the recurring charges is that their performances are stretched out over too long a time, that Coltrane and Dolphy play on and on, past inspiration and into monotony.
Coltrane answered, "They're long because all the soloists try to explore all the avenues that the tune offers. They try to use all their resources in their solos. Everybody has quite a bit to work on. Like when I'm playing, there are certain things I try to get done and so does Eric and McCoy Tyner [Coltrane's pianist]. By the time we finish, the song is spread out over a pretty long time.
"It's not planned that way; it just happens. The performances get longer and longer. It's sort of growing that way."
But, goes the criticism, there must be editing, just as a writer must edit his work so that it keeps to the point and does not ramble and become boring.
Coltrane agreed that editing must be done-but for essentially a different reason from what might be expected.
"There are times," he said, "when we play places opposite another group, and in order to play a certain number of sets a night, you can't play an hour and a half at one time. You've got to play 45 or 55 minutes and rotate sets with the other band. And for those reasons, for a necessity such as that, I think it's quite in order that you edit and shorten things.
"But when your set is unlimited, timewise, and everything is really together musically-if there's continuity-it really doesn't make any difference how long you p
