Coltrane’s Shadow
Illustration by Demetrios Psillos
John Coltrane played his final live performances as a sideman on tour with Miles Davis in Europe in spring 1960. Returning home, the 33-year-old tenor and soprano saxophonist organized his first full-time working band, launching an odyssey that would soon elevate him into the inner circle of jazz innovators. At the same moment, a 31-year-old Coltrane-obsessed tenor saxophonist on the Philadelphia-South New Jersey scene named Frank Tiberi purchased a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Lucky us.
From June 1960 through late 1964, Tiberi schlepped his recorder to nightclubs in Philadelphia and New York to capture, surreptitiously, his idol in the heat of creation. Tiberi kept the bulky machine—a Concertone TR-100 for any vintage gearheads reading this—on his lap and hidden in a cloth bag. He ran the microphone through his coat and learned to switch reels inside the bag like a blind man. Ultimately, Tiberi’s archive held more than 26 hours of music on 80-plus reels.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Coltrane’s birth on Sept. 23, Impulse Records will issue The Tiberi Tapes, a three-hour survey on four LPs or three CDs in early November. Essentially unheard by anyone other than Tiberi, a small circle of his peers and students, and a lucky insider here and there, the tapes have been the stuff of legend for decades. In an era in which consumers are bombarded by Barnumesque industry claims of lost masterpieces, unearthed rarities, and supernatural live recordings, I am thrilled to report that for once such hype is justified. When I finally heard Tiberi’s tapes, the first words that leapt to mind were “revelatory,” “electrifying,” and “holy shit!”
It’s hard to overstate Coltrane’s impact on American music as a saxophonist, improviser, bandleader, composer, and conceptualist. Before his death from cancer at age 40 in 1967, he remade the fundamentals of modern jazz in his own image: melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, form, small-group dialogue, and the sound of the saxophone. His influence, especially the interactive post-bop language he developed in collaboration with his revolutionary quartet from 1961-65, remains omnipresent. His contrails settled as far afield as psychedelic rock (The Byrds), proto punk (MC5), and classical minimalism (Steve Reich).
Coltrane’s laserlike tone compelled attention. He took listeners on a trip, elevated the spirit, offered catharsis. He modeled a career of relentless experimentation and spiritual transcendence. He evolved astonishingly fast, shedding his stylistic skin four or five times in the final dozen years of his life.
In a Barnumesque age, for once the hype is justified
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The Tiberi Tapes chronicle Coltrane’s development within the laboratory of nightly performances at the Jazz Gallery in New York and the Showboat and Pep’s in Philadelphia. The musical ground covered ranges from Giant Steps (1959) through A Love Supreme (1964), the two landmark Coltrane studio recordings that define the aesthetic poles. Especially compelling is hearing the saxophonist wrestle in real time with the dialectical binaries that define his artistic DNA: tradition versus innovation, discipline versus freedom, the Apollonian search for order versus the Dionysian expression of passion.
Echoing these tensions, Coltrane once said: “Damn the rules, it’s the feeling that counts. You play all 12 notes in your solo anyway.” As an aphorism, this is usually interpreted as an endorsement of Ezra Pound’s modernist imperative to “make it new.” That’s not wrong, but, crucially, Coltrane’s experiments were always grounded in his deep roots in blues, bebop, swing, and his rigorous study of the saxophone, scales, harmony, and form.
All of which is to say that The Tiberi Tapes peak in 1963-64, when Coltrane’s mature quartet—with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, drummer Elvin Jones—achieved a grand synthesis of the past, present, and future. Head and heart, intellect and emotion, stand in profound balance.
A potent example: the incendiary, 25-minute performance of Tadd Dameron’s mid-1940s bebop urtext “Good Bait,” taped at the Showboat in November 1963. That’s late in the game for this cutting-edge ensemble to address a traditional bebop calling card. Coltrane plays a 17-minute tenor saxophone improvisation of such furious densities, split tones, screams, and other vocalized inflections that it sounds like he’s speaking in tongues. Standard harmony disappears in a bacchanal of ecstatic abstraction and expressive dissonance.
Yet Coltrane never completely leaves the orbit of the 32-bar, AABA song form. His ability to stretch and snap the rules with such meaning and depth derives precisely from the coupling of his fervid intent with a sophisticated understanding of harmony, motivic development, and the blues. The quartet swings with such tenacious and unified intensity that all you can do is marvel at the audacious creativity gifted human beings are capable of with musical instruments in their hands.
Tyner’s miraculous piano solo reconciles power and grace within an influential language and touch as singular as any in jazz history. Garrison’s magisterial beat connects the quartet to a universal center of gravity. Jones’ crashing waves of ingenious polyrhythms push the saxophonist to ever greater heights, especially during an extended tenor-drums duet. The exhilaration that “Good Bait” engenders in a listener is as overwhelming as a conversion experience.
Despite the furioso attack, the quartet doesn’t force anything. Everyone sounds in the flow, and casual mastery radiates from the bandstand. A truism in jazz and life: The more you relax, the harder you can work. The cozy confines of the Showboat and an audience of hip and predominantly Black regulars inspire the musicians to push the envelope. The homefolk in Philly respond to Coltrane at full cry with shouts of their own akin to a Pentecostal revival.
A quick caveat: The Tiberi Tapes will speak louder to connoisseurs than casual fans or newcomers. Despite impressive audio restoration by Impulse engineers that yields reasonable fidelity by bootleg standards, audience noise, distortion, and imbalances—drums are often in your face; bass is often inaudible—will trouble those unable or unwilling to excuse these issues for the exceptional music.
Tiberi, still with us at 97, was no audiophile. He taped Coltrane for his own edification. He transcribed the solos, assimilated the knowledge, and shared the lessons with his students. He’s best known for his long tenure with the Woody Herman Orchestra, joining in 1969 and assuming leadership of the band after Herman’s death in 1987.
In 2001, Tiberi, Impulse, and the Coltrane estate began discussing a deal for the label to preserve and acquire the tapes, but getting them into the marketplace proved problematic. Technology at the time could do only so much to improve fidelity, and the overall costs balanced with potential CD sales argued against a major release. The economics land differently today. The current vinyl renaissance, plus streaming, advances in audio restoration, and the marketing hook of a Coltrane centennial point to commercial viability.
Impulse released a 25-minute teaser LP last spring as part of the industry-driven Record Store Day. Eventually, the label plans to issue all 26-plus hours digitally. Meantime, the current release should satisfy all but the most insane Coltrane fanatics. Don’t judge us, please.
Beyond the music, the package includes three worthwhile essays: Coltrane biographer Lewis Porter’s insightful guide to the music; scholar Lauren Du Graf’s valuable portrait of midcentury Black Philadelphia and its vibrant jazz scene that nurtured Coltrane; and author Ashley Kahn’s introduction and generous overview of Tiberi’s contributions and his peripatetic career.
The Tiberi Tapes have an antecedent. Alto saxophonist and bebop Prometheus Charlie Parker inspired even greater cultish idolatry in the 1940s than Coltrane did in the ’60s. An obscure saxophonist, Dean Benedetti, followed Parker around with a recorder. Some 40 years later, Mosaic Records released seven hours of material in fidelity inferior to Tiberi’s tapes and in fragmented takes; Benedetti usually recorded only Parker’s solos, turning off the machine when he wasn’t playing. Tiberi did his best to document entire performances, though Coltrane’s marathon improvisations were obstacles. Still, eight of the 11 selections here are complete.
The Tiberi Tapes stand with other archival Coltrane club recordings this century that illuminate his evolution: Live at the Half Note: One Down, One Up (2005), A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle (2021), and Evenings at the Village Gate (2023). Like these, The Tiberi Tapes fill in gaps, tell us things we don’t know, and reaffirm familiar truths with fresh evidence.
Coltrane devotees will be excited by the surprising repertoire among The Tiberi Tapes. Two versions of “Giant Steps” are the only extant examples of Coltrane playing his seminal composition in a club. Two unrecorded Coltrane compositions appear for the first time, “Thing in D-Flat” and “Untitled Original in F Minor.” (Titles were assigned by Porter, set producer Ken Druker, and the Coltrane estate lawyer.) New to Coltrane’s live discography are his own “Satellite,” Richard Rodgers’ “Lover,” and Wilbur Harden’s “West 42nd Street.” Also eye-opening: a rare version of Coltrane’s “Resolution,” which became the second movement of A Love Supreme, taped 10 weeks prior to the iconic studio recording.
The 1960-61 tracks show Coltrane heading in two opposite directions, one toward greater harmonic complexity, the other toward greater harmonic simplicity. He remained infatuated with the groundbreaking and fast-moving chord changes he introduced on “Giant Steps” and the evocative harmonic colors they conjure. The chords and key centers move in unusual, third-related intervals rather than conventional fourths and fifths.
The challenging harmony and racehorse tempo of the studio recording of “Giant Steps” pushed Coltrane into well-practiced scale and arpeggio patterns when he improvised. He sometimes sounds as if he’s chasing the chords through a maze rather than improvising true melodies. The head trumps the heart.
But the heart fights back on the live version of “Giant Steps” that opens The Tiberi Tapes. The less frenzied tempo allows Coltrane’s solo to breathe with greater melodic lyricism and rhythmic flexibility. Only 21, Tyner also plays a startling solo. The second “Giant Steps,” nearly as speedy as the studio version, prompts a more anxious, button-down Coltrane, and Tyner doesn’t solo. Both live versions include bassist Steve Davis and animated drummer Pete La Roca.
“Giant Steps”-related chords pop up on “Satellite” and “Thing in D-Flat.” The latter, taped in July 1960, is an intriguing steeplechase 44-bars in length and loosely inspired by Dizzy Gillespie’s “Woody’n You.” The quartet scampers through the AABA form (8-8-16-12) with a 2-bar break at the end of each chorus that lifts the bandstand. Coltrane’s wild improvisation and La Roca’s feisty dialogue manhandle the song. The coda points to the future: Harmony slows to a standstill and Coltrane solos aggressively, running in and out of the key over a sustained A-flat in the bass.
The coda’s minimal harmony opens a window on Coltrane’s other major preoccupation on The Tiberi Tapes: the “modal” concepts that Miles Davis spearheaded on Kind of Blue (1959) with Coltrane in the band. In modal music, static harmony and scales (modes) provide the structure for improvisation rather than repeating chord cycles. For Coltrane, this offered liberation from the potential tyranny of “Giant Steps” complexity.
Coltrane’s anthem “Impressions” fuses just two minor chords a half step apart. On a swift reading in July 1961, Coltrane’s supercharged, 13-minute improvisation roams freely in and out of the basic tonalities. Some of his melodic patterns echo the movement of his “Giant Steps”-related harmonies but without the prescriptive chordal accompaniment. His solo builds to a series of honking and screaming climaxes reaching 9.9 on the Richter scale. Multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy, halfway through his year in Coltrane’s group, plays a kinetic alto saxophone solo of bracing angularity.
The Coltrane quartet entered a state of grace by 1963. Intellect and passion were now indivisible in the leader’s conception and execution. The music strikes the ear as pure expression. You hear this on “Good Bait” in 1963 and the epic, 33-minute “Resolution” at Pep’s in September 1964. According to Lewis Porter, “Resolution” was not written initially for A Love Supreme. In the studio three months later, the tempo is a bit brighter and the compact performance clocks in at about seven minutes. Tiberi’s tape is an incredible first draft of history.
Modality was now the primary organizing principle in Coltrane’s music and A Love Supreme his magnum opus. Based on a minor mode, “Resolution” swings relentlessly at a medium tempo. The provocative 8-bar theme outlines a high-to-low contour that morphs from plaintive song into prayer. It repeats three times to create a 24-bar form, and extended improvisations by Coltrane, Tyner, and Garrison grow organically from the pentatonic melody.
It’s a questlike performance surging with tension and release, volatile churn—Elvin Jones!—and violent tsunamis. The quartet manifests charismatic unity, empathetic symbiosis, and sage patience. This is true band music, made by four men who love one another and whose music proves that they would trust each other with their lives. Alas, the center could not hold. By fall 1965, Coltrane was leaning into an avant-garde that dispensed with all mainstream conventions. Tyner and Jones left the group, and the golden age equilibrium of Coltrane’s classic quartet came to an end.
Mark Stryker is the writer and co-producer of a new documentary film The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit and the author of the 2019 book Jazz from Detroit.
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