Jazz, possibly more than any other art form, has always had a Tiresian relationship to time. “What’s that?” I hear you splutter? “Tiresian? Who does this human Irn Bru can think he is?!”
You know – Tiresias – the blind prophet from ancient Thebes who could simultaneously see into the past and the future. Well, jazz has always operated within that creative wormhole. There’s a sense that each successive generation has studiously grown out of the compost of the past. And no matter how avant-garde it’s manifested, there’s an insistence that you need a comprehensive knowledge base to abstract from while giving expression to the constant newness of the moment.
If we can stretch the Greek metaphor a little further, John Coltrane is widely regarded as Zeus in the pantheon of jazz greats. He’s the O.G. – the iconoclast who did the most to extend the language of the form whilst suffusing it with an intense spirituality. Or perhaps he’s Prometheus who stole fire from the gods and, as punishment, Zeus chained him to a rock where an eagle ate his liver for all eternity. John Coltrane died of liver cancer in 1967, and he gave the world fire music in its most Promethean form.
Now, to celebrate the centenary of his birth, legendary drummer Kahil El’Zabar has released Sketches For Trane, an astonishing suite in tribute to Trane.
El’Zabar has been a titanic figure on the Chicago jazz scene since the early 70s. He founded the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, was a member of AACM and has played with everyone from Pharoah Sanders to Nina Simone. But perhaps his most enduring collaboration has been with saxophonist David Murray. They perform together here on Trane in Mind – an El’Zabar composition which has some of the playful energy of Art Ensemble of Chicago in its juxtaposition of see-saw melodies and heavy free-blowing. Murray is particularly incendiary, supercharging streams of logic with torrents of emotion. It sounds like he’s turning himself inside out to find the particular crack in his reed that’ll make the band levitate.
On Sketches of a Love Supreme, El’Zabar reinvents the iconic opening of the original with a wonderfully lopsided, skip-rhythm before Dwight Trible’s singing vibrates with a spiritual candour last heard on Albert Ayler’s Music is the Healing Force of the Universe. The message of cosmic yearning is particularly poignant alongside Corey Wilkes’ exquisite trumpet and David Ornette Cherry’s (son of Don, brother of Nenah and Eagle-Eye) majestic piano. It was recorded 9 months before Cherry’s tragic passing in a hotel room in London following a performance at a tribute concert to his father.
Resolution is the second movement on A Love Supreme, and here Isiah Collier reinterprets it with the mastery of a Cubist painter, offering multiple perspectives of the main themes simultaneously. He achieves an immolating transcendence alongside sudden bursts of El’Zabar’s drum-clouds and Justin Dillard’s keys. Album closer Sketches of an Afro Blue offers up a dense layer of tessellating percussion, like the pavement convulsing beneath your dancing feet. This provides a jiving bedrock for Ishmael Ali to explore the outer limits of his cello, spinning line upon line of celestial chi.
At the tender age of 72, Kahil El’Zabar has created a work which pays homage to a great whilst also showcasing his own greatness. He’s gone back to the future to propagate Coltrane’s message of expanded human potential to a new generation of listeners and he’s produced one of the best albums I’ve reviewed for KLOF. That’s one small step for man, one Giant Steps for mankind.
Sketches For Trane (September 23rd, 2026) Spiritmuse Records