MUSIC REVIEW - The John Coltrane Quartet Plays

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Artist: John Coltrane
Genre: Jazz
Release Year: 1965 (re-release 2009)
Label: Impulse!

Like all people who love jazz and have their head screwed on right, I think of John Coltrane as no less than a legend. With the ability to compose the likes of Giant Steps and the imagination to convert My Favourite Things into a jazz anthem, he deserves no greater compliment. So naturally I was very excited about buying my first of his albums.

It's the biggest man-made disaster since global warming.

From the opening track, I was expecting another Favourite Things; a traditional musical number turned into a stylish jazz waltz. There is nothing stylish about this car-crash. Coltrane squeals his way through it like a pig that's been force-fed a bacon sandwich, and Elvin Jones sounds as if he was taught to play the drums through anger-management lessons. Chim Chim Cheree is a disaster.

But I guess McCoy Tyner deserves credit for learning to play the piano...with his face.

Maybe Song of Praise can redeem the album? Maybe Coltrane will play more tunefully on his usual saxophone, the tenor? The opening holds promise, the lilting melody holds your attention. Then I think Coltrane's music fell off the stand, and I hit the skip track button, imagining the blood dripping from Tyner's broken nose.

Nature Boy follows the same pattern, a beautifully played cadenza at the beginning, which belly-flops.

I didn't even bother listening to the last track.

1/10


Buy "The John Coltrane Quartet Plays" on amazon.co.uk.


So there's my view on this classic jazz album. If you've heard it, tell us what you think in the comments below.
And that's Crash Hub fill for today. Tomorrow is TV day, and I'll have all the most recent news for you, including the announcement of a new cop drama starring David Tennant. See you then
Tom :)

MUSIC REVIEW - Pointless Nostalgic

Artist: Jamie Cullum
Genre: Jazz/Pop
Release Year: 2005
Label: Candid

Right from the first note, it is obvious that Pointless Nostalgic isn't a traditional jazz album. Although Art Tatum and Keith Jarrett make fleeting entrances in Cullum's playing, his voice is his own and so is his style.

You and the Night and the Music is cheeky, and  I Can't Get Started is endearing, but the album doesn't really get going until the third track, an explosive cover of the jazz standard Devil May Care. Geoff Gascoyne's arrangement is a masterpiece and Cullum delivers a perfect vocal performance that is spikier than an electrocuted hedgehog. Martin Shaw's squeaky clean trumpet solo is also worth noting.

You're Nobody 'Till Somebody Loves You is an easy-going version of the jazz standard, cutting back to minimal instrumentation. It's not experimental, it's not ambitious, this is as pure and simple as jazz gets.

In Pointless Nostalgic, Cullum dips his toes into the ocean of pop music for the first time, but still keeps one foot firmly grounded on the beach of jazz. It is certainly a risk worth taking; the song brims with charm and charisma, and you can't help but relate to the catchy refrain, "Photographs lost in time are all I see/A pointless nostalgic, that's me".

And just as you think the album can't get any better....it doesn't.

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning is disappointing after the gem of the previous track. The introduction sounds like the brass band had one too many on Christmas Eve, and when the tune does eventually come in, it plods on slower than a tortoise on crutches.

Thankfully, in the form of Thelonias Monk's Well You Needn't, help is at hand. Cullum breathes new life into a great jazz classic and makes it his own, as he also does with It Ain't Necessarily So, which - for me - is the highlight of the album. Cullum really captures the mood of the song, and adds enough grit to  make the M25 safe in a blizzard.

The rest of the album carries on in the same way. High and Dry is an intelligent cover of the Radiohead original, and Lookin' Good shares the runaway cheek that started in Devil May Care.

The album takes its curtain call on I Want To Be A Popstar. It's a witty look at the modern music industry and it's irony more than makes up for the frankly dull melody.

Overall, Pointless Nostalgic is a fun debut for Cullum, and is full of promise and potential for future releases.

7/10
Buy Jamie Cullum's Pointless Nostalgic from amazon.co.uk


Tell us what you think of this album in the comments below. As always, we'd love to hear from you
Tom :)