How Coltrane Broke "My Favorite Things" (feat. Adam Neely)

this video is sponsored by skillshare for a limited time use the link in the description to get a free trial of skillshare premium in the last few months i've been obsessed with john coltrane's take on my favorite things i listen to it over and over again until it feels like i'm being put into a trance and i'm not the only one who's made this comparison coltrane's take on the song is often compared to a whirling dervish a kind of sufi meditation technique of course that sound is a far cry from the original version of the song my favorite things was written by rogers and hammerstein a powerhouse duo of musical theater who are responsible for half of everything you know about broadway musicals working in the 1940s the two of them kick-started the golden age of musicals when they came onto the scene musicals were built around showcasing the biggest stars of the day like ethel merman rogers and hammerstein still cared about their stars but their process prioritized something else the narratives of the show they knew that by crafting compelling relatable stories you could entrance audiences in a whole new way this approach set the standard for nearly all musicals to come without the influence of rogers and hammerstein none of these would exist as well as probably any other musical you love the last musical that rogers and hammerstein ever made together was the sound of music which debuted on broadway in 1959 it was an instant classic when it was adapted into a movie a decade later it won five academy awards and became the highest grossing film of all time to that date one of the most beloved songs from the sound of music was my favorite things these are a few of my favorite things the song strikes a simple primal nerve singing about the innocent joys and fears of life it serves to display the plucky optimism of the show's heroine maria in the silver screen version this role was brought to life by julie andrews but before andrews made the role her own it was performed on broadway by mary martin raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens while my favorite things works as light-hearted standard fare the song is actually sung on the backdrop of a harrowing story the sound of music takes place in austria in 1938 as nazi germany was rising to power it's based on the true story of the von trapp family singers as they fled from the nazis this story provided a cheery salve for a generation that was still reeling from the trauma of world war ii and nowhere was that more clear than my favorite things [Music] so what is it about this cheerful populist song that attracted one of the most innovative minds in all of jazz to understand that we need to look at where coltrane was when he got his hands on the song in 1960 for almost his entire career coltrane had been at the forefront of experimentation in jazz the same year that the sound of music debuted on broadway coltrane recorded giant steps a song that pushed the style of bebop to its logical extreme and has since become a rite of passage in jazz circles but coltrane and his contemporaries weren't satisfied with simply breaking bebop they were on a constant quest to find the next new thing and they found it with a school of thought known as modal jazz pioneered by the composer and theorist george russell modal jazz provided a new way of looking at music rather than basing the music around chord progressions like bebop did modal jazz was based on musical modes to oversimplify modes are specific kinds of scales and building songs around these scales rather than chords gives musicians freedom to experiment and to modulate through different tone centers the result is a kind of open freedom in music that the rigid structures of bebop didn't allow food miles davis displayed the power of this concept on his 1959 album kind of blue which features coltrane on tenor sax as two of the brightest minds in all of jazz coltrane and davis were constantly encouraging each other to push new boundaries in fact it was miles davis who bought coltrane a soprano saxophone when the two were touring in europe together armed with a new instrument and a new school of musical thought coltrane set out to record his own albums showcasing the power of modal jazz but while kind of blue used original compositions coltrane decided to apply modal jazz to popular familiar standards he took on george gershwin's classic summertime as well as cold porters every time we say goodbye by looking towards popular songs coltrane was making a statement he was drawing the attention of the mainstream and showing them the power that modal jazz had as a concept but that still doesn't fully answer our question why did coltrane center his album around a song from a recent musical and not another piece from the great american songbook well to answer that question i thought it would be best to call in someone who is far more qualified to talk about this sort of thing than me adam neely well there's so much that you could talk about when it comes to my favorite things but i wanted to talk specifically about form and structure as it relates to the original song because i think there's something unique about it that made it so appealing to coltrane when he wanted to turn it into modal jazz now typical broadway and tin pen alley songs of the era follow an aaba form which is called song form my favorite things is a little bit unusual in that it follows an a a a prime b form so the bridge actually occurs at the very end of the structure the a section's melody which we hear three times in a row focuses very heavily on the root the perfect fifth up from the root and then the major second up from the root what's very interesting about this melody is that there are no thirds present and thirds are very important in melodies and harmonies because they define whether or not a tonality is minor or major what that basically means here is that we can hear the same melody in both minor and major super cool this is exactly what happens in the original recording the first two a sections are in minor and then that third a section the a prime section is in major and coltrane and his band ruthlessly exploited this kind of major minor duality with the recording furiously exploring ideas in minor and then also exploring ideas in the parallel major [Music] there's a big difference in feeling when you're shifting between the minor modality and the major modality but it's united by an e root keeping that low note keeping that drone stable as the colors shift on top of it is really at the heart of a lot of modal jazz ideas from the era and the fact that rogers and hammerstein wrote a popular broadway song with an a section that just repeated over and over again shifting between minor and major well just kind of a no-brainer for john coltrane to use that material for his own personal jazz goals and after all what are we even doing in our lives if we aren't taking every opportunity to try and achieve our very own jazz goals [Music] thanks adam be sure to check out adam neely's channel if you want to see some of the best music content on the entire internet coltrane couldn't reach his jazz goals alone a big part of what makes my favorite things shine is the chemistry of coltrane's quartet in addition to steve davis's anchoring baseline coltrane's dancing soprano was supported by mccoy tyner's piano vamps and elvin jones's jazz waltz groove when coltrane comes in with his melody it's different than the rogers and hammerstein original coltrane's version of the melody is syncopated and he adds a short vamp to the end of each phrase this allows him to pull you into a hypnotic spiral [Music] and once you're in it's hard to get out [Music] fueled by simple repetitive vamps mccoy tyner and coltrane are able to exchange solos exploring that interaction between major and minor [Music] coltrane's modal explorations were inspired by the innovations of george russell and miles davis but there was another key inspiration behind his take on my favorite things indian classical music one key feature of indian music is the raga an improvisational framework that is not unlike modes in western music the indian influence also comes through in davis's baseline indian classical music is usually anchored by a simple low droning part drawing from indian music allows coltrane to stretch rogers and hammerstein's piece to its very extremes the original song clocks in at a little over two minutes while coltrane's studio version flirts with the 14 minute mark this is wild enough on its own but what's even crazier is the structure of coltrane's exploration rather than putting the b section at the end of three a sections like the original song coltrane holds off for 12 and a half minutes he repeats his modified take on the a sections and then finally in the last moments of the song coltrane introduces the b section before bringing things home this creates an astounding kind of catharsis finally freeing you from the looping trance of vamps that have defined most of the song [Music] coltrane released my favorite things in 1961 and it instantly became one of the most commercially successful songs of his entire career the album was certified gold and the song itself even got issued as a single an extreme rarity for jazz of that time by turning to broadway and to some of the greatest songwriters of all time coltrane was able to find a song that could simultaneously push jazz experimentation and appeal to a more widespread audience to me john coltrane's take on my favorite things is emblematic of what makes jazz such a dynamic exciting genre of music coltrane was able to take a song written by an all-time master and exploit its composition in doing so he transformed the piece into a holy unique listening experience as you can probably tell from this video i love typography it's one of my favorite aspects of making videos and it's just generally an art that i deeply respect 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Channel: Polyphonic

Views: 344,256

Keywords: polyphonic, music, video essay

Id: Bg1RGmyl-_A

Length: 14min 3sec (843 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 03 2020