The Depths · All albums

Ascension

John Coltrane · 1966

• Scores: Noise 5, Unease 5, Complexity 3 (each 1 to 5)
• Genre: Jazz, Free jazz
• Mood: searing, overwhelming, ecstatic
• Sound: single 40-minute track, eleven-piece group, collective improvisation, screaming saxophones, no fixed tempo

Ascension is a single piece of about 40 minutes for eleven musicians, recorded in one unrehearsed session on 28 June 1965 at Van Gelder Studio. Coltrane handed out lead sheets and the group, including Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Freddie Hubbard and McCoy Tyner, played dense collective sections between solos that each take roughly equal space. The music is built on a succession of modes instead of chord changes, and seven wind players overlap so thickly that individual lines are hard to pick out. It marked Coltrane's move away from his quartet into free jazz and was a heavy influence on Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun.

Track list

1. Ascension (Edition I) (38:30)
2. Ascension (Edition II) (40:49)