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John Coltrane in 1960

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'Giant Steps' At 60: Why John Coltrane's Classic Hard Bop Album Is More Than A Jazz-School Worksheet

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You don't need to know a major third from an augmented ninth to love Trane's masterpiece and jam it loud
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Sep 17, 2020 - 9:14 am

The title track to John Coltrane’s 1960 album Giant Steps is the bed of coals all jazz musicians must traverse barefoot. This key-toggling, high-BPM whirligig has whittled numberless rookies into kindling. Even poor Tommy Flanagan, the (extremely capable) pianist on the recording, is a deer in the headlights during his solo. This must be a drag to listen to, right? A homework assignment in music’s clothing? Coltrane’s way ahead of you. In fact, he agonized over that notion in the very packaging of Giant Steps.

"It may be that sometimes I’ve been trying to force all those extra progressions into a structure where they don’t fit, but this is all something I have to keep working on," the one-time GRAMMY winner and eight-time nominee frets to annotator Nat Hentoff on Giant Steps’ rear sleeve. "I'm worried that sometimes what I’m doing sounds just like academic exercises... I’m trying more and more to make it sound prettier."

Relax, Trane: Giant Steps is supremely accessible—which has a lot to do with his expanding mastery of melody. Which is even more on display by way of Giant Steps: 60th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, a two-disc boxed set available Sept. 18 via Rhino. The Deluxe Edition contains a fresh remaster of the album and eight already-released alternate takes; a Super Deluxe Edition, which contains all 28 of the surviving outtakes, will be available on digital platforms the same day.

"It’s the accessibility that stands out for me… despite how challenging some of the material is," his son Ravi Coltrane, a saxophonist in his own right, says in the boxed set’s press release. "It’s still all very listenable and very joyful." That joy takes many forms, from the familial ("Cousin Mary," "Syeeda’s Song Flute") to the cheeky ("Countdown," "Mr. P.C.") to romantic joy ("Naima").

Coltrane recorded Giant Steps in 1959 with Flanagan, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Art Taylor at the now-defunct Atlantic Studios in midtown Manhattan. (Pianist Wynton Kelly and drummer Jimmy Cobb played on “Naima”; pianist Cedar Walton and drummer Lex Humphries appear on a few alternate takes.) The music they made doesn’t just provide fodder for woodshedders; by running the gamut of emotion, it lays the foundation for Trane’s next masterpiece, 1965’s A Love Supreme.

Three of Giant Steps’ cuts were named after Coltrane’s family members—his cousin Mary Lyerly Alexander, then-wife Juanita Naima Coltrane (née Grubbs) and 10-year-old stepdaughter Syeeda Coltrane. Alexander grew up with Coltrane and, after his 1967 passing, hosted backyard concerts at the home they shared; her community later crowned her "the mother of jazz in Philadelphia" before her death in 2019.

"She’s a very earthy, folksy, swinging person," Coltrane says of Alexander on the album sleeve. "The figure is riff-like and although the changes are not conventional blues progressions, I tried to retain the flavor of the blues." Indeed, "Cousin Mary" evokes strolling down the street on a summer day—and Coltrane’s subtly unorthodox chord sequence keeps this swinging tune from sounding pat.

The real-life Syeeda, who was born Antonia Andrews, was Naima’s child from a previous marriage; her namesake tune has the feeling of a schoolyard game until Trane leaves the station for his solo. "When I ran across it on the piano, it reminded me of her because it sounded like a happy child’s song,” Coltrane recalls on the album sleeve.

Those lighter moments aside, Giant Steps often genuinely rocks; this artist didn’t influence Jimi Hendrix for nothing. And "Countdown," a look-what-I-can-do showcase, is essentially the moment where he lights his sax on fire. While it’s arguably the most disposable track on the album, "Countdown" is charming for its brazenness. As for "Mr. P.C.," a barrelling homage to bassist Chambers, there’s only one thing to say: If the hair on the back of your neck isn’t erect by the end, your capacity for wonder might be stripped out.

Plus, the title track may have been an attempt to best another tenor master. “I think ‘Giant Steps’ was a byproduct of what Trane attempted to do in the Miles Davis tune called ‘Tune Up’,” jazz-blues multi-instrumentalist Roger Boykin said in a 2019 episode of the Songs of Note podcast.

"I’d assume that he did that because of a rivalry he had with Sonny Rollins. Sonny Rollins had recorded ‘Tune Up’ and he played it so well, man… I think because of that competition between these two giants of the tenor saxophone, Coltrane attempted to do something even more brilliant.” (Boykin also cites the turnaround in pianist Tadd Dameron’s “Lady Bird” and the major-third motion in Rodgers and Hart’s “Have You Met Miss Jones?” as probable influences.)

But Coltrane doesn’t spend all of Giant Steps in fighting mode; far from it. The lovers’ sigh “Naima” is one of the most captivatingly minimal compositions he ever wrote. In the years after the couple’s 1963 split (they divorced in 1965), Coltrane began to tinker with “Naima” — whether adding pensive curlicues on Blue World (recorded in 1964, released in 2019) or flipping it upside-down onstage with his partner-in-crime Eric Dolphy on clarinet. But this version of "Naima" stands tallest; few love ballads sizzle like it.

Giant Steps was acclaimed upon its release. Down Beat proclaimed "You can tag this LP as one of the important ones." The Jazz Review insisted even non-jazz listeners would love it: "Everyone, even those who have had reservations about Coltrane, should hear this set."

And after successfully blending artistic intrepidity and hummable appeal on Giant Steps, Coltrane committed himself—at least momentarily—to chasing tunes first and foremost. "Now that I’m trying to write melody first, the melody will be that more important," he later told interviewer Alan Grant. "Eventually I may derive some melodies which maybe have some quality, some lasting value of some sort."

As was his wont, Coltrane was being overly modest to the press; if he’d hung up his horn after Giant Steps, these seven jewel-like tunes would still have established him as a melodic master. If you can deconstruct and examine Giant Steps on a harmonic level, by all means, dive in—it’s a thing of practically Einsteinian mathematical beauty.

But is that knowledge requisite to enjoying it? Absolutely not. Really, the only work you have to do is on your volume control. Your life will be a lot more giant for it.

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Lin-Manuel Miranda (L) and host/creator Hrishikesh Hirway (R) in "Song Exploder"

Lin-Manuel Miranda (L) and host/creator Hrishikesh Hirway (R) in "Song Exploder"

Photo: Eric Veras/Netflix

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Beat By Beat: How "Song Exploder" Unlocks The Intimacy Of Music And Creativity

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Based on the popular podcast, the newly launched Netflix series dissects classics and current hits one layer at a time, while host and creator Hrishikesh Hirway finds the human connection behind it all
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Oct 20, 2020 - 4:54 pm

Most people know "Song Exploder" as the popular podcast giving die-hard music fans a deep, inside look into the sonic mechanics behind their favorite tracks. A whole new class of music-heads now knows "Song Exploder" as the new Netflix series bringing the creativity behind music to the digital screen.

Originally launched as a podcast in 2014, "Song Exploder" dissects classic and current fan-favorite songs, with guest artists breaking down each individual track and element in detail to paint an intimate audio portrait of their art. The podcast, which has accumulated more than 60 million streams and downloads over the years and has hosted guests like U2, Selena Gomez, Björk, Fleetwood Mac, Solange and many others, now breathes new life as a Netflix docuseries. 

Introduced on the streaming platform at the beginning of October, "Song Exploder" adds an even deeper layer of storytelling and personal insight to the songs being deconstructed beat by beat. The show's inaugural four-episode run features Alicia Keys ("3 Hour Drive"), Lin-Manuel Miranda ("Wait For It" from "Hamilton"), R.E.M. ("Losing My Religion") and Ty Dolla $ign ("LA"). (Last week [Oct. 15], Netflix unveiled its next slate of guests for the show's second season, set to debut Dec. 15: Dua Lipa, The Killers, Nine Inch Nails and Natalia Lafourcade.

Whether in visual or podcast format, the core of "Song Exploder" remains the same: "an intimate portrait of an artist telling the story of how their artistic mind worked through creating one of their songs," host and creator Hrishikesh Hirway tells GRAMMY.com.

GRAMMY.com chatted with Hrishikesh Hirway about the human connection behind his new "Song Exploder" Netflix series and how he hopes the show will inspire others to create their own art.

You have an endless supply of songs from which to choose for any given "Song Exploder" episode, podcast and show. What needs to stand out in a song in order for you to develop it for "Song Exploder"?

The first step in the process is really identifying the artists before even getting to the song, because, frankly, I don't know necessarily which songs might have the best stories. The most famous songs don't necessarily have the most interesting stories, and the people who know that better than anyone are the people who made the songs.

But what I can try and determine is which artists seem really interesting and thoughtful, good storytellers, and who are also beloved by a lot of people. That's kind of where I start. And once I can get an artist onboard to talk about a song in this way, then I start the process of trying to narrow down which song it's going to be with them.

I feel like I don't know what the story [of the song] is all the time. There are a lot of songs that haven't necessarily been delved into, and frankly, I'm always interested in something like that ... where the backstory [of a song] hasn't been canonized and "Song Exploder" can be a place to tell it for the first time. So I really am relying on input from the artists ... The question that I ask them, frankly, is: Which of your songs do you feel the most emotional attachment to?

Ultimately, the most interesting stories, I think, when it comes to making songs or really making any kind of art, are about people and their feelings and the things that inspire them to make something at all. Even though the show is about music, it's also a portrait of each of these artists. In order to tell you something insightful, especially for it to be something that could be interesting to people who aren't people who make music themselves and also aren't necessarily even familiar with the artist or the song, it has to be something that connects to something in the human experience that feels significant.

I always try to make "Song Exploder" a show that reflected a broad range of genres and artists and backgrounds. So there's kind of almost a guarantee that you couldn't just get people hooked on the show based on who the artists were and what the songs were; I want everybody to watch every episode and listen to every episode of the podcast because I think that it's a worthwhile conversation to have. I think the creative process is something that's really fascinating in and of itself. It's an example of how people react to their own experience, to actually decide to make something based on their ideas, what they lived through, what they love ... The thing that I'm actually most interested in is that kind of emotional experience: the emotional attachment to the act of creating a piece of music.

Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in "Song Exploder"

Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in "Song Exploder" | Photo: Courtesy of Netflix/Netflix

There's a moment in the R.E.M. episode where frontman Michael Stipe gets almost emotional listening to his own voice on the band's classic, "Losing My Religion," and hearing the song elements broken down and presented to him in such an intimate manner, even after so many years since the song's release. How do you go about getting artists to open up to you and dive into their art so deeply?

I think one thing that helps is that I'm not really approaching [the interview process] head-on, certainly not right away. The questions don't start off front and center in like an emotionally investigative way. I think I have to earn their trust first, and part of that is from talking about the mechanics of the process first. That's the entry point in all these conversations. One of the reasons why having the [song's] stems is important, not just in terms of letting the listeners know what's going on in the song, but in terms of being able to facilitate that conversation with the artist.

Of all of the questions, the hardest one to answer is probably, "Why?" "Why did you decide to make the song this way? Why did you write this lyric? Why did you choose this chord progression?" That's the hardest [question], but it's also the one that I'm most interested in. But it's a little easier to start off with, first of all, "What?" "What are we listening to?" And then to ask them, "OK, how did you make it? And when did you make it?" All those basic factual questions are a way to just let them and me submerge ourselves into the memories of making that song.

Once they're there and able to relive some of the experience of it by hearing the actual evidence of the stuff that they did on that day—hearing their voice, hearing the instrument, hearing the actual track that they recorded around that time—it's a lot easier to ask them to then dig a few layers deeper and ask what was going on in their lives and how that might've fed into some of those creative decisions.

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You're now juggling the show and the podcast. How do you decide what songs go on the podcast format and what goes in video format?

Well, the podcast is a lot of work for a podcast, but that means that I'm still able to turn around an episode in a few weeks, whereas the TV show takes a much longer time to put together. There are just so many more components to it, and it's so much more work.

Part of the pitch for doing the television show is that I was trying to ask these artists to take a leap of faith, [like,] "This is something that's going to take a while to make, so you can't tie it to your promotional calendar, necessarily. I can't guarantee that it'll come out on such and such date to coincide with your single release or something like that." It was really more like, "Would you like to participate in this thing where there'll be this really meticulously crafted mini-documentary about this work that you did, and it's sort of evergreen."

That's a different pitch than with the podcast. Although with the podcast, I say all those things, too. I say it's evergreen and it's always better when it's not necessarily tied to your release schedule and more like when people have had a chance to live with the song a little bit. But one of the advantages of the podcast is it can be a little more nimble because it's a little easier to put together.

So this is a long way of saying that a lot of times that question is answered by the artists themselves or their publicists or managers, who are looking for a very specific outcome or timing, or they have something in mind, and that could be a matter of scale. It really depends on the circumstances of the artist and what works for them.

Fans who've been following the podcast for a while will find a totally different experience when they come to the show. There are two types of storytelling when I hear "Song Exploder," the podcast, and when I watch "Song Exploder," the docuseries. The podcast is very audio-heavy: You get to really hear all of the isolated bits and pieces of the song. The show has a lot more historical and cultural context, sort of like a mini-documentary for a song, and you also hear from a lot more voices beyond just the recording artist. Beyond the visual element, what do you gain in terms of storytelling through the show?

I think one of the things that you mentioned is absolutely key to the TV show, which is that often on the podcast, it's just a single voice or maybe two voices together … But with the TV show, because the timeline was so different, there was a chance to stop and say, "OK, who do we really want? Who are all the voices that are involved in the creation of the song?" Maybe not just the artist, but also the collaborators that were essential to making the song. 

Having that kind of breadth and depth, it isn't always afforded to the shorter turnaround time and the scale of the podcast. But here, to really immerse the audience and give a really full picture of what the song was, having those other voices in there was really important. For [the] Alicia Keys episode [about the song "3 Hour Drive,"] we traveled to London to film with [the song's guest vocalist and co-writer/co-producer] Sampha and the [song's] co-writer/co-producer Jimmy Napes because we knew that they were going to only expand and flesh out the story.

I think a part of it is also a matter of craft, too. When you're working in audio, you're kind of only working in one dimension, which is time. You're just relying on one sense, hearing, and you're just basing everything on how long things take; the rhythm comes from just that one sense. But with TV, you have to also give a rhythm and complexity visually, too. You can't just transliterate the podcast into a TV format, where it's just one person talking, mixed with the isolated stems, because it wouldn't work; it would get very boring very quickly. So in order to have that kind of texture and nuance, we wanted to involve all those different people and try and give a little bit bigger of a picture than maybe what comes out in the podcast.

Do you see the podcast and the show as separate entities or related in the same family? Do you need to engage with both formats to fully appreciate or understand what "Song Exploder" is trying to do?

Oh, I don't think you have to engage with both. Of course, I would love it if people did, just because they're both things that I've put a lot of work into, and you want people to enjoy the stuff that you've worked on. This is not a great analogy, but I think it's sort of like reading a book or watching a movie that's been adapted of that book. I don't think you need to read the book to enjoy the movie, and vice versa, you don't need to have seen the movie to have full enjoyment of the book. But maybe you'll get something out of the experience of taking both in. Maybe it changes the way you feel about both.

This is, of course, a little bit different, because it's not even the same story that's being told. It's really just taking the core concept, which is an intimate portrait of an artist telling the story of how their artistic mind worked through creating one of their songs, and taking that concept and expressing it in these two different media. So it's much looser even than something like an adaptation of a book to a movie.

What artist or what song is your holy grail for the podcast or the show or both?

I don't have one holy grail—I think I probably have about a thousand. Anytime I start listening to music, I start wondering about it. That's not new since I started "Song Exploder"; it's the other way around. That's always been the way I listen to music. When I fall in love with a song, I want to hear it from the inside out. I want to hear what the individual tracks, what the individual stems sound like. I want to know what the ideas were that inspired all of these things that I'm falling in love with. "Song Exploder" was just a way of me being able to actually make that happen for myself. So anytime I'm listening to music and I hear something great, you could put it on the list.

Ty Dolla $ign in "Song Exploder"

Ty Dolla $ign in "Song Exploder" | Photo: Courtesy of Netflix/Netflix

What is your ultimate goal with "Song Exploder"?

I wish people would either watch the show or listen to the podcast and come away with a feeling that they want to make something themselves. Part of my aim with the show is to democratize the act of creation a little bit. I think it's easy to look at very successful artists or very successful songs or any kind of art in any format, where it has reached a certain level of success, and think that there's some uncrossable boundary for everyday people that keeps them from making something as great as those songs …

I think the best feeling that I always get from finishing working on an episode is something akin to that. That like, I just want to go make something, and it doesn't just have to be music. I think that anybody who is interested in making anything at all, to get something from the show, just the idea of going from nothing but an idea and following that all the way through to a finished piece of art, I hope that might be inspiring to everyone.

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No Doubt in 1996

 

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Welcome To The Tragic Kingdom: No Doubt's Masterpiece Turns 25

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The ska-pop greats' sophomore record not only featured some of the most definitive songs of its era, but its visceral lyrics and innovative genre-bending would make a significant impact on the fabrics of pop and rock music at large
Yasmine Shemesh
GRAMMYs
Oct 10, 2020 - 6:47 am

In the spring of 1995, uncertainty hung heavy in the Southern California air for No Doubt, a spirited band of misfits from the Anaheim suburbs. Their bouncy, brassy 1992 self-titled debut had been ignored and their label, Interscope Records, didn’t really know what to do with them other than pass them to producer Matthew Wilder, of "Break My Stride" fame, for guidance. Eric Stefani, who co-founded the band in 1986 with his sister, Gwen, and classmate, John Spence, was growing more disillusioned with it all every day. The main songwriter and visionary, he wasn’t much for relinquishing creative control. And for a group who found inspiration in the Jamaican ska, new wave and punk of British two-tone bands like the Selecter and Madness, the Wilder paring felt like, as Gwen told Rolling Stone in 1997, "such an invasion, at first."

No Doubt took their frustration into their garage studio on Beacon Avenue and furiously recorded a sophomore effort over a weekend on their own watch. The Beacon Street Collection captured the raw energy that made the band so popular in Orange County’s ska and punk undergrounds and peers of like-minded groups such as Sublime—but, then, Eric left the band in late 1994. No Doubt self-released the album in March the following year. It was embraced more warmly than its predecessor and proved their worth to Interscope, who greenlit a studio follow-up. But without their former captain steering the ship, No Doubt was treading new water.

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Stefani had already been writing songs of her own, trying make sense of the end of her eight-year relationship with the band’s bassist, Tony Kanal. Kanal and guitarist Tom Dumont picked up songwriting duties along the way, too. But it would be Stefani’s heartache and hopeful angst that would really set Tragic Kingdom on fire—and launch No Doubt into superstardom and Stefani as a pop culture luminary, first with the lead single, "Just A Girl." With sunny, swirling opening guitar riffs and Stefani, in her signature vocal quaver, belting about feeling under the thumb of protective parents and the misogynies of society, "Just A Girl" became one of the most important feminist anthems of the decade. Tragic Kingdom, released on October 10, 1995, also earned the band a substantial number of awards including GRAMMY nominations in 1997 and 1998. Producing seven singles over three years, the album not only featured some of the most definitive songs of its era, but its visceral lyrics and innovative genre-bending would make a significant impact on the fabrics of pop and rock music at large. 25 years later, the album endures both as a confessional pop masterpiece and beloved classic that continues to resonate deeply. 

With Eric at the helm, quirkiness was a defining quality of No Doubt’s sound. Though a bit scattered, his zany compositions carved out a fearless approach the band would continue to carry after he left—which worked in their favor, since the departure made space for the artistic idiosyncrasies of the other members to shine. Dumont’s technical dexterity, for example—the result of a varied background of playing in heavy metal bands and studying classical guitar theory in college. Fan-turned-drummer Adrian Young, with his feverish yet nuanced pummel executed in the vein of Rush's Neal Peart. Kanal, who had absorbed '80s rock from his pre-Angeleno childhood in England, played in his high school jazz band, and found profound inspiration in Prince. And Gwen, a self-proclaimed "ska chick" who loved The Sound of Music, old Hollywood glamour and the Police. While the group retained the madcap spirit that had always made them so much fun to listen to, this version of No Doubt was more structured than ever—a cohesiveness partly in credit to Wilder, to be sure, but they found their sweet spot within each other. The band’s amalgamation of influences and individual strengths created a fresh sound that was so distinct and yet so hard to define, which is what made it—and continues to make it—so brilliant. And it set them apart from the heavy broodiness of contemporaries like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Hole that then ruled the alternative mainstream.

The shift is heard immediately on "Spiderwebs," Tragic Kingdom’s opener, which combines a new wave-tinged melody with bubbly reggae bass licks and a mosh-inducing chorus. It transitions perfectly into the rapid-fire punk of "Excuse Me Mr.," a song about desperately vying for unrequited attention, the sonic blistering of which is similarly channeled in the angsty "Sixteen." Then, there's "Happy Now?," a guitar-driven rock track detailing a certain painful breakup with acerbic lyrics like "Now you must adhere / To your new career of liberation / You've been cast all by yourself / You're free at last." Hints of horn blast throughout the album adding a brightness to songs such as "Sunday Morning"—one of the Tragic Kingdom’s best, with ska and pop elements, ascending drums and a deliciously bitter Stefani who sneers, "Now you’re the parasite."

The consummate song about Kanal and Stefani's relationship, of course, is "Don't Speak." Originally, Dumont told Complex, Eric wrote most of it. Only after working on it together as a band was it elevated to a rock ballad with Spanish guitar, with Gwen rewording the lyrics to reflect what was happening in her life. It took on even more meaning as No Doubt was blowing up and Stefani began receiving significantly more attention than her bandmates—the simmering tension of which is played up in the song’s music video. The song’s popularity—and, to a larger extent, the album’s—made it challenging to keep revisiting the breakup each time they did press, Kanal said. But, he added, "The fact that we got through all that stuff and we persevered through all that is a real testament to our friendship. I think it’s also a testament to how much the band means to us. We didn’t let it break us up as a band, and we just kept going and it made us stronger."

Tragic Kingdom is widely considered a breakup album, and it is, but the heartbreak also extends to more than just Stefani and Kanal. The band faced so much tragedy in their formative years, starting with suicide of co-founder John Spence in 1987 when they were only a year old. Spence shared vocal duties with a then-bashful Stefani and was a charismatic frontman who did backflips on stage. Days before No Doubt were to perform at the Roxy Theatre, a gig they hoped would be their big break, he shot himself. The Roxy was announced as the devastated band’s final show. They reunited a month later because, Stefani told Interview, it’s what Spence would have wanted. The unreleased song, "Dear John," pays tribute to their friend.

And then there was Eric’s exit. While it set No Doubt on their course, it rattled their confidence emphatically. It was traumatic, Dumont said. "We were just a group of friends who were really tight, and we had our band for years. Our band just got rocked with this intense, personal stuff." And, Stefani admitted, it almost made them give up. "We were sitting there saying to ourselves, ‘O.K., we are 26. We’ve been doing this for eight years. Maybe we should finish up and get adult lives now.’ Then the record came out and people thought it was good, which was really weird, because we were always the dork band from Anaheim." "The Climb," a psychedelic slow burner that alludes to overcoming obstacles, is one of Eric’s two solo offerings to Tragic Kingdom—the other being the freaky title-track, which describes a dystopian Disneyland and Walt’s cryogenically frozen tears as dripping icicles—and has emerged as a fan-favorite over the years.

But while No Doubt’s early years may have been flooded with drama, plumbing the depths of it helped them find their voice. Collective agony cultivated the strength of their bond and dug into an honest narrative about navigating loss that is not only powerful, but universally relatable. We all experience pain. It’s an intrinsic part of the human experience. And we tend to relate to art that, even if ever so slightly, taps into our grief because it expresses it in a way that we perhaps exactly can’t. It hits a nerve. And that’s deeply comforting—which is arguably why Tragic Kingdom continues to endure in the powerful way that it does: yes, it’s poetic, gorgeously dynamic, and sounded fizzy and fresh against the band’s radio contemporaries. But it’s also a symbol of hope in the wake of tragedy.

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Sun Ra Arkestra

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Sun Ra Arkestra's Knoel Scott On New Album 'Swirling,' Sun Ra's Legacy & Music As A Healing Force

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The Sun Ra Arkestra saxophonist discusses the evolution and enduring sound of Sun Ra’s music, and why younger generations are more receptive to his more far-out experiments
Jeff Terich
GRAMMYs
Oct 9, 2020 - 10:32 am

Sun Ra's music transcends genre and generation, time and space. The Alabama-born jazz legend, musical chameleon and Afrofuturist icon—who would have turned 106 in May—began performing in the swing and big band era and kept up a career for five decades, traveling the spaceways through cosmic ambient jazz, intense bursts of free jazz in the ‘60s, disco in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and various genre-agnostic experiments in the spaces in between. Sun Ra’s music was as boundless as the interstellar universe he considered himself a part of, and his sonic innovations continue to echo throughout music nearly three decades after his death.

His band, the Sun Ra Arkestra, is a significant element in keeping that music alive. They’ve continued to tour as an ensemble since the ‘90s, and on Oct. 30, will release their first new album in over two decades, Swirling. It’s as much a tribute to the legacy of Sun Ra as it is a continuation of the ideas and sounds he pioneered in his lifetime, featuring modern reinterpretations of classic Sun Ra compositions such as "Rocket No. 9" and "Angels and Demons at Play," as well as lesser-known tracks, and even the first recording of "Darkness," composed by Arkestra bandleader Marshall Allen. Though the arrival of Swirling comes during a time of fear and uncertainty, with no live music on the horizon for the foreseeable future, longtime Arkestra saxophonist Knoel Scott says that it’s even more important for them to be giving joyful, celebratory music back to the world.

"Music is a healing force," he says. "Our intention was for the music to be healing. For something to give happiness. When people live for a long time, and they’re asked what’s responsible for that, they say they laughed. So mirth and enjoyment and contentment, those things come from music."

GRAMMY.com caught up with Scott to discuss the new permutations of Sun Ra’s music on Swirling, finding hope in troubled times, and traveling in your mind through music.

So, Swirling is the first new recording from the Sun Ra Arkestra in over 20 years…

The first successful attempt. We tried once or twice, but the conditions weren’t conducive.

Right. Is it a matter of logistics—having everyone be able to contribute at the same time?

Yeah, the crucial part of the band’s ritual is rehearsal. And there are some logistical difficulties. Being in New York, professional musicians, they have to work, and that work is primary, so they don’t always have time to come out. But Swirling was recorded off of a tour, so the band was pretty hot at the time. A lot of the compositions were played off of our book that we were playing off the last tour that we did. We were playing "Darkness" a lot. "Seductive Fantasy," we were playing that a lot. All the songs were part of the regular band book. That book, which Marshall arranged, I guess we were playing it for around a year. Every nine months we change it. We keep certain standards, but to keep everyone interested and keep it fresh, we bring new songs in.

Aside from most of them being part of the Arkestra's last tour, is there something that connects all of these songs?

I guess the intent. Everybody wanted to play the music well and represent Sun Ra well, and give homage to Sonny and create a product that Sonny would be proud of. So, that unified us.

Sun Ra had such a long and prolific career, and this album pulls from various moments throughout that career. Was there an effort to try to represent as broad a selection of his music as possible?

Well, his music was so varied. He played so many different styles, from R&B to so-called Afrobeat to futuristic sounds to swing to avant garde. So yes, we tried to do a variety which reflected the pantheon that Sun Ra created. So therefore, there is a lot of variety on the album. That’s how Sun Ra was, he had so much variety. We never knew what he was going to do, but all of it was within the African-American tradition.

Are the Arkestra's compositions all, in some way, living and evolving creations?

Yes. The nature of music is you never play it the same way twice. Something is always different. Something is always added. A new nuance created every time we play a composition. It gave us a chance to focus a little more, because the gigs are a show. The focus, to a degree, is on entertainment and presentation. But in the studio, the concentration is all on putting the visual into the music, while in a live show, the visual is there as an accent. But on the recording that all has to be in the music. So we’re trying to create a visual in the listener’s mind.

Likewise, are you always continuing to evolve as musicians?

We have to. Sun Ra says the world’s moving fast, you have to adjust yourself. And Marshall says, "It’s the spirit of the day." Tomorrow you feel a little bit different than you did today. Your interpretation of the music is going to be a little different. So it becomes a living entity, because we put our spirit into it, and it changes from day to day and moment to moment.

Sun Ra's music spans many decades and generations, and this too will likely introduce his and your music to a new generation. What is it that makes his music endure?

The fact that it was from the future. That’s why his sounds are more accessible to the audience's ear now. But in the ‘50s and ’60s, it was radical. They would just be like, "What is he doing?" He was always talking about the future and the new millennium. But the future is now, and so the time for the music is now. He designed it that way, so the millennial generation is able to relate to it, because he wrote the music for them. The music for tomorrow’s world. People have changed. People’s ears have developed. The computer age has come, and electronics are a standard part of their listening, and Sun Ra pioneered these things, so just in terms of what people listen to now, this music that people call new age and Afrobeat, techno, all these things are devices Sun Ra used in his music in the ’60s and ’70s. As soon as a new sound came out, Sun Ra was on top of it. So now, people are used to these things. Going back to Star Trek, you hear the sounds that Sun Ra was playing in the ‘60s. Those sounds are now part of the standard media presentation of music.

It’s funny you mention that—I was watching some early episodes of Star Trek and a lot of the music reminded me of Sun Ra.

Yeah. [Laughs.] The theme song is a variation on a standard called "Out of Nowhere." But especially from Slugs’ [Saloon in Manhattan], that was the type of place that the hip people went, and Sun Ra was an underground figure for years. But he was also in California for years, and there’s been a cross pollination of Sun Ra’s music into Hollywood and TV, et cetera.

It’s an odd time to be releasing music right now. How do you feel about putting something out right now, especially something based so heavily on the Arkestra’s live performances, without being able to be onstage to play them?

That’s very important, because people are hungry for music. They’re not able to go out, so they’re on YouTube and Spotify, they’re listening to records. We stay at home, so music is a very important thing. I think it’s really perfect for the album to come out when people are spending more time at home and are looking for some kind of sound that will inspire them or give them hope or some kind of relief from this terrible time that we’re going through, because it’s stressful for everyone. You can’t go out, but you can put on an album and travel in your mind.

Is there a message or a feeling that you would hope listeners take away from hearing Swirling?

That there’s hope. No matter how bleak or troublesome or turbulent the times are, as long as people have love in their hearts, if they want a better world, there can be a better world. And the unification of the musicians from different areas of the United states and as far as Brazil, we all have different perspectives but come together of one accord, so the Arkestra’s contribution is a testimony that we can come of one accord. We may not always agree, but we can come together for a positive outlook and a positive goal. And that comes down to intent, for people with love in their hearts and joy in their spirits and enlightenment in their minds. Our job is to heal the planet.

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Wayne Snow & Darius

Wayne Snow & Darius with "Equilibrium" vinyl

Photo: Courtesy of artist

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Record Store Recs: Darius & Wayne Snow Take Us To Paris, Berlin, Tokyo & Beyond

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The powerhouse pair's latest release, "APOLOGY," is an emotive, thumping track and was just dropped on Paris' Roche Musique on Oct. 1
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Oct 7, 2020 - 2:40 pm

With the unprecedented global disruption of 2020, it's important to support the music community however we can. With our series Record Store Recs, GRAMMY.com checks in with vinyl-loving artists to learn more about their favorite record stores and the gems they've found there.

Berlin-based Nigerian future soul artist Wayne Snow and Paris-based French dreamscape producer Darius are quite the musical force, with Snow's rich, inviting vocals being the perfect fit for Darius' floating melodic house beats. They first joined forces in 2015 on "Helios," following with two collab tracks ("Night Birds" and "Lost in the Moment") on the producer's 2017 debut album, Utopia. 2017 was also the year Snow released his debut full-length, Freedom TV.

The powerhouse pair's latest release, "APOLOGY," is an emotive, thumping track where the singer's angelic voice is backed by a gospel-inspired chorus asking for forgiveness in a dark world. The powerful, poignant track is the follow-up and B-side to "EQUILIBRIUM," and was just dropped on Paris' Roche Musique on Oct. 1.

For the latest Record Store Recs, Snow and Darius invite us into their musical world, sharing some of the music that inspires them (including jazz, bossa nova and experimental electronic music artists). They also invite us to crate dig for vinyls with them in their hometowns of Berlin and Paris and while on in Seoul, Tokyo and Los Angeles.

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Pick three to five records stores you love.

Darius:

Bigwax in Paris 

Hi-Fi Record Store in Tokyo 

Music Library in Seoul

Amoeba Hollywood in Hollywood, Calif.

Snow:

Oye Records in Berlin

Sound Metaphors in Berlin 

Hard Wax in Berlin

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Why do you love these shops? what kind of goodies have you found there? 

Darius: I have to talk about Bigwax because they are both our partners for years on all our Roche Musique releases and one of my favorite Parisian record stores. The place is super nice, spacious, modern and if you like electronic music, it's the perfect place to find house, techno and experimental nuggets. If you want to dig a little bit more, there is also a very sharp selection in hip hop, jazz, funk, disco, soul, etc. This is my favorite part because I always find at least one or two nuggets on the spot. Moreover, for someone of my generation it's really the ideal place to have a drink with friends because the place also regularly organizes events with DJ sets and live bands.

During my first visits to Tokyo on an Asian tour, I had the chance to discover Hi-Fi Records, this exceptional little record store in Shibuya owned by a couple! A friend of mine had taken me there and I remember listening to a small selection of soul and funk music taken at random and coming across some incredible stuff.

The store also offers a repertoire of a large number of records that can be pre-listened on the site. Unfortunately, if you don't live in Japan no delivery is possible but the advantage is that you can still discover their selection and I admit that I keep looking from time to time to find new nuggets when I want to feed my Spotify playlist.

Music Library is a bit of a must-see in Seoul if you're a music lover. When I'm in Seoul, I usually stay a five-minute walk from the Music Library. The space is bright and the architecture is beautiful. It's really nice to see that there are places like this that highlight the world of vinyl as well as a work of art in a museum.

Amoeba Hollywood is a classic in Los Angeles. I try to go there as soon as possible when I have time when I'm there. I 'm not an expert in the field either but I've never seen any other place with such a concentration of artists/albums of all kinds available. I have the impression that you can always find what you want in this record store, or almost.

Snow: At Oye Records you can find tons of local stuff from Berlin-based producers and record labels. While you're digging, they always play dope music. There are two Oye record stores in Berlin. My favorite is the small one in KreuzKolln as we say it here (between Kreuzberg and Neukolln area).

Sound Metaphors is for the party crew, there's a lot of weird disco and obscure rarities from Africa, Asia, etc.

Hard Wax is the home of techno music in Berlin. [German record producer/engineer] Moritz von Oswald started the record store. What's interesting is that it's full of dub and reggae records from the '90s. It's a very small shop with endless discoveries.

GRAMMYs

Kenny Burrell The Tender Gender vinyl | Photo: Darius

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For at least one of your favorite shops, share a recent record or two (or three or four…) you bought there and what you love about the record/artist. 

Darius: I have to mention Arthur Verocai's self-titled album (1972) because it's one that I listened to over and over on Spotify and I absolutely needed the vinyl. Luckily, I stumbled upon it completely by chance at Amoeba. For me, it's a must listen bossa nova/funk/Latin jazz album.

Kenny Burrell's The Tender Gender (1966) is a nugget I found in a garage sale in a small village in Charente-Maritime, France. I didn't know the artist until I bought it and the seller explained to me that this guitarist was one of the leading guitarists in jazz/blues.

I am gradually trying to expand my collection of Marvin Gaye vinyl. He inspires me in so many ways, and his story has touched me a lot. I also stumbled upon his [soundtrack] album Trouble Man (1972) by chance and took it without hesitation. There are a lot of his titles that I love and will never get tired of, like "Please Stay (Once You Go Away)," "Distant Love," "Just To Keep You Satisfied," "I'd Give My Life For You" and others.

Snow: I found a gem from Austrian musician Giuseppe Leonardi at Oye Records. His Mente Mente EP (2020) is Balearic vibe—tropical, chilled ambient music.

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What's a record you have your eyes on picking up and why?

Darius: Charlie Rouse's Yeah! (1961). This is jazz the way I love it, this album is a pure delight, I have no words to describe it. It's my last nugget. I feel like I'm there [when I listen to it], the quality of the recording is incredible. You can feel every instrument, the breath of Rouse's saxophone playing, the harmonies on the piano that puts us on a cloud, and the round and all-encompassing double bass that warms the heart.

This album really transcends me every time I listen to it. [The vinyl is] quite rare, I dream to have it in my collection and listen to it in an optimal way. I especially love the track "When Sunny Gets Blue."

Snow: Allysha Joy's Light it Again EP, being released on First World Records in November. She is an amazing artist from Melbourne. 

When crate-digging, how do you pick out records?

Darius: I still have a lot to discover, so there is a first big phase where I make a selection only related to the cover, for sure. Sometimes I come across artists/labels I know and add them to the pile. For me, that's what the record store is all about, it's the opportunity to try out records that fall into my hands that I'll never have the chance to find by chance on the internet.

Wayne Snow: Sometimes it's just a feeling, or simply based on a recommendation. Generally, when you are in a great shop you just have to listen to the music blasting around you.

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