TEXT B Proponents of different
jazz styles have always argued that their predecessors, musical style did not
include essential characteristics that define jazz as jazz. Thus, 1940’s swing
was belittled by beboppers of the 1950’s, who were themselves attacked by free
jazzers of the 1960s. The neoboppers of the 1980s and 1990s attacked almost
everybody else. The titanic figure of black saxophonist John Coltrane bas
complicated the arguments made by proponents of styles from bebop through neobop
because in his own musical journey he drew from all those styles. His influence
on all types of jazz was immeasurable. At the height of his popularity, Coltrane
largely abandoned playing bebop, the style that had brought him fame, to explore
the outer reaches of jazz. Coltrane himself probably believed
that the only essential characteristic of jazz was improvisation, the one
constant in his journey from bebop to open-ended improvisations on modal,
Indian, and African melodies. On the other hand, this dogged student and
prodigious technician--who insisted on spending hours each day practicing scales
from theory books--was never able to jettison completely the influence of bebop,
with its fast and elaborate chains of notes and ornaments on melody.
Two stylistic characteristics shaped the way Coltrane played the tenor
saxophone, and he favored playing fast runs of notes built on a melody and
depended on heavy, regularly accented beats. The first led Coltrane to "sheets
of sound" where he raced faster and faster, pile-driving notes into each other
to suggest stacked harmonies. The second meant that his sense of rhythm was
almost as close to rock as to bebop. Three recordings illustrate
Coltrane’s energizing explorations. Recording Kind of Blue with Miles Davis,
Coltrane found himself outside bop, exploring modal melodies. Here he played
surging, lengthy solos built largely around repeated motifs--an organizing
principle unlike that of free jazz saxophone player Ornette Coleman, who
modulated or altered melodies in his solos. On Giant Steps, Coltrane debuted as
leader, introducing his own compositions. Here the sheets of sound,
downbeat accents, repetitions, and great speed are part of each solo, and the
variety of the shapes of his phrases is unique. Coltrane’s searching
explorations produced solid achievement. My Favorite Things was another kind of
watershed. Here Coltrane played the soprano saxophone, an instrument seldom used
by jazz musicians. Musically, the results were astounding. With the
soprano’s piping sound, ideas that had sounded dark and brooding acquired a
feeling of giddy fantasy. When Coltrane began recording for the
Impulse! label, he was still searching. His music became raucous, physical. His
influence on rockers was enormous, including Jimi Hendrix, the rock guitarist,
who following Coltrane, raised the extended guitar solo using repeated motifs to
a kind of rock art form. (451) According to the passage, John Coltrane did all of the following during his career EXCEPT ______.
A.improvise on melodies from a number of different cultures B.spend time improving his technical skills C.experiment with the sounds of various instruments D.eliminate the influence of bebop on his own music