Mordgeld wrote:Gulag McStradinsky wrote:...Santana did the best he could to try and rip-off John Coltrane ...
Is saying Santana was 'ripping off' Coltrane a bit strong? We all follow our idols at least a bit. Is Santana following the style or is he straight cribbing Coltrane's riffs? As I am not super familiar with this style (learning, tho), these are honest questions.
Yes, I would consider it a bit strong, Dane brought the term into the conversation, rather than quibble over the semantics, I just went with "ripping off" as a term for 'borrowing from' or 'influenced by' etc.
I've been a fan of Coltrane's music since I was 13 years old.
Several phases of Coltrane's contributions to jazz have been hugely influential to many musicians. Coltrane in turn was very influenced by others like Ravi Shankar and Igor Stravinsky, to name only a couple, for example.
He had already explored chord progressions in the late 50's with his "Giant Steps" phase.
In the early 60's he began to become very interested in music from India.
That influenced his development of a modal approach to his music.
Some might dismiss it as "riffing on one repetitive monotonous theme".
Santana was involved with a couple of tributes to John Coltrane ...
Both utilize tons of "riffing on one repetitive monotonous theme"
With John McLaughlin:
https://youtu.be/y3BFn4TuLL0With Coltrane's wife, Alice:
https://youtu.be/W3Z8Kicu7CAColtrane's last phase was a very free form style
https://youtu.be/96Bnvuzb_5U (the technical quality of this recording is poor, but the playing is awesome!)
His band at this point included sax player Pharoah Sanders and drummer Rashied Ali,
both of whom, as well as Ravi Coltrane (John's son) have recorded albums with the guitarist Tisziji Muñoz. To my ears, Muñoz is much more adept in the style than Santana.
