Ravi Coltrane Residency at Jazz Standard

Ravi Coltrane brought a stellar group with him for an exciting six day long residency at Jazz Standard. Ravi Coltrane is the son of John and Alice Coltrane, he released six critically acclaimed albums as a leader as well as played and recorded with some of the top jazz musician on the scene.

It is not surprising that the first night was nearly sold out with people braving the cold to hear the master. The band for the residency was composed of a long time collaborator, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, the powerful Jeff ‘Tain” Watts on drums, grammy winning bassist Rob Hurst and the ever enchanting Aaron Parks on piano.

The quintet played six tunes, three of them original compositions by the band members including Prelude by Coltrane, Alice dedicated to Alice Coltrane by the pianist Aaron Parks and a dynamic Brain Lifter by Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts. The group moved swiftly between songs and maintained a steady pace throughout the set, playful and inventive. As a leader, Coltrane is not dominating the bandstand and he gave plenty of space for the rest of the band to shine and solo.

This particular configuration is not a working band in a sense of playing together regularly even though they have worked on other projects in the past, having achieved a rapport and an understanding of each other’s playing. The quality of their musicianship is so high that there was no need for long practice and rehearsals. Regardless of the fact that they only ran through the set once before taking the stage, the end result was a night of improvised and delightful jazz, slightly constrained by the particular compositions yet open enough to reinterpret them on the spot and engage in a musical dialogue that left the audience breathless and fully focused on the music.

Anna Yatskevich is Flowers In A Gun’s glamorous jazz & beyond critic! Catch more reviews from her here and follow her on IG and Twitter @jazzaddikt.