Om

About

Om is a posthumously-released album by John Coltrane, recorded on October 1 1965, the day after the recording of Live in Seattle, and featuring the same players with the addition of Joe Brazil. It consists of a single 29-minute work broken into two parts when released on LP, and was included on The Major Works of John Coltrane, a compilation CD released in 1992. Om was issued by Impulse! in 1968. The title refers to the sacred sound and spiritual symbol in Indian religion. Coltrane described Om as "the first vibration - that sound, that spirit, which set everything else into being. It is The Word from which all men and everything else come, including all possible sounds that man can make vocally. It is the first syllable, the primal word, the word of power." The recording begins and ends with the musicians chanting in unison a verse from chapter nine of the Bhagavad Gita: Rites that the Vedas ordain, and the rituals taught by the scripture, all these I am, and the offering made to the ghosts of the father, herbs of healing and food. The mantram. The clarified butter. I, the oblation and I, the flame into which it is offered. I am the sire of the world, and this world's mother and grandsire. I am he who awards to each the fruit of his action. I make all things clean. I am Om! In the liner note, Nat Hentoff wrote: "It may be that to break the circumscribed limits of conventional hearing, the ear must be propelled to hear sounds and pitches it has rejected in the past, just as compassion is not come by in conventional comfort. And once heard and absorbed, these sounds lead to further extensions of listening and feeling capacitie... In so far as one can ever advise anyone else in how to listen, I would suggest that they start by not worrying about how it is all structured, where it's leading. Let the music come in without any pre-set definitions of what jazz has to be, of what music has to be." Background: Om was recorded the day after Coltrane and his band played live in Seattle, as documented by recording engineer (and sometime drummer) Jan Kurti. The next day the whole band traveled to Kurtis' studio, Camelot Sound Studio, in a rented house in Lynnwood, to record Om. It is believed that Coltrane was using LSD during the recording, though this is disputed. (Lewis Porter wrote that "Coltrane may have been tripping on LSD when he recorded Om. It is certain that he did begin using LSD around this time, "according to four reliable source, speaking off the record.") According to Eric Nisenson, Coltrane, "clearly embarrassed by Om, instructed Bob Thiele that he never wanted it released."However, Thiele, the director and producer of Impulse!, did release it in 1968 to capitalize on Coltrane's death and on the growing psychedelic rock scene at the time. Upon its release, "a copy was almost immediately placed in the window of the Haight-Ashbury Psychedelic Shop." Reception : .

via Last.fm

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