In my opinion, there is no jazz label better suited to reflecting the feel of the 1960s and 1970s in the United States of America. Two decades of struggle against segregation, for decolonisation in Africa, and against Western imperialism around the world. How many African-American jazz players recorded for Impulse? How many embraced the philosophies of a free and highly spiritual jazz for Impulse?
Under the leadership of producer Bob Thiele and sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder (the legendary successors to founder Creed Taylor, who only worked there for a year) Impulse! led with its motto "the new wave in jazz". After the revolutions of the bop and hard bop years, jazz was still evolving. With the art of improvising at its heart (producing evermore stunning solos by players who would become idols to worship and copy) jazz in the 60s became ‘essentialised’. By placing this freedom at the centre, old rules could be twisted, stretched, or even overturned. Impulse! took the spiritual path of this adventure and that's why I like their discography so much.
The catalogue came to my attention thanks to a collaboration between John Coltrane and Duke Ellington, and also after discovering the album Ole Coltrane which was released by Atlantic in 1961 (although would’ve been just as at home on Impulse!). After that it was just a question of going with the flow, from A Love Supreme by Coltrane to Karma by Pharoah Sanders, both great classics of the decade. This was to become a common pattern over the years. Discovering this music when you’ve never heard anything like it before can be a shock, as well as providing a source of excitement and curiosity. To be carried away by songs that might be 10, 20 or even 30 minutes in length, by harmonies full of the blues, and heartbreaking crescendos with a profusion of percussion and polyrhythm is quite an experience!
Impulse! has its fair share of classics recorded by legendary musicians. The home of musical paradigm shifts, we find Healing Force of the Universe by Albert Ayler, Out of the Cool and Into the Hot by Gil Evans, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady by Charles Mingus, Ptah, the El Daoud and Journey into Satchidananda by Alice Coltrane, Oliver Nelson's The Blues and The Abstract Truth, A Love Supreme and about half of John Coltrane's discography. It wouldn’t have been inconceivable to have had half this playlist made up of Coltrane’s hits, the label’s nickname being "the House that Trane Built”. It owed much of its acclaim to the saxophonist.
Impulse! owes its mythic status to the feelings and adoration centred on its hero Coltrane. That's why I chose to slip in some edifying pieces by lesser-known musicians on the label. Their music embodies an absolutely Coltranian sense of being spiritually nourished by African, Oriental and Latin influences, something that infused the spiritual American jazz of the end of the 1960s and early 1970s. Artists such as John Klemmer, Michael White, Dave Mackay and Gábor Szabó to name but a few. The tracks selected span from 1960 to 1975 and end with an intense evocation, perfectly embodying the spirit of Impulse! – part of Keith Jarrett's lesser known work, neither solo, nor trio, nor recorded for ECM.
