Playing the music of his father and mother John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane - tenor and sopranino saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, named in honour of Ravi Shankar, born in 1965, only a small child when his father died in 1967, last night led his quartet which was slightly different to the line-up promoted on concert descriptions as it wasn't Dezron Douglas but instead Rashaan Carter on bass (switching to bass guitar later in the concert - Carter is on Brandee Younger's excellent Somewhere Different released last year) with the Israeli Gadi Lehavi on piano and Rhodes and Elé Howell (also touring recently with Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah) on drums. Howell's playing style is like that of Justin Faulkner, the Branford Marsalis drummer.
An evening of long and often inspiring improvisations that began with Alice Coltrane's 'Rama Rama' followed by John Coltrane's 'Giant Steps' with Trane's 'After The Rain', the ''minor blues'' 'Untitled' - as Ravi described it speaking to the audience later - with new material from the band. 'Expression' was also in the main chunk of the concert along with Alice Coltrane's 'Los Caballos' from Eternity.
Carter took a massive bass solo at the beginning and that was his best contribution all night although his low end rumbling especially allied with the bearded Lehavi's thick clusters was also a prominent feature in key passages. Ravi was dressed in a suit and open necked shirt. Howell chose mallets a good deal during the concert and his best input was the way that he could get the cymbals to crescendo and decay in classic Coltranian style like Elvin for that did-you-get-healed spiritualised feeling.
Left-to-right: Gadi Lehavi, Rashaan Carter, Ravi Coltrane, Elé Howell. Photo: Mark Allan/Barbican
Interestingly Coltrane did not play ''Coltrane changes'' as obviously as most people do and certainly did not rely on the usual licks you hear at any modernistic jam session anywhere. And indeed his solos are intensely constructed, intricate maze-like maps of the imagination usually delivered slowly and tenderly on the tenor and much more anarchically and sped up on the potentially squawkier high pitched abandon of the sopranino. Hearing him play 'Segment' on the same instrument at Ronnie Scott's back in 2015 sprung to mind when David Virelles was in his band on that occasion seven years ago. Lehavi was even better when he switched to the piano although the Rhodes elements in the beginning half hour stretch proved stimulating.
When Lehavi went way behind the beat late on in the extravagant version of 'Giant Steps' and then in a switch swung it towards the tail end he was at his best.
Ravi spoke to the audience several times during the evening saying it was ''nice to be back in London - condolences for the queen, ready for the king…?'' He said it was his first gig in London since the Pandemic and ever so drily that he was ''very excited to be still breathing''. He said playing the music of his parents was ''bound to happen'' and he would still have been drawn to their work even if his surname had been ''Smith or Jones.''
His mother's ''meditation'' 'Rama Rama' as Ravi described the piece proved best of all.
It is a privilege and inordinate pleasure to hear Ravi Coltrane any day of the week and a reset to go deeper and deeper as a jazz listener given that his mother and father's body of work are so meaningful to the human family and he is such a fine interpreter of it. As a player Ravi is a dazzling and insightful instrumentalist with a style of his own steeped in this incredible ocean of sound. SG
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