# Marcus Roberts: Say the name John Coltrane and what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Videos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/11/21/marcus-roberts-say-the-name-john-coltrane-and-whats-the-first-thing-that-comes-to-mind-videos/
- Published: 2017-11-21T21:56:09+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Probably it’s that majestic tenor tone. Or maybe the cascade of notes that coursed
through his improvisations, which ultimately elevated every tune he played into 
something more profound than even its composer had intended.**

This preconception was just one of the challenges pianist **Marcus Roberts** faced
when he, bassist Rodney Jordan and drummer Jason Marsalis decided to record _Trio
Crescent: Celebrating Coltrane_. Released on Roberts’s J-Master Records on Nov. 
17, it revisits the Coltrane quartet album _Crescent_, with each track in the same
sequence, in the original keys and rendered at pretty much the same tempo.

Roberts made clear his intention to honor Coltrane’s work. “Ultimately, I wanted
to record _Crescent_ because I feel that you can communicate with your heroes,” 
the pianist explained. “This isn’t a ‘tribute record.’ We pay tribute to our grandparents
and our parents every day, based on our actions toward other people. But you _honor_
your elders by giving them respect. That’s what this is.”

Roberts and his trio had in fact been playing selections from _Crescent_ for a while,
going back to before Jordan replaced the group’s first bassist, Roland Guerin. During
a run at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London, they decided to present the entire 
album as a single set. The crowd’s enthusiastic reaction dovetailed with the musicians’
sense that they were developing their own insights into the music.

![Картинки по запросу Crescent john coltrane](https://i0.wp.com/img.discogs.com/
TVlCPggDJ0sPyZjdh5II__z1tt0%3D/fit-in/595x595/filters%3Astrip_icc%28%29%3Aformat%
28jpeg%29%3Amode_rgb%28%29%3Aquality%2890%29/discogs-images/R-832699-1391419705-
1170.jpeg.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

“What made the experience unique was that our trio conception started to grow inside
these performances,” Marsalis observed. “We didn’t have to make our music sound 
different; it started to do that organically over time.”

What about working without a fourth member to cover the tenor saxophone part? “I
was blessed to get past that because I have such a deep love and admiration for 
Coltrane, his music and what he wanted it to represent,” Roberts answered. “His 
music acknowledged the civil rights struggles that were going on in the South and
how he identified with Dr. Martin Luther King. He spoke truth, not in an angry way
or necessarily a militant way, but through expressing love for people.”

Roberts explained his approach for compressing _Crescent_ into a trio format: “I
could never imitate what [Coltrane] did. The best I can do is take that part of 
his vocabulary that I can understand, the things that he and McCoy [Tyner] did that
helped me discover myself through them. At that point, I can use what I know about
the piano to express that knowledge.”

![Картинки по запросу Marcus Roberts Crescent](https://i0.wp.com/shorefire.com/images/
made/images/uploads/gallery/Cover_1400X1400_400_400_s_c1.jpg?w=640)

Before setting foot into the studio, the trio discussed the project at length. They
listened to the Coltrane album together but only in the early stages of the project
because, as Roberts noted, “If you keep listening, you’re probably not going to 
do anything of your own. Instead, we talked about how we had to play in balance 
for this to work. We couldn’t play too loud. There’s this illusion that Coltrane
and his quartet played really loud. They didn’t; there was just a lot of power in
their sound. So I said we had to make sure that we feel the emotion but play _underneath_
it. Otherwise we’d lose the group balance and our individual perspectives.”

This mission guided Marsalis and Jordan as they prepared for their solo spots in
_Crescent_. Marsalis said, “When I recorded ‘The Drum Thing,’ I decided to use mallets
to create a different timbre from the original recording,” which featured drummer
Elvin Jones. “I had my own rhythmic ideas, and I used the drum tunings I always 
use with our trio. But Elvin’s spirit is there alongside everything that I play.”

“I had my own take on double-stops and using space and melody in ‘Lonnie’s Lament,’
but I probably would never have thought of this had I not studied [bassist] Jimmy
Garrison’s approach and personalized some of his concepts,” Jordan added. “I’d been
playing ‘Lonnie’s Lament’ by myself in my personal practice time on and off for 
the past 10 years because it was a spiritual experience for me. I feel happy to 
be able to share that experience through this recording.”

“Coltrane’s music is almost religious,” Marsalis agreed. “It can sweep you away.
When we play _Crescent_, man, no matter how you feel before you start, when you 
finish you feel better about your life and the world you live in.”

![Картинки по запросу Marcus Roberts](https://i0.wp.com/www.annenbergcenter.org/
tickets/images/events/359.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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