Stuart Nicholson

A couple of years ago I was invited to tour Compass Point Studios just outside Nassau in the Bahamas. Apart from its historical significance — this was once the home of Island Records, where Bob Marley recorded all his great hits — the experience was very illuminating. Compass Point is a state-of-the-art studio and I was able to talk to the recording engineer at some length. There was once a time, he said, when somebody like Paul Simon would arrive with a huge entourage of musicians, take up residence for about ten weeks and the end result was usually a hit album. Today, a vocalist like Céline Dion will arrive with just her musical director.

Today, the name Coltrane prompts unreasonable expectation of raising the sunken treasures of tenor saxophonist John Coltrane’s legacy. Although he died in 1967, he left in his wake so many imitators it seems as if he has never gone away. Every contemporary saxophonist in jazz reflects Coltrane’s influence to a greater or lesser extent, be it melodic, harmonic or rhythmic. However, the intensity of his solos — part self-inquisition, part spiritual quest — has never been equalled. Coltrane was a charismatic figure who, because he claimed to have been spoken to by God during the recording of his album A Love Supreme in 1964, inspired the formation of St John’s African Orthodox Church in San Francisco.