The World According to John Coltrane (1990)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Audio Discography Gallery-Photo Trailer-Ray Charles-The Essence Of Soul Trailer-Thelonious Monk-American Composer Trailer-Sarah Vaughan-The Divine One Trailer-Lady Day-The Many Faces of Billie Holiday
Rating
Year Of Production	1990
Running Time	59:25
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Robert Palmer Toby Byron
Studio Distributor	Toby Byron Madman Entertainment	Starring	John Coltrane Roscoe Mitchell Rashied Ali Alice Coltrane Tommy Flanagan Jimmy Heath Wayne Shorter La Monte Young
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	John Coltrane

    This is a retrospective documentary on the life and music of saxophonist John Coltrane, featuring reminiscences and interviews with his contemporaries and fellow musicians.

    Musicians interviewed include:

• Roscoe Mitchell (saxophonist)
• Rashied Ali (drummer)
• Tommy Flanagan (pianist)
• Jimmy Heath (saxophonist)
• Wayne Shorter (saxophonist)
• La Monte Young (composer)
• Alice Coltrane (wife, pianist, harpist)

    The documentary is narrated by Ed Wheeler and directed by Robert Palmer and Toby Byron. Because Coltrane died from liver disease in 1967, there isn't that much footage available and I sense they were struggling to find source material. Hence the reliance on reminiscences and lots of fancy zooms on stills. There is rare footage of Coltrane playing alto saxophone whilst in the Navy, and a few excerpts from concert and studio performances. Most of the footage is in black and white, apart from an excerpt of Coltrane's last quartet (featuring wife Alice Coltrane on piano and Rashied Ali on drums) performing in concert in colour.

    The documentary focuses very much on the middle period of Coltrane's career, with only brief references to his rhythm and blue roots, collaborations with Jimmy Heath, and his participation in the Miles Davis Quintet. Much of the documentary focuses, perhaps rightly so, on the classic John Coltrane Quartet (with pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones, and bassist Jimmy Garrison), from about the period of My Favourite Things to A Love Supreme.

    Surprisingly, there is very little focus on John Coltrane's personal life - including his marriage to Alice Coltrane, his son Ravi, and the documentary even avoids talking about his death. There is also probably a bit too much focus on the avant garde and 'spiritual' nature of his music.

    From watching this documentary, you could quite easily form the impression that Coltrane's music is mostly freeform with Eastern influences, and completely miss out on the intensely personal and soulful ballads that he is better known for by plebeians like me. Okay, okay, I admit it, I find A Love Supreme a bit hard to digest and far prefer albums like Ballads and Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane. Still, this documentary is worth watching for those wanting to know a little bit more about the jazz master.

Video

    This is presented in full frame, and looks like it was sourced from an analogue video master (probably originally intended for distribution on VHS and perhaps Laser Disc).

    The quality of the transfer is okay, but probably a bit on the soft side. Much of the feature is in black and white, excerpt for the retrospective interviews and some concert footage at the end.

    Fortunately, there were no compression artefacts that I could find, not even the pixelization often found on black and white scenes.

     There are no subtitle tracks on this single sided single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one audio track on this disc: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s).

    This is a pretty average sounding and TV broadcast quality audio track. There are no obvious faults, or any exceptional aspects, with the quality of the sound obviously dependent on the quality of the source material.

    Dialogue was easy to understand and there were no audio synchronization issues.

    Most of the historical footage has a monaural sound track, and to be honest I did not detect any real use of stereo.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Extras are pretty limited and basic.

Menu

    The menu is full frame and static, but includes background audio.

Discography

    This contains two stills consisting of a selection of titles of John Coltrane albums.

Gallery-Photo

    This consists of 11 black and white stills of John Coltrane in a variety of poses.

Trailer-Ray Charles-The Essence Of Soul (2:42)

    This is presented in full frame and Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s).

Trailer-Thelonious Monk-American Composer (1:58)

    This is presented in full frame and Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s).

Trailer-Sarah Vaughan-The Divine One (2:29)

    This is presented in full frame and Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s).

Trailer-Lady Day-The Many Faces of Billie Holiday (1:34)

    This is presented in full frame and Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s).

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on:

• DVD-ROM feature (web link)
• animated menus

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on:

• Photo Gallery
• Discography
• Trailers

    Region 4 wins ever so slightly due to the additional extras, but they are not substantial.

    The World According to John Coltrane is a documentary about the life and music of one of jazz's greatest saxophonists.

    The video transfer quality is acceptable.

    The audio transfer quality is also acceptable.

    Extras are pretty minimal and include a photo gallery, discography and some trailers.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall