Interstellar Space

Composition

Interstellar Space consists of an extended duet suite in four parts with the drummer Rashied Ali, and was recorded at the Van Gelder Studio on February 22, 1967, the week after the session that produced Stellar Regions. As a result, the melodies often overlap; "Venus" has the same melody as the title track of the previous LP, "Mars" quotes the melody of what became known as "Iris", and many note choices and runs are similar.

At the beginning of most of the songs, Coltrane plays chime-like bells, while Ali sets a shifting pattern on the drums; then the theme is stated by Coltrane on tenor saxophone. The album is an example of highly improvised free jazz, which was Coltrane's principal interest in the latter part of his career. Coltrane's improvisations are thus extremely free here, stating tacit modes and harmonies briefly and modulating constantly, fitting extremely dense, twisting expressions into breath-length phrases. The folkish "Venus" is probably the most accessible number; "Saturn", the longest piece, does feature hints of swing by song's end. Its melody is rather similar to the canonical, almost cantor-like quality of the material on Stellar Regions.

The original album featured four tracks: "Mars" (titled "C Major" in the ABC/Paramount session sheets), "Venus" (titled "Dream Chant" in the session sheets), "Jupiter", and "Saturn". Two further tracks from the session, "Leo" and "Jupiter Variation", later appeared on the compilation album Jupiter Variation in 1978. A 2000 CD reissue collected all of the tracks from the session, including false starts for "Jupiter Variation" in the CD's pregap.

Release and reception

Interstellar Space was released in September 1974 by Impulse! Records. In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, music journalist Stephen Davis called the album "plainly astounding" and found Ali to be the ideal complement for Coltrane's mystical ideas: "He outlandishly returns the unrelenting outpour of energy spewing from Trane, and the result is a two-man vulcanism in which Ali provides the subterranean rumblings through which the tenor explodes in showers of notes." Robert Christgau wrote in his column for The Village Voice that he was amazed by the duets, which "sound like an annoyance until you concentrate on them, at which point the interactions take on pace and shape, with metaphorical overtones that have little to do with the musical ideas being explored."

In a review of Interstellar Space's expanded CD reissue, jazz critic Scott Yanow from AllMusic deemed it "rousing if somewhat inaccessible music" with transformative, emotional duets that showcase Coltrane's flair for improvising without a traditional jazz accompaniment. Tiny Mix Tapes wrote that the "fierce free-jazz rumination" is not as important as his other albums Giant Steps (1960) and A Love Supreme (1965), but it better encapsulates Coltrane's spiritual and stylistic growth, including his understanding and grasp of multiphonic techniques, overtone sounds, and altissimo notes. According to Down Beat magazine, Interstellar Space best exemplified the formal principles Coltrane applied to his more spiritual music, while Derek Taylor from All About Jazz called it one of his most important recordings, distinct from previous duets he recorded with the likes of Elvin Jones:

In Ali he found a drummer even more willing to abandon terrestrial rhythmic boundaries and set course for uncharted space. Across these duets the saxophonist is at his most visceral exuding an overpowering confidence tempered at times with sacrosanct tenderness. Ali's interlocking pan-rhythmic patterns envelop and embrace while fervently pushing the music forward.

Covers

In 1999, guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Gregg Bendian released their versions of "Mars", "Leo", "Venus", "Jupiter" and "Saturn" on the album Interstellar Space Revisited: The Music of John Coltrane.

Track listing

1. "Mars" – 10:43
2. "Venus" – 8:36
3. "Jupiter" – 5:25
4. "Saturn" – 11:43

5. "Leo" – 10:56
6. "Jupiter variation" – 6:43

Personnel