When Uncut magazine invited me to review the newly discovered tapes of John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy at the Village Gate in the summer of 1961, which are released today on vinyl and CD, I went and dug out the 12 April, 1962 of issue of Down Beat. Its striking cover announced that the two musicians had given a joint interview defending themselves against the charge that what they were playing was “anti-jazz”. I was 15 years old when I bought this copy of the magazine and exhilarated by what I saw and read.
Down Beat, essentially a magazine of the jazz establishment, had given a platform to two revolutionaries. Interviewed by Don DeMichael, the publication’s editor, they provided long and fascinating responses to his questions, as you can see below. Their patience is exemplary. Much of what they had to say is as valuable today as it seemed 60 years ago.
The way the cover and the two inside spreads were designed somehow echoed the tone of the piece. Whoever “Roth” was, his charcoal portraits seemed to catch a quality of heroic iconoclasm, as did the extreme cropping of the photographic images (taken by Bill Abernathy of Chicago and the Stockholm-based Bengt H. Malmqvist, who later became Abba’s photographer) on the first inside page. The whole thing made an impression that has never faded.
* Evenings at the Village Gate by John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy is on the Impulse label. The September issue of Uncut is out now.