John Coltrane
Transition

“I am not trying to set standards of perfection for anyone. I truly believe that everyone should try to reach the best part of themselves, their full potential, but what this consists of depends on each individual. Whatever the goal, just approaching it requires caution […]. Anyone trying to achieve perfection must face several obstacles in life that seek to bring them down. Here I mean extreme attention to elements that could be destructive, whether they come from ourselves or from outside.”

Thus John Coltrane, from the liner notes of Kulu se Mama (1965), comments on the track "Vigil", a merciless duel between his tenor sax and Elvin Jones’ drums, trying to describe with it the strenuous struggle for the absolute which was the dominant theme of all his work, particularly in his last years of life.

But when finally, through this struggle, one reaches the much-desired awareness and understanding, a “feeling of peace, a feeling of welcomed peace” is sensed as expressed by that oasis of serenity "Welcome", where Trane’s sweet sax finally flies free and serene over McCoy Tyner’s delicate piano arpeggios and the percussion, now tamed yet still alive and pulsing like fire beneath ash, of Jones in a musical Nirvana achieved only a few other times ("Psalm", "Song of Praise", "Peace on Earth", "Venus", "To be").

It is essentially the incessant wheel of life that in Coltrane and his music becomes ritual, as in the "Suite" (not much inferior, in inspiration, to the masterpiece "A love supreme" of the previous year) where anger, pain, peace, and meditation alternate throughout the span of an entire day.

This is a posthumous album (published in 1970 but recorded in June 1965), transitional (as per the title of the eponymous track) in style from modal jazz to free, yet captures perhaps like no other the most crucial moment of the Coltrane quartet, “the greatest creative partnership ever emerged from the meeting of four diverse personalities” (G. Dyer).