ANALYSIS OF J. COLTRANE'S MUSIC IN HIS FOURTH PHASE

Modal Harmony In effect, in J. Coltrane, the rhythmic dimension understood as the scanning of time with metronomic type actions is widely surpassed in the final stages of Coltrane's art. This overcoming of the geometric concept of temporal scanning went hand in hand with Coltrane regarding the overcoming of the geometric concept that characterizes tonal harmony; indeed, in the third and especially the fourth phase of the artist, which are modal in style, the third is modal and the fourth, in addition to the geometric concept of harmony, also overcomes the geometric concept of rhythm, giving it a fluid connotation that fully reflects the fluid connotation of modal harmony not tied to preconfigured harmonic schemes. Coltrane's rhythm is not preconfigured; in fact, it is even wrong to speak of rhythm because time is no longer subject to metronomic divisions but is floating, free like harmony. Referring to public domain terminology, the filling of temporal space in Coltrane's fourth phase is entrusted to a sort of "pedal". This term, born in the context of organ music due to the instrument's ability to hold notes for a long time, was later realized also by instruments that naturally dampen sound, such as the piano and percussion, by repeating the same note or the same percussive act in a sort of trill. Variations in speed are found in many learned musicians, such as Chopin, where especially tempos in three were accelerated and decelerated to induce a rhythmic movement that was added to the basic movement. The absence of a basic rhythmic movement is then found in several authors of classical music; I cite some: O. Messiaen, C. Debussy, V. Persichetti. In the context of Jazz music, truth be told, few compared to the multitude of jazz musicians have used this method, and among them is J. Coltrane who, in his final artistic phase after his travels to the East, realized that harmony and its rhythmic scanning could not be imprisoned in a track that reduced an artist's creativity to pure geometry, imprisoning their abilities. I dare say that only a genius could afford to make this leap in quality, as other artists of classical music had already done. The glue in Coltrane's pieces is himself; in a piece like "Peace on Earth", conceived in the Ab Ionian Mode understood as the "prevailing mode", alternated with the D Locrian Mode understood as an orbiting mode that creates a tension which then achieves its physiological release in the Ab Ionian Mode, the highly chromatic melodic line realizes the glue for the entire ensemble; the other instruments realize the temporal pedal which effectively has a filling function since Coltrane's line would effectively be enough on its own to create the piece. Such filling is exempt from particular rules and is based in particular on the drummer's use of cymbals for the purpose of avoiding the use of drums, which brings us back to an idea of pulsed rhythm, while the pianist uses neutral chordal forms, for example quartal chordal forms of three, four, five notes (re-sol-do//re-sol-do-fa//), chordal triads with +5 (do-mi-sol#//re-fa#-la#); these chordal forms do not bring us into the realm of a key because the notes are equidistant and therefore work very well as filling-embellishment forms in harmonic/rhythmic pedals. To these chordal forms, the musician can from time to time add a note that is part of the "prevailing mode" of the piece to provide greater structure. Giuseppe Perna.