“When I first got to New York in 1991 I was fortunate enough to have opportunities to play with some great musicians,” Ravi Coltrane says with characteristic humility, speaking on his cell phone from a Manhattan street corner, having only just hours before returned from Europe and a pair of concerts at the North Sea Jazz Festival with Gary Bartz’ Another Earth 50th Anniversary project (filling in for an injured Pharoah Sanders).

The scion of one the jazz world’s most illustrious families recalled, “There were a lot of people who had their arms kind of wide open towards me when I got here and that was one of the great benefits of not only being the son of John , but Alice as well.”  The 54-year-old saxophonist fondly remembers his first years in the jazz capital of the world. “I was fortunate enough to play with [drummer] Elvin Jones for two years,” he says, “and at the same time I was hanging with [last John Coltrane drummer] Rashied [Ali] and was able to work with him a lot.” He notes, “I was very fortunate to have access to so many great, great players and to be a sideman in their groups. That was very elevating for me. I worked with [pianist] Joanne Brackeen for many years during that early period; I met [saxophonist] Steve Coleman at that time and worked with him. That all was a great benefit, man, to be on the bandstand with those leaders It was very elevating for me and I wanted that to go on as long as it could.” Despite numerous offers from major record labels Coltrane resisted the lure of recording as a leader. His first ventures into the recording studio were as a sideman and included a pair of two-tenor dates with David Murray and Antoine Roney and albums with drummer Gerry Gibbs and trumpeter Wallace Roney.

Asked why he waited almost a decade after his arrival to record under his own name he says, “When I got to New York I was still kind of involved in my musical education. I was still in the process of learning the music. I know that that’s an ongoing thing, a neverending thing, but for me it was a very real thing. I had only really been formally studying the music for a little less than ten years at that juncture in my life. New York was a great place for me to build and to grow... I was able to not only go out and hear incredible masters— some who are not here anymore—but play with these incredible masters. To have that kind of apprenticeship, if you can get some of that then you go get it because that’s going to sustain and build you in ways that being a bandleader on your own won’t. Being in a rush to go out and do your own thing, I felt that there was always going to be time for that.” Coltrane finally gave into what must have been great pressure to record as a leader, releasing Moving Pictures (RCA Victor) in 1998. The date, with pianist Michael Cain, bassist Lonnie Plaxico and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts placed the still young tenor and soprano saxophonist squarely in the tradition, performing pieces by Joe Henderson, Horace Silver, Wayne Shorter and McCoy Tyner along with seven of his own deeply personal originals. His sophomore effort From The Round Box, also for RCA Victor, came two years later and featured regular collaborator trumpeter Ralph Alessi with pianists Geri Allen and Andy Milne, bassist James Genus and drummer Eric Harland playing original compositions by the two horn players along with covers of classic pieces by Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk and Shorter. It was two more years before he released Mad 6 on which the increasingly confident saxophonist finally approached a pair of his father’s tunes, “26-2” and “Fifth House”, along with pieces by Monk, Charles Mingus and Jimmy Heath as well as four increasingly distinctive original compositions.

It was three and four years between the release of his next two dates, In Flux and Blending Times (both for Savoy Jazz), and the delays were well worth the wait. Featuring what would be his regular working band for nearly a decade with pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Drew Gress and drummer EJ Strickland, the music reveals a compositional and improvisational approach Coltrane could claim as his own.  Speaking of the quartet Coltrane says, “It was nine years with that group. And it’s a real privilege, man, a real privilege to have a working band. To really begin to cultivate a sound over time, over many gigs, over many tours over many years. Obviously there’s a musical tie there, but there’s also a very brotherly kind of tie as well that informs all of the music. I think that history has already shown that that’s such a great benefit for players. If you can maintain these long associations and relationships some new things can really happen.” The group made its last appearance together on the Joe Lovano-produced Blue Note album Spirit Fiction, which also features the quintet heard on From The Round Box and Lovano. Lovano says of his fellow saxophonist, “Knowing, playing and working with Ravi has been a highlight for me in the world of music. He is one of the most driven and inspired musicians on the scene today. Every time we share music it is a beautiful experience all the way around.”

Coltrane’s latest working band with pianist David Virelles, bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Johnathan Blake has been together for nearly three years but has yet to record, something the saxophonist plans to remedy soon. He says, “They’re all incredibly busy and they’re all doing their own projects now, so I’m happy whenever I can get these same three guys in the room at once. I’m overjoyed, thrilled to be on the stage with them. I’m trying to focus on this group, but I do realize that there often seems to be a shelf life with bands. I don’t think that I’ll be able to hold on to those cats forever, so I do want to document what we’ve been doing thus far.”  Also in the works is a recording with the Universal Consciousness Alice Coltrane Project, a collective unit with Virelles, harpist Brandee Younger, bassist Rashaan Carter and conguero/sonero Román Díaz.

Coltrane says, “That’s something that I wanted to do from the minute we started doing it. I felt that this could be a very exciting band to present and to be involved in. And also, I don’t have to worry so much about being a leader, that it can operate as a collective. It just really feels like we can approach not just Alice’s music, but the concept that we can explore sonically, trying to blend those instruments’ sounds. On all of my mother’s recordings there might be moments where she overdubbed the harp with piano or the synths with organ, but to have the harp and the organ and the piano going at once is like utilizing her three primary voices in one band. And I always thought that that would be a fun thing to explore [even] outside of her compositions. Again, it’s one of those things that will hopefully develop more over time.”  The other unit that he’s hoping to record with again is the trio with drummer Jack DeJohnette and electric bass guitarist Matt Garrison, a group that DeJohnette seems amenable to continue working with. He declares, “I’ve known Ravi for quite a long time and watched his growth…I have to say that in the last year or so Ravi has managed to come into his own and be recognized as having his own voice…He’s now committing himself much stronger than he has before and it’s paying off. The spirit and the strength of the music is getting stronger and getting clearer and the vibration of it is definitely going in a good direction. So I would say and I think that others would agree, that Ravi is now well on his way to developing as an important composer, bandleader and soloist. I’m really excited and delighted to be playing with him.”  Coltrane confesses, “I feel like I haven’t been recording [as a leader for several years] because
 I didn’t feel like I really had anything to say. But at the same time, I do feel like that whatever I am saying I ant to get it documented so that I can move on to whatever might come next. I think it’s important to record for me when it’s time. If it’s not the right time, then it’s not. I was never a cat who was into having a schedule of putting out a record every year or every 15 months. I see what the benefits are; there are cats who are very prolific and they can put out a lot of great music in those short intervals of time. I’m truly a bit slower, trying to find certain things and when they’re not there for me they’re just not there. So then I can sort of work towards these things and move towards them in my own time. Again, I feel that that’s more consistent with my personality and the way I’ve developed over time. I think that that’s another thing that I learned from my mother: record when it’s time to record. And only when it’s time because it’ll be useless to do it any other time other than that. But I don’t want too much time to pass because what’s the expression— time waits for no man.”

For more information, visit ravicoltrane.com. Coltrane is at The Stone at The New School Aug. 16th and Marcus Garvey Park Aug. 24th as part of Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. See Calendar.

Recommended Listening: • Elvin Jones Jazz Machine—In Europe (Enja, 1991) • Ravi Coltrane—Mad 6 (Eighty-Eights/Columbia, 2002) • Ravi Coltrane—Blending Times (Savoy Jazz, 2006-07) • Saxophone Summit—Visitation (ArtistShare, 2011) • Ravi Coltrane—Spirit Fiction (Blue Note, 2012) • Jack DeJohnette/Ravi Coltrane/Matthew Garrison—   In Movement (ECM, 2015)