Both Directions at Once : John Coltrane, the Sonic Philosopher of Oppositions

Abstract

In Both Directions at Once, an album lost for almost 40 years, John Coltrane presents a constellation of musical tradition, themes, composition and improvisation, in dialecti- cal opposition. This article imagines Coltrane as a sonic philosopher of oppositions and the album-named after Coltrane's quote in which he attempts 'starting a sentence in the middle, and then going to the beginning and the end of it at the same time... both directions at once'-as his philosophical treatise. Borrowing from biographers, musi- cologists and jazz critics, this contribution argues that in the album, the music engages with itself rather than seeking resolution or finality. In other words, Coltrane's dialecti- cal aesthetic drives the aesthetic. Both Directions at Once is sound focused on soni-cally opposing forces. It is an attempt by a deep thinker to present contradictions and oppositions between musical polarities that may create new potentialities. What listen- ers hear is Coltrane, the philosopher, striving toward a multidirectional aesthetic that furnishes music unshackled from the conditions of possibility.