Alone Together

Abstract

This article explores how masculinity functioned as an expressive vocabulary for articulating feelings of belonging to and estrangement from the John Coltrane classic quartet. McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones’s departure from the quartet in January 1966 is often attributed to creative differences, but this glosses over what was an emotionally complex experience of estrangement and an identity crisis rooted in the loss of a shared masculine collectivity. This article first establishes how masculinity structured and informed the terms of belonging to the ensemble, and secondly, explores how these masculine relationships evolved and fractured during their final few months of collaboration in late 1965. Analysing different ensemble dynamics and textural configurations on Coltrane’s quartet and sextet recordings of his spiritual suite Meditations—recorded in September and November 1965 respectively—reveals a burgeoning tension between Coltrane’s preference for ‘strong’, masculine, individual performances, and his cultivation of an intimate, shared, group masculinity.