Coltrane: The Origin of “Big Nick”

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“Big Nick” is a charming but rarely played composition of Coltrane’s. (The Tony Williams Lifetime recorded one of the few covers.) It has a spritely theme  that projects a kind of wit and good humor not often found in Coltrane’s pieces, which tend to be more dramatic. I learned from an excellent Italian pianist, Carlo Morena (through my good friend, the Italian jazz scholar Maurizio Franco) that this piece comes from a classical source:  the Impromptu No. 3, from  a group of five little impromptus written by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) during 1920 and 1921. Go ahead and enjoy the whole piece here, but then go back and listen to the first few seconds again, while you look at this sheet music excerpt:

(The dedicatee, Meyer (1897-1958), was a favorite pianist of Poulenc and other composers. Here is an essay by Poulenc in praise of her art.)

Now let’s listen here to the beginning to Coltrane’s “Big Nick,” as recorded with the quartet in April 1962, and first released around July 1964 on a compilation album called The Definitive Jazz Scene Volume 1.

And here’s the only other recorded version by Coltrane, with Duke Ellington in September of 1962. This was released around January 1963.

To make the connection even more clear, play the Poulenc again but first go to the Settings cogwheel and change the speed to .75, which will bring it pretty close to Coltrane’s tempo. Notice that Poulenc’s first measure—the first eight notes— is identical to Coltrane's melody. This is important, because it is a very unusual melody. Even more significant, the Coltrane piece is in the same key. There’s no way that this is a coincidence.  However, unlike “Spiritual,” which I showed to be a complete performance of a pre-existing song, Coltrane wrote a new melody this time after those first eight notes, and it’s a very clever, bouncing theme, totally different from where Poulenc goes with it. So it really is an original, but it pays homage to Poulenc.

But here’s a question: Why did Coltrane dedicate this, of all pieces, to tenor saxophonist Big Nick Nicholas? Have you ever heard Nicholas play? I was lucky enough to see him at St. Peter’s, the “jazz church” in Manhattan. Nicholas (1922-1997) was a very straight-ahead protégé of Coleman Hawkins, as you can hear on this broadcast hosted by our late friend Phil Schaap:

Here’s Nick himself playing “Big Nick.” (Actually, his birth name was George, but he said that ever since he was about 10, people called him Big Nick, short for Nicholas.) There’s a weird intro, and Nick’s theme statement is pretty rough, but he gets into it during his sax solo:

(Some significant new information about the above version of “Big Nick” by Nicholas himself is in another post, here.)

But apparently Nicholas was—very much like his mentor Hawkins—very interested in modern classical music. In the book Chasin’ the Trane by J.C., Thomas (1975), Big Nick  is quoted saying on page 105:

“I recall John and I playing Bartok. I had some albums, especially the Concerto for Orchestra, and we played along with the music, sometimes playing the exact lines and other times improvising over them.”

It’s easy to imagine that Big Nick also introduced Coltrane to other pieces, such as the Poulenc impromptu. If that’s correct, then it makes perfect sense that Coltrane should have dedicated the tune to Nicholas.

But that brings me to the last question—why, out of the five impromptus, did Coltrane, and I assume, Nick, specifically choose this one, Number 3? I don’t know of any recording of this piece during Coltrane’s lifetime, not even by Meyer, so it would not have been from hearing a recording. But a readily available sheet music collection, Poulenc: Album of Six Piano Pieces, published in 1940,  contained one movement of this and one movement of that and—you guessed it—only one of the impromptus: Number Three!

I don’t have the slightest doubt that Big Nick had this little book and showed it or loaned it to Coltrane.

More to come about Coltrane, Holiday, Miles, and plenty of others!

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