I've been listening to jazz since 1958 and feel no more duty to listen to Coltraine's bleating period than I do to listen to Miles' funk period. My ears are under my own control.
Mr.Mudede's take on Wests's comments are not what i got out of seeing and hearing the same movie,nor are his dates of Coltranes 'periods' correct.(In 1963 he was still playing with McCOY and the original quartet.) I think West and others in the movie are trying to be honest and this writer is trying to be negative.Can we all say that we 'understand' all of Stravinsky's music or James Joyce's writing?Have some consideration for someone whose abilities we all should strive for one way or the other,and whose contributions in less than 10 years as a musician/composer/leader out weigh almost any artist of the last 100 years.
I get an enormous amount out of listening to late-period Coltrane. Mostly I find it very peaceful: I perceive it as the coruscation of upper overtones above an unstated (but very deep) fundamental. Certainly "atonal" is hardly correct; this music is profoundly tonal.