Through the analysis of Olé, we propose to probe Coltrane’s treatment of a particular folkloric imaginary, the Spanish one. This Hispanic imaginary lies within a double framework. The first one is African-American, with the multiplication of works of jazz that has mobilized the Spanish musical universe since the mid-fifties. The second one is European : it seems difficult to ignore the long Western tradition of Spanish orientalism that flourished in the 19th Century. The work of Coltrane appears in a context that is symbolically and musically loaded. It cannot be analyzed without reckoning with the tension between the highly valued status of Spain in Modern jazz, and the undervalued status of this nation in the Western imaginary. Our central purpose will thus be to examine what type of Orientalism Coltrane invites us to. Does he maintain the stereotypes stemming from the European musical tradition in front of this “internal other” that Spain happens to be ? Does the specificity of the Afro-American heritage – which is likewise marginal – allow him to elude the rapport of the “reification of alterity” – specific to Orientalism – as theorized by Edward Said, in particular ? To what extent does the African resonance of the Hispanic imaginary in the Occidental minds charm the African-American musicians ? In other words, in their confrontation with the Hispanic imaginary, do Coltrane and his musicians attempt to foreground roots or alterity ? In order to answer this question, we shall deal with two musicological aspects of Olé: a) the depth and the seriousness of the immersion in the musical original material, that goes beyond the mere evocation of an exotic atmosphere; b) the interplay of the tension and the convergences between the Afro-American and Spanish legacies. We shall try to show here how Coltrane endeavours to bridge the gap between the two worlds which he offers, in a relationship that seems less antagonistic (centre / periphery) than harmonious (a kinship of a kind, that enables them to communicate on an equal footing). In this respect, Coltrane seems to take advantage of the alterity inherent in the Hispanic imaginary, in order to go one step further in his aesthetic quest of musical universals.Our aim will be to show how this strategy of converting alterity into a universal establishes a parallel between his work and the preoccupations of Black American cultural nationalism, through the empathy it points out with a “Black” world that extends from the West Indies to India, via Spain. However, it seems important to us not to confine this study to the celebration of an empathical “Black orientalism” that would conflict, in its own terms, with a “White orientalism” à la Said. Eventually, after recalling the links between Black cultural nationalism and the romantic conception of pre-Modern cultures, we shall attempt to put back the Coltranian approach to alterity within the long tradition of the relationship with exoticism in African-American music – a relationship which undoubtedly is expressed, with an ironic awereness of its multi-layered complexity, in the music of Charles Mingus or Duke Ellington.

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   |texte=   Les dilemmes de l’orientalisme afro-américain : Coltrane et l’imaginaire hispanique dans « Olé »
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