Tag: John Coltrane

John Coltrane – Om (1967/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time – 28:55 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Verve Reissues

Condemned by many critics as John Coltrane’s worst album, Om suffers only in comparison to the great works that preceded it. Also issued in 1965, Ascension had stunned the jazz world with the blunt force of its innovation – a swirling maelstrom of noise, it was an answer to the challenge that had been posed by Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz several years earlier. For all the sonic assault that Pharoah Sanders and Coltrane mustered up on Ascension, however, it contained some surprisingly clear solos and had the feel of a well-thought-out interplay between all of the musicians on the date, including classic quartet members Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison, and McCoy Tyner. Om, in contrast, seems more like a pure release of energy. Expressions of sanity and organization by the rhythm section seem detached from the wall of sound that Sanders and Coltrane have erected. The best moments come when Coltrane breaks away from Sanders for solos – echoes of Love Supreme can be heard in the repetitive, circular themes. Regardless of its seeming chaos, this is a deeply spiritual work, and can be seen as a darker, more unhinged version of the invocations heard on that album. Indeed, Om resonates with passion and yearning, but has a frantic edge that suggests that opening up to all of that powerful spiritual energy might have been a frightening experience. The music isn’t perfect, as the thematic flow sometimes seems a bit segmented, and talented members of the band are relegated a little too far to the background (like McCoy Tyner, who nevertheless has a beautiful short solo around 13:30). Regardless, Om doesn’t deserve the dismissal it has been given by critics. It is an important work in the history of free jazz that opens up considerably by the end of its 29 minutes, revealing the expansive contents of a jazz master’s mind. AllMusic Review by Stacia Proefrock

Comments closed

John Coltrane – Coltrane (First Trane) (1957/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 41:32 minutes | 246 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

As a result of his exposure as a member of the Miles Davis Quintet, Prestige Records owner and producer Bob Weinstock offered Coltrane a recording contract. Dated April 9, 1957, it stipulated three albums per year at $300 per album. Coltrane had previously recorded as a sideman, and had co-led a session with Paul Quinichette released in 1959 as Cattin’ with Coltrane and Quinichette, but never as sole bandleader.

Comments closed

John Coltrane – Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time – 05:37:46 minutes | 12 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Craft Recordings

Newly remastered by Paul Blakemore featuring 37 tracks: Coltrane’s breakout year, when his mature sound first grabbed ears and his own recordings began to sell consistently, was 1958. This release chronicles the exciting story session by session, featuring all 37 tracks Coltrane recorded as a leader or co-leader for the independent Prestige Records label in those twelve months. This collection captures him in creative high gear—developing the signature improvisational style that journalist Ira Gitler famously dubbed “sheets of sound.”

The timely release marks the 70th year since the founding of Prestige and comes just after the 60th anniversary of these recordings.

Comments closed

John Coltrane – Afro Blue Impressions (Remastered & Expanded) (1973/2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 125:51 minutes | 3,99 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks.com | Digital booklet | © Pablo Records

Concord Music Group will reissue a remastered and expanded edition of John Coltrane’s Afro Blue Impressions album on August 20, 2013. Enhanced by 24-bit remastering by Joe Tarantino, three bonus tracks, and new liner notes, the new reissue celebrates the 40th anniversary of Pablo Records, the jazz label founded by Norman Granz in 1973.

Comments closed

The John Coltrane Quartet – Africa/Brass (Remastered) (1961/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 33:50 minutes | 381 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

Africa/Brass is the eighth studio album by jazz musician John Coltrane, released in 1961 on Impulse! Records, catalogue A-6. The sixth release for the fledgling label and Coltrane’s first for Impulse!, it features Coltrane’s working quartet augmented by a larger ensemble to bring the total number of participating musicians to 21. Its big band sound, with the unusual instrumentation of French horns and euphonium, presented music very different from anything that had been associated with Coltrane to date.

Comments closed

John Coltrane – Trane: The Atlantic Collection (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 46:48 minutes | 506 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino Atlantic

What if John Coltrane’s Atlantic period was really his most exciting? After his great years under the Prestige and Blue Note banners, and before his fulminating recordings for Impulse!, the saxophonist would work for Ahmet Ertegun’s firm between 1959 and 1961. There, he would record four essential records which are held by some to be the quintessence of Coltrane’s art: Giant Steps (his first album made up exclusively of his own compositions) in 1960, Coltrane Jazz (his first collaboration with pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones), My Favorite Things and Ol Coltrane(with Eric Dolphy), all three released in 1961. Although he was no longer signed with Atlantic, he would nevertheless release The Avant-Garde (where he was co-leader with Don Cherry), Coltrane Plays The Blues and Coltrane’s Sound. Nine numbers from this golden age have been selected for Trane: The Atlantic Collection. Remastered and available in Hi-Res 24-bit quality, for sure they represent 46 minutes of total genius, but it is difficult and frustrating to find oneself limited to this short selection, when the rest of albums count among the most essential pages in the history of jazz. With these records, the uniqueness of Coltrane finally breaks out into broad daylight. His style, which was unique at the time – technically and harmonically – literally moulded the canons of bop and proposed a totally different road to that being taken at the time by Miles Davis with Kind Of Blue, his angular brick of modal jazz. Upon its release, a large part of the jazzosphere was more than shocked by the complexity of the creations of Coltrane and his collaborators. Today, all the music presented in Trane: The Atlantic Collection has naturally passed into the pages of history. And re-listening to it, in the fine style in which it’s presented here, is an essential service that should be provided free to all on the NHS…

Comments closed

John Coltrane – Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album (Deluxe Edition) (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:28:46 minutes | 2,09 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Impulse!

Unknown until 2004 and unheard until now, these recordings by the John Coltrane Quartet are, as Sonny Rollins says in the liner notes, like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid. Featuring the Classic Quartet – John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones – and recorded at the end of a two-week run at Birdland, the music on this album represents one of the most influential groups in music history both performing in a musical style it had perfected and reaching in new, exploratory directions that were to affect the trajectory of jazz from that point forward. The standard version (available in CD and LP formats) incorporates 7 tracks, 2 of which are two completely unheard, brand new original compositions as well as Coltrane classics like Impressions and Vilia. The deluxe version (also available in CD and LP formats) incorporates 7 alternate takes of some of the tracks from the standard – a must have for any Coltrane fan.

Comments closed

John Coltrane – Bahia (1965/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 36:22 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Booklet, Front cover | © Prestige Records

Recorded over two sessions in 1958, this album was compiled and released in 1965 by John Coltrane’s former record label to capitalize on his growing fame and success. Coltrane is joined by Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Wilbur Harden on flugelhorn and trumpet, Red Garland on piano and drummer Art Taylor on one session; the other set features Jimmy Cobb on drums while bassist Paul Chambers appears on all tracks.

Bahia was released in 1965 and contains tracks from two separate recording sessions at the Rudy Van Gelder studio in Hackensack, New Jersey in 1958. The tracks had been unissued previously and as Coltrane’s fame grew during the ’60s, Prestige used the recordings to create new albums long after Coltrane stopped recording for the label. When Bahia was recorded in late 1958, John Coltrane was running out of patience with the standard song form as a vehicle for improvisation. Although he would go on to make one unforgettable album of standards in the early 1960s, by mid-1959 his incredible energies were increasingly directed into modal and scalar channels that would lead him to some of the most expansive and, ultimately, mysterious creative expression in all of jazz. Bahia presents Coltrane still working within the song form. He all but explodes it in the title tune and, particularly, “Goldsboro Express.” But in the album’s lovely ballads, he caresses and embellishes the melodies and chords as if preparing to bid them a reluctant farewell.

Comments closed