FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

By Joseph Benzola

Impulse Records, in their continuing quest to find new John Coltrane material, have discovered presently unreleased tapes of Trane singing in the shower. The new 28-bit mastered 10-CD package, retailing at $129.99, will be titled "Out of this World and in the Shower with Coltrane". You can hear Trane sing "I'm Just a Gigolo" recorded live in the shower of the Paris Hilton. Catch Trane lamenting "What Kind of Fool Am I" in the shower of the Stuttgart Marriott.

Perhaps the most amazing find are the five CD's recorded in the showers of the Osaka Grand Hotel, Hakata Imperial Hotel, Kobe International Hotel and the Tokyo Prince Hotel. In Japan it seems Trane was infatuated with the Beatles "Revolver' album which had just been released. On these five CD's, Trane sings all of the Revolver material (The extended UK album, not the US Capitol version). There is a celestial 45 minute version of "Tomorrow Never Knows" sung in the Tokyo Prince Bathroom and a mammoth 90 minute "And Your Bird Can Sing" from both Kobe and Osaka.

There is an incredible ambient reverb throughout the recording. "NO...we did not doctor up these recordings with digital reverb", says Michael Cuscuna. "The shower stall and bathroom acts as a natural reverb plate. That is what gives the "otherworldly" quality to such songs as "Mona Lisa" from the Stockholm Holiday Inn and "Unforgettable" recorded in the Seattle Hilton (and an alternate take recorded in Trane's shower stall in Dix Hills)"

The beautiful packaging contains a 100 page book including the words, to all of the songs and a psychoacoustic history of the bathroom. Instead of the usual Impulse sticker contained on many of the 20-bit remastered reissues, Impulse is including a bar of soap imprinted with the Impulse logo and Trane's engraved face from "A Love Supreme" below that. "Yes...it is a real, pure, 100% natural glycerin bar of soap", states Cuscuna.

It must also be noted that many of these titles were recorded in the field by Rudy van Gelder. "That is the clincher...that is what gives this 10-CD set its sonic excellence. I believe that these are important recordings in the legacy of John Coltrane. Every Coltrane completist will want a copy" says Cuscuna.

Release date: June 1999

Several other bits of info on these sessions that I didnt mention that makes them an especially important find...

Near the end of the version of "and your bird can sing" the voice of pharoah sanders can clearly be heard saying "when you gonna get your black ass out of there so someone else here can use the damn shower?".

During "unforgettable", alice comes thru on tape saying "hey, you no-account mofo, singing better be the only thing that you're doin' in there!!!"

Visit Joe Benzola on the web, at www.electronicscene.com/jbenzola or www.mp3.com/amanitamusic.