Jazz Articles about John Coltrane

Coltrane: The Story of a Sound

by Joel Roberts
November 4, 2007

Coltrane: the Story of a Sound Ben Ratliff Hardcover; 250 pages ISBN-13: 978-0-374-12606-3 Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2007

New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff's new John Coltrane study is really two books in one. The first is a concise, convincing assessment of the evolution of Coltrane's music from his early days as a not particularly distinctive bebop saxophonist through his apprenticeships with Miles and Monk to his seminal achievement ...

Coltrane: Mating Call, Traneing In, Soul Trane & My Favorite Things: Coltrane at Newport

by Christopher Shoe
September 8, 2007

Tadd Dameron Mating Call Prestige-Concord 2007 John Coltrane Traneing In Prestige-Concord 2007 John Coltrane Soultrane Prestige-Concord 2007 John Coltrane My Favorite Things: Coltrane at Newport Impulse-Verve 2007

Jazz, in some respects, is an intricate recipe ...

John Coltrane: My Favorite Things: Coltrane Live At Newport

by Chris May
August 16, 2007

Complete recordings of saxophonist John Coltrane's 1963 and 1965 Newport Festival appearances, most of the material on My Favorite Things: Coltrane Live At Newport has been available before. Most, but crucially, not all--the disc includes some eight minutes of previously unreleased music. When you're talking about the incandescent Coltrane quartet of the mid 1960s, that's a serious chunk of time, more like eight light years to hardcore enthusiasts.

The new material forms what is now the ...

John Coltrane: The Very Best Of The Atlantic Years

by Chris May
August 5, 2007

Does the world really need another John Coltrane compilation album? Yes, most certainly. The world needs as many Coltrane albums, of any description, as can be thrown at it. Even the tackiest, most opportunistic Coltrane compilations--take a bow Coltrane For Lovers (Impulse!, 2001) and Plays For Lovers (Prestige, 2003)--are redeemed by the presence of their subject, perhaps the greatest tenor saxophonist who ever lived, and certainly the most influential and enduring.

The Very Best Of The Atlantic Years ...

John Coltrane: Fearless Leader

by Marc Medwin
July 19, 2007

2007 is a significant Coltrane year as we commemorate his untimely death in July, 1967. 2006 predated the occasion with a fine release more quietly revelatory than the shocking Monk and Trane At Carnegie Hall (Blue Note, 2005) concert. Fearless Leader groups together, on six discs, the sessions that Coltrane recorded for Prestige between May 1957 and December 1958. These have all been available in one form or another since Last Trane's release in 1965. The present ...

The Indefinite Version (of My Favorite Things)

by Bertil Holmgren
July 3, 2007

'How 'gainst this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower?' W. ShakespeareIn connection to the newly released album The John Coltrane Quartet plays The Sound Of Music (Impulse!), this article describes the evolution of the song “My Favorite Things" up until the last entry in the “Olatunji Concert" of 1967, where Coltrane gives a performance that is today evident to stand the test of time much further ...

Encounters with Elvin

by Bertil Holmgren
April 25, 2007

As I mentioned in Coltrane's Music, in 1962, I had the good fortune to see and hear the classic John Coltrane Quartet in live performance five nights running, at Birdland in New York City. After Trane, Elvin Jones was the most exciting member of the group. For me then, however, Coltrane was enough, he would do. Elvin, McCoy and Jimmy Garrison were secondary for me. It wasn't until later, when deepening perception or maturity, enabled me to look beyond Coltrane ...