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John Coltrane (Pablo: Live Trane: European Tours
by David Tegnell
To celebrate the 75th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth, Fantasy/Pablo has released Live Trane: European Tours. This seven-disc, eight-hour-long box set, mixing previously released and unreleased material, is intended to chronicle Coltrane’s three European concert tours, 1961-1963. To persuade us that this release is definitive, the set’s producer Eric Miller declares that he has emptied the vaults, and corrected previous discographical errors. He furthers this claim by asserting that he has been aided in his research by the most noted ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane: Live Trane: The European Tours
by Scott Morrow
John Coltrane fans have a reason to freak-out with this still welcome new release. The reason being, after the release of both the seven disc Coltrane: The Classic Quartet Complete Impulse Studio Recordings, and the four disc Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings, the realization occurs that the music of John Coltrane is so complex and able to be appreciated on so many levels (many, yet to be discovered), that entire years could be devoted to any one of these sets. ...
Continue ReadingKenny Burell/John Coltrane: Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane
by David Rickert
Albums in which one jazz great meets" another jazz great hold a special fascination with listeners and usually the collaboration itself is enough of a selling point to include it as the title. Consider Gerry Mulligan, who tended to record his best playing in tandem with another, like Ben Webster, Paul Desmond, and Stan Getz. Another frequent collaborator was Coltrane, who recorded with Ellington, Hawkins, and Hartman; however, his brilliant quartet recordings for Impulse tend to overshadow recordings such as ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis & John Coltrane: The Best Of Miles Davis & John Coltrane (1955-1961)
by Jim Santella
Early Coltrane and early Miles is textbook material. It’s the stuff we’re made of. All the licks, all the quotes, and some of the new harmonic ideas are there. This one-disc reissue compilation gathers Columbia’s best from its archives. An overview of Columbia’s six-disc collection, this album distills a treasured trove of classic pieces performed by classy artists.
”Straight, No Chaser” is an alternate take. The arrangement offers a clear example of the emphasis Davis placed on purity of tone. ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane (JVC xrcd2 0202-2: Settin' the Pace
by Justin Gawaziuk
The rhythm section here has appeared with on several Prestige releases as the Red Garland Trio. Both Garland and Chambers have played with Coltrane in the Miles Davis Quintet, and Art Taylor did some work with Davis as well. There exists some comfort in the homogeneity of the orchestration in all these groups. Listening to the works by these fine players gives the jazz lover the chance to experience cohesive musicality seldom achieved in any genre.
Sonically, this reissue is ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane: Coltrane Sound
by AAJ Staff
In all, it was a busy week. Near the end of 1960, John Coltrane owed Atlantic a bunch of albums, due at the close of the year. He did what his old boss had four years earlier: record a whole mass of material all at once. It was the start of Elvin’s stay and the end of Steve Davis’; a group in flux, but a leader in full control. The tunes were done with no album in mind: on Oct. ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane / Archie Shepp: New Thing At Newport
by Derek Taylor
What better place than the Newport Jazz Festival, a historically tight-laced and conservative jazz forum, for the quartets of Coltrane and Shepp to pour out their soulful selves as libations for the masses? Prior to this 1963 concert the festival’s track record with adventurous jazz fare was checkered at best. Monk and Giuffre had played there in previous years, but the focus was undeniably on the accessible and the mainstream. Things had become so skewed that Charles Mingus, Max Roach ...
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