John Coltrane The Impulse! Albums

As is the case with the Blue Note catalog, the vast holdings of Impulse! are best sampled one album at a time. For the overview-loving listener, though, various-artists collections such as this one offer an enjoyable way to start plotting a single-artist disc strategy. Most of the albums these songs are culled from are without a doubt classics (Coltrane's Africa/Brass, Sonny Rollins' Alfie, 'Trane and Ellington's collaborative recording), but neophytes will be pleased to know the cuts here are all top-notch in their own right. ~ AllMusic

Gato Barbieri may be one of those saxophonists whose sound is so closely associated with smooth jazz – and has been since the late '70s – that it's hard to imagine he was once the progenitor of a singular kind of jazz fusion: and that's world fusion, not jazz-rock fusion. Barbieri recorded four albums for Impulse! between 1973 and 1975 that should have changed jazz forever, in that he provided an entirely new direction when it was desperately needed. That it didn't catch certainly isn't his fault, but spoke more to the dearth of new ideas that followed after the discoveries of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Miles Davis. Barbieri, a Coltrane disciple, hailed from Argentina and sought to bring the music of Latin America, most specifically its folk forms, into the jazz arena.

In August of 1961, the John Coltrane Quintet played an engagement at the legendary Village Gate in Greenwich Village, New York. Eighty minutes of never-before-heard music from this group were recently discovered at the New York Public Library. In addition to some well-known Coltrane material ("Impressions"), there is a breathtaking feature for Dolphy's bass clarinet on "When Lights Are Low" and the only known non-studio recording of Coltrane's composition "Africa", from the Africa/Brass album.

Considered by many to be his finest single album, Coltrane finds John Coltrane displaying all of the exciting elements that sparked brilliance and allowed his fully formed instrumental voice to shine through in the most illuminating manner. On tenor saxophone, he's simply masterful, offering the burgeoning sheets of sound philosophy into endless weavings of melodic and tuneful displays of inventive, thoughtful, driven phrases. Coltrane also plays a bit of soprano saxophone as a primer for his more exploratory work to follow. Meanwhile, bassist Jimmy Garrison, drummer Elvin Jones, and especially the stellar McCoy Tyner have integrated their passionate dynamics into the inner whole of the quartet…

As is the case with the Blue Note catalog, the vast holdings of Impulse! are best sampled one album at a time. For the overview-loving listener, though, various-artists collections such as this one offer an enjoyable way to start plotting a single-artist disc strategy. Most of the albums these songs are culled from are without a doubt classics (Coltrane's Africa/Brass, Sonny Rollins' Alfie, 'Trane and Ellington's collaborative recording), but neophytes will be pleased to know the cuts here are all top-notch in their own right. And that goes for other fine offerings here by the likes of Keith Jarrett, Gil Evans, and suave vocalist Johnny Hartman. A roundup that deserves more than just a cutout bin fate.

Throughout John Coltrane's discography there are a handful of decisive and controversial albums that split his listening camp into factions. Generally, these occur in his later-period works such as Om and Ascension, which push into some pretty heady blowing. As a contrast, Ballads is often criticized as too easy and as too much of a compromise between Coltrane and Impulse! (the two had just entered into the first year of label representation). Seen as an answer to critics who found his work complicated with too many notes and too thin a concept, Ballads has even been accused of being a record that Coltrane didn't want to make. These conspiracy theories (and there are more) really just get in the way of enjoying a perfectly fine album of Coltrane doing what he always did - exploring new avenues and modes in an inexhaustible search for personal and artistic enlightenment…

Recorded at two sessions in early 1967, Expression represents John Coltrane's final recording sessions just months before his death. A varied and searching record, Coltrane shares space with fellow universal travelers Pharoah Sanders, Jimmy Garrison, Rashied Ali, and wife Alice Coltrane. This band, working hard during the time leading up to Coltrane's demise, was performing in the most spiritually reaching territory Coltrane would aspire to. This is evidenced by the burning tenor/drum duet section of "Offering," perhaps the highlight of these sessions. Coltrane and Ali spiral into the far reaches here with a boundless energy that somehow remains controlled and restrained even in its rawest moments…

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (1964) [2CD] {2002 Verve Deluxe Edition}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 551 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 252 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 71 Mb
© 2002 Verve / Impulse! | 314 589 945-2 | 20-bit remaster
Jazz / Post Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz / Free Jazz

Ranked #47 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time". A LOVE SUPREME is the essential example of the genius of John Coltrane. In what has become the apotheosis of jazz music, this eminently accessible work bridges the gap between music and spirituality, between art and life. With the ultimate incarnation of the jazz quartet, Coltrane brings together all of his turbulent elements into a cohesive paean to spirituality, one which is fully appreciable by the uninitiated.