The performances culled by producer Eric Miller from the vaults of tapes recorded by Norman Granz show that during this period, Coltrane's Quartet-sometimes a quintet with the addition of Eric Dolphy-was playing from a book of very limited songs. "My Favorite Things", "Impressions", "Mr. P.C.", and "Naima" are performed numerous times on these discs, peppered with the occasional surprise such as "Bye Bye Blackbird", "I Want to Talk About You" or "The Inch Worm". Overall, though, Trane appears to have been as obsessed with these songs that provided him an opportunity to blow over limited chord changes as he once was with chord changes themselves. It's true, too, that there is such an abundance of Coltrane soloing, searching, and reaching deep into these numbers that once the head has been played, you might not know it's the same song. By the time of these concerts, Coltrane was playing an average of 20 minutes on "My Favorite Things", but he had brought his own solo time down to maybe 10 minutes of that total time, whereas not long before this he had been soloing for up to 30 minutes himself on the tune.

The first performances on these recordings were done within a week of Coltane's November 1961 Village Vanguard gigs preserved on Live at the Village Vanguard. Several tracks are included that were performed at the Vanguard gigs, including "Impressions", "Naima", and "Miles' Mode". The performances on the first two discs, recorded in Stockholm, Paris, and Hamburg, are bold and muscular, very similar to the Vanguard performances. Coltrane's recorded work at this time hadn't quite caught up what he was doing onstage-a situation that was also experienced by Miles Davis in the late '60s. My Favorite Things, the album, had only been released this same year. The album hinted at the direction Coltrane was headed, but his live performances of the same year show he was moving at a very fast pace. Coltrane and Dolphy were already working on Africa/Brass and though "Impressions" had been recorded in the studio, it wouldn't be released until later. It is another reason we are fortunate so much live work from this period was recorded.

Coltrane's reception in Europe was generally positive, but some of the reviews of his Vanguard stand back home were less complementary. 1962 saw Coltrane retreat a bit, at least in his recorded work, from the advances he had made in '61. Dolphy was gone, and certainly he had taken his share of abuse from the critics. Disc 3 and the first three tracks of Disc 4 of Live Trane were culled from his 1962 European tour, and they reflect a more conservative quartet, though at times there are still hints of the previous year's expansiveness. Disc 3 opens with a splendid rendition of the blues "Mr. P.C.", and it is remarkably similar to the work of any other post-bop quartet of the time. McCoy Tyner plays very strongly on these performances, offering a wonderfully expanded piano solo on the nearly 25-minute rendition of "My Favorite Things". There's no question that Tyner came to the fore with Dolphy out of the picture, and one wonders whether there were internal as well as external pressures that pushed Dolphy out of the group. The song selection has expanded a bit as well, with "Inch Worm", "Traneing In", and "Bye Bye Blackbird" joining the usual suspects, and only the one long version of "My Favorite Things".

In the 1963 performances that comprise the rest of Live Trane, Coltrane continues to work familiar ground on familiar tunes, but he once again moves towards the muscular, wide-open improvisations of 1961. By now he is consolidating all the moves forward that were made in the incredibly brief span of two years-the absorption with modes and extended improvisations based on complete musical thoughts rather than chord changes, the interest in Indian music and drones, the incorporation of soprano sax, and the cementing of his famous classic quartet. On the final performances of this set, Trane sounds like he has become very comfortable with the new territory he's staked out-which meant, of course, that it was time to change once again. Within a year Coltrane would release A Love Supreme, a work that combined his musical and spiritual quests, and move rapidly into what became the final phases of his development, which sped farther and farther into the territory being mined by Ornette Coleman and other proponents of avant-garde "new thing" jazz, including Trane's old partner Eric Dolphy. Not quite four years after the final notes preserved on Live Trane, John Coltrane passed out of this world having accomplished all of that. He accomplished so much in the relatively brief time that his career blossomed that one wonders if he ever really appreciated what he was doing and the impact it would continue to have on jazz some thirty-odd years later. One thing is certain: thanks to the careful preservation and remastering done on performances like the ones on Live Trane, listeners can appreciate Coltrane's impact and continue to be amazed by his work.