JOHN COLTRANE
Prestige Profiles Vol. 9
For some people, the ‘real’ John
Coltrane ended after My Favorite Things, while for other
the ‘real’ Coltrane consisted of the famous
quartet, and still others feel his post-quartet material
is where he was headed all along. Nonetheless, the material
presented on this Prestige Profile release shows Coltrane
at a crucial moment in his development and his life. He
had been part of the first great Miles Davis quintet, which
recorded nearly all its output in two marathon sessions
for Prestige, and in early 1957 he kicked his heroin habit,
just as his old boss, Miles had also done. Towards the end
of this auspicious year he worked with Monk, another crucial
element in his musical development. The recently discovered
and release of his November, 1957 concert with Monk at Carnegie
Hall shows not only how compatible the two musicians had
become, but how much Coltrane had developed during that
stint with Monk.
Everything here comes from 1957 or 1957, with
the exception of “On a Misty Night,” from 1956.
This unusual number features composer Tadd Dameron on piano,
along with John Simmons and Philly Joe Jones, and Coltrane.
Trane’s solo is swinging but fierce, and Dameron swings
very amiably. The quick “Russian Lullaby” begins
with a florid Red Garland intro that sets the stage for
the fiery tempo and Coltrane pyrotechnics that follow. “The
Way You Look Tonight” is a group session that features
Coltrane playing in a horn section with trumpet player Idrees
Sulieman and alto player Sahib Shihab, Mal Waldron at the
piano, and Ed Thigpen on drums.
Most of the other tracks feature Coltrane
with Red Garland and Paul Chambers, and several drummer,
including Louis Hayes, Arthur Taylor, and Jimmy Cobb. You
don’t really need much besides John Coltrane and a
swinging rhythm section to get things going, and these performances—sometimes
with an added horn (Donald Byrd, Wilbur Harden) make that
perfectly clear. An interesting exception is “Dakar”,
which features Trane and a two-baritone sax-attack (Cecil
Payne and Pepper Adams). Well worth hearing, but not strictly
a Coltrane vehicle by any means.
This is a solid collection of music that doesn’t
always feature Coltrane as leader, but nonetheless features
plenty of his playing at a time when he was about to explode
to legendary status. Or you can always invest in Prestige’s
16-CD collection of Coltrane on Prestige. The bonus disc
features some good tracks by Red Garland, Sonny Rollins,
Hank Mobley, Mal Waldron, Eric Dolphy, Yusef Lateef, and
Steve Lacy.
