The Bebop Shop : New York Is Now: Ornette and Free Jazz : John Coltrane: The Live Recordings
As a bonus to this newly found performance, there is also a true Coltrane rarity : the April 1, 1960 Düsseldorf concert - which should have marked Coltrane’s last gig with Miles Davis - but Miles was unable to attend the date for unknown reasons, and so ‘Trane performed alone backed by Miles’ outstanding rhythm section : Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums. (Discovery Records) Price: £10.99
The Milan performance took place several months after the departure of Eric Dolphy, and was recorded by a fan with amateur equipment, and sound quality is obviously not good, but has been improved as far as possible. (Discovery Records) Price: £10.99
By 1962, the John Coltrane Quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones was a solid musical unit. For a while, in 1961 and early 1962, the quartet evolved into a quintet with the addition of reedman Eric Dolphy. This quintet (with Reggie Workman on bass) had visited Europe in November 1961. In mid-November 1962, the quartet (minus Dolphy; with Garrison on bass) began a new European tour. Fortunately, many concerts from that tour were recorded by local radio stations and devoted fans. (Discovery Records) Price: £16.99
These are all absorbing versions, with incredible improvisation and interplay, in which the musicians seem fully immersed. There are three tour de force tracks around or over the 20 minute mark. Roland Kirk was also in town and after the concert the two saxophonists went to Copenhagen's famous Café Montmartre to play during a well remembered (but unfortunately not recorded) jam session, backed by Kirk's band. Coltrane's playing is risky and adventurous, as always. To quote the great man: "Whenever I make a change, I'm a little worried that it may puzzle people. And sometimes I deliberately delay things for this reason. But after a while I find there is nothing else I can do but go ahead". (Discovery Records) Price: £16.99
The importance of these influential performances has grown throughout the years as musicians – especially saxophone players – passed around bootleg and lo-fi copies taken from the 1965 radio broadcast. It was a time when Coltrane was pushing his musical boundaries, and one can hear the evolution of his style on these recordings. As his son Ravi Coltrane says, “You can hear everything that came before and begin to hear where the music was going.”
The music captured on One Down, One Up: Live At The Half Note features the songs “One Down, One Up” (perhaps the highlight of the collection), “Afro Blue,” “Song of Praise,” and “My Favorite Things.” The unparalleled performances showcase a band filled with fiery passion and a master at the crossroads of his musical path.
One Down, One Up: Live At The Half Note features liner notes from journalist and author Ashley Kahn who wrote A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album as well as the upcoming The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records. Also included is an essay by the CD’s producer, Ravi Coltrane. (Verve Music Group)
Price: £16.99
Coltrane was too ill to perform at the Newport Festival the following year, and he died shortly after at the age of 40 on July 17, 1967. He had played at Newport in 1958, 1961, 1963 & 1965. (Discovery Records) Price: £12.99
After this set, taped on November 11, 1966, ‘Trane would record a number of sessions for Impulse (which would mostly be issued posthumously), and would be recorded privately at the Village Theatre in New York on December 26 (this performance is mentioned in discographies as circulating among collectors, but it has never been released; the audio quality is unknown), and finally at New York’s Olatunji Center, on April 23, 1967. The latter would prove to be his final live performance, which ‘Trane gave despite feeling extreme pain. (Discovery Records) Price: £12.99
Recorded in NY April ‘67 three months before his death in July from liver complications, ‘Trane was certainly blowing like he had come to terms with a saint’s burden of knowledge: Scorching the blueprints ahead and behind him, leading his telepathic ensemble – wife Alice Coltrane-piano, Pharoah Sanders-tenor sax, Jimmy Garrison-bass, Rasied Ali-drums, Algie DeWitt-bata drum – through two hyper extended deconstructions of ‘Ogunde’ and ‘My Favorite Things’.
Is this a great concert? A fitting end? A study in perverse musical abandon aspiring to achieve pure sound? Immaterial. It is Coltrane taking us to the other side of self where the answers, and the music, are never easy. (Album Leaves, the BIRDpages Record Review) Price: £14.99
