Blue Train

Recorded on September 15, 1957 at Rudy Van Gelder's Hackensack studio, Blue Train was John Coltrane's sole date as a leader for Blue Note during a year in which he was signed to Prestige, made possible by Alfred Lion's willingness to loan him for a single session. It arrived at a pivotal moment: Coltrane had just kicked heroin, rejoined Miles Davis, and was deep in his stint with Thelonious Monk's quartet, absorbing harmonic ideas that fed directly into the writing here. Four of the five tracks are Coltrane originals, including the blues-drenched title cut and the harmonically dense "Moment's Notice," which became a staple of the jazz repertoire and a favorite vehicle for improvisers testing their changes. The front line of Lee Morgan and Curtis Fuller gives the record a big, brassy hard-bop sound distinct from Coltrane's more exploratory Prestige work of the same period, while Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers and "Philly" Joe Jones supply a driving, cohesive rhythm section. Critically the album has long been regarded as Coltrane's first fully realized statement as a composer-leader and one of the cornerstone recordings of the hard-bop era. It remains a perennial entry on best-jazz-album lists and is often cited as the release where Coltrane's mature voice first crystallized on record.