Coltrane Jazz

Coltrane Jazz gathers material Coltrane recorded for Atlantic in late 1959 and 1960 while he was simultaneously finishing his tenure with Miles Davis's sextet and about to form his own classic quartet, making it something of a transitional document between the Giant Steps harmonic experiments and the modal explorations to come. The bulk of the album pairs Coltrane with his working rhythm section of the period, pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb - all Miles Davis sidemen - while one track, 'Village Blues,' previews the personnel (McCoy Tyner, Steve Davis, Elvin Jones) that would soon become his permanent quartet. The record mixes standards like 'Little Old Lady' and 'My Shining Hour' with originals such as 'Harmonique,' on which Coltrane experiments with self-generated multiphonics, and 'Fifth House,' built on the changes of 'Hot House.' Released in 1961 though drawn from earlier sessions, it arrived as Coltrane's popular and critical stock was rising rapidly following Giant Steps, and it further established him as Atlantic's flagship jazz artist. Critics have long viewed it as a lower-key, more relaxed date than its landmark neighbors, valuable for showing Coltrane's hard-bop fluency and compositional range just before he pivoted toward the modal and spiritual directions of My Favorite Things and A Love Supreme. It remains an important, if sometimes underrated, entry in the run of albums that cemented Coltrane's reputation as the decade's most consequential saxophonist.