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Remembering John Coltrane / AmoMama
Posted At : July 14, 2020 12:00 AM
The jazz legend John Coltrane remains one of the most influential musical artists of the 20th century, more than fifty years after his passing at the young age of 40. There was a message in his music that is as relevant as ever in our times. The late jazz saxophonist and composer rose to fame by playing for big names of the jazz tradition such as Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis, making him a key exponent of the genre. But as big a part Coltrane played in establishing jazz as one of the greatest American creations, he never ceased to push the boundaries of the genre beyond anything recognizable.
READ THE FULL AmoMama ARTICLE
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John Coltrane - Blue World is the real deal / NEW YORK MUSIC DAILY
Posted At : January 30, 2020 12:00 AM
Here's a special treat: the new John Coltrane record. That's kind of a joke: over the years, there have been many "new" John Coltrane records, most of them field recordings of varying quality, some where the iconic saxophonist was little more than a special guest. But Blue World – streaming at Spotify – is the real deal, the classic quartet with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums laying down tracks for a 1964 Canadian film soundtrack that ended up never being used. The sound quality is excellent, heavy on the reverb. Although there's nothing earth-shattering or new here, the performance is every bit what you would expect.
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READ THE FULL NEW YORK MUSIC DAILY REVIEW
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John Coltrane - Blue World makes 2019 npr music: jazz critics poll
Posted At : January 14, 2020 12:00 AM
NPR Music's 7th Annual Jazz Critics Poll, Francis Davis 14th, going back to the poll's beginnings in the Village Voice is in. 2019's results provided surprise after surprise. We're repeating an experiment we introduced last year. You'll again find a capsule review of each album in the Top 10, but instead of me doing all the heavy lifting, we've asked a critic who voted for that album to weigh in. The same with the top finisher in Vocal, Debut, & Latin. And as a bonus, we've added a few capsules about solitary No. 1s: albums appearing only on a single ballot, but as that critic's top pick. Including my own choices and analysis, and the individual ballots of all 140 participants, there should be enough here to keep you reading - and listening - for the next 12 months.
Solitary No. 1s include: John Coltrane, Blue World on Impulse!
SEE THE NPR PAGE
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'Naima' - John Coltrane featured on CapRadio: Ear To Ear: What our jazz hosts are listening to this January
Posted At : January 7, 2020 12:00 AM
CapRadio's jazz hosts ( Gary G. Vercelli Avery Jeffry Andrew Mills ) spend their days immersed in jazz music from all over the world. Each month, they pull together some of their favorite tracks that they can't get enough of each month. This month, they're featuring tributes as well as exciting takes on a few old classics. The list includes;
Andrew Mills - I'm starting off 2020 by going back to the beginning. We all have those certain recordings that first piqued our interest in jazz and set us on a lifelong journey of music discovery. What follows are three beautiful ballads that I first heard as a teenager and derive just as much joy and inspiration from now as I did then.
"Naima" – John Coltrane - For me, this is the prettiest piece of music John Coltrane ever produced. It's also the first piece of music that opened my ears to the infinite harmonic possibilities that exist in jazz music. Coltrane's use of pedal tones underneath rich, complex chords make the perfect accompaniment to his beautiful, sustaining melody. It's stunning and opened a completely new musical world for me.
SEE THE CapRadio PAGE
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John Coltrane - Blue World makes Public Radio Tulsa, ATJ: notable jazz albums of 2019
Posted At : January 4, 2020 12:00 AM
Happy New Year, music buffs! Join Public Radio Tulsa for All This Jazz, starting at 9pm on Saturday the 4th, It'll be three solid hours of can't-miss modern jazz...all of it lovingly chosen and presented by a person, rather than an algorithm or robot. Also, in the 3rd and thematic hour of our show, running from 11pm till midnight, our focus will be Notable Jazz Albums of 2019. We'll hear an excellent recording from John Coltrane.
In 1964, John Coltrane and his Classic Quartet went into Van Gelder Studios and, in an unprecedented move for Coltrane, recorded new versions of some of his most famous works. This never-before-heard recording, Blue World, released on September 27 2019 via Impulse!/UMe has been mastered from its original analog tape by Kevin Reeves at Universal Music Mastering in New York. The new vinyl edition's lacquers were cut by Ron McMaster at Capitol Studios.
READ THE FULL Public Radio Tulsa for All This Jazz ARTICLE
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Fifty years of worship at the church of John Coltrane / The New Yorker
Posted At : December 24, 2019 12:00 AM
Franzo and Marina King had recently moved from the Midwest to San Francisco when they decided to celebrate their first wedding anniversary by going to hear John Coltrane play at the Jazz Workshop. It was 1965, and the saxophonist was in the midst of a radical transformation, infatuated with a style of playing that was rapturous and free. "When he walked out, the Holy Ghost walked out with him," Marina remembered. The couple had a spiritual experience. At times, it was as though Coltrane was looking directly at them while he played. "In our minds, we felt like he knew who we were and what we were there for, even if we did not know ourselves."
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After that show, which they came to think of as their "sound baptism," the Kings became obsessed with Coltrane. They had come to San Francisco to be closer to Franzo's brother, but they were also in search of community, and one place they discovered it was in their regular listening sessions with friends, studying records by Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk. Eventually, they started a small jazz club. Coltrane's death, in 1967, at the age of forty, devastated the music world. For one thing, he had seemed immortal, as though he had already merged with the cosmos. "I believe in all religions," he famously said. He had become fascinated with the music and belief systems of Africa and Asia, exploring ways to capture the whole of existence in a string of notes. The music he was making at the end of his life was fiery and chaotic, in search of a transcendent beauty that few people yet recognized as such.
The Saint John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church, as it is known today, recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, which is commemorated in a book of photographs and essays titled "A Love Supreme: 50 Years of the Coltrane Church."
READ THE FULL New Yorker ARTICLE
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John Coltrane - Blue World makes Uncut?s 30 best reissues of 2019
Posted At : December 23, 2019 12:00 AM
Uncut's 30 best reissues of 2019 maps the finest archive releases, compilations, lost albums and box sets of the year.
‘Lost albums' are the latest trend in jazz catalogue, and this – following on from last year's Both Directions At Once – is an honourable addition to the Coltrane canon. Recorded between Crescent and A Love Supreme, in an under-thecounter fashion for Canadian filmmaker Gilles Groulx, the album contains lovely takes of familiar tunes like "Naima" and the moody title track, an original composition.
SEE ALL Uncut's 30 best reissues of 2019
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John Coltrane - Blue World makes Treble '10 Best Jazz Albums of 2019'
Posted At : December 22, 2019 12:00 AM
We've cycled through a lot of of our favorite music of the year: Our Top 50 Albums of 2019 and our Top 100 Songs of 2019. And beyond that, our favorite metal, hip-hop, electronic, jazz and missed albums of the year. And now we're sharing our individual top 10 lists of the year to close it out. Here's what we, individually, liked a lot this year.
Konstantin Rega selected 'Blue World – John Coltrane'
In 1964, John Coltrane and his Classic Quartet went into Van Gelder Studios and, in an unprecedented move for Coltrane, recorded new versions of some of his most famous works. Early in 1964, the year he recorded A Love Supreme, Coltrane was approached by a Quebecois filmmaker, Gilles Groulx. Groulx was planning his film Le chat dans le sac, a love story set in Montreal with political undertones. A die-hard Coltrane fan, Groulx was fixated on having Coltrane record a soundtrack for his film. Groulx approached Coltrane via a personal connection with bassist Jimmy Garrison, and amazingly, Coltrane agreed.
This never-before-heard recording, 'Blue World' has been mastered from its original analog tape by Kevin Reeves at Universal Music Mastering in New York. The new vinyl edition's lacquers were cut by Ron McMaster at Capitol Studios.
SEE ALL THE Treble: Best Albums of 2019
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John Coltrane - Blue World makes Something Else 'Best of 2019'
Posted At : December 18, 2019 12:00 AM
I first became acquainted with Chekhov's tale nearly 100 years after it was written. For those unfamiliar with the story's premise: During a discussion about capital punishment, a young lawyer wagers that he can endure 15 years of voluntary house arrest and solitary confinement against a rich banker's promised payout of millions.
Like many readers, I've often wondered how I myself might respond in such circumstances. In the story, one of the conditions of the bet is that the lawyer could request books to read; of course, I would update these terms to include LPs and compact discs for my listening pleasure and study. Imagine being able to request the complete recorded output of Bruce Springsteen, or all Bob Dylan's bootlegs, or every obscurity the Beatles committed to tape. And why not? You'd certainly have time to listen to it all.
But I recently had a revelation: In the context of the internet and digital media, we're now in a very similar situation. If you look hard enough (and in some cases, you don't even have to look hard at all), you can find in some form or another pretty much every song you'd ever want to hear.
Some calculate that there at least 40 million songs out there. So, matching a modest estimate of life expectancy with a similarly modest estimate of songs and running times produces this result: Even if you listened to music 24/7, you would still need about five or six lifetimes to hear every song once.
Now in my case, I tend to listen to music a lot like Chekhov's lawyer requests reading materials: I go through phases, like when I was an angsty 18 year old and listened to mostly nothing but the Doors for months on end; I did the same many years later with the Velvet Underground when their multiple stereo mixes, mono mixes and associated related live recordings became officially available. Or all the Led Zeppelin reissues. Or my recent fascination with prog. Or Euro-retro rock. Or ska. You get the point.
It's also just as easy to find oneself going down the rabbit hole (borrowing a different literary convention by a different author) and listening to everything and anything at all and nothing in particular, much like the way the not-so-young-anymore lawyer chose his reading materials 15 years later in an effort to preserve himself.
Maybe that's the case for modern music in general, and whatever audience is left that hasn't pledged its allegiance to e-sports – or maybe that's just me in particular. If so, I don't know if the following Best of 2019 list is indicative of such an act of desperate listening on my part. Still, if nothing else, this year's new releases – along with some that are just new to me – indicate that there is still plenty of music out there in which to be interested.
JOHN COLTRANE – BLUE WORLD (JAZZ): Not so much a reissue, as a lost session from a Canadian National Film Board production. Featuring John Coltrane's classic quartet, this 1964 recording helps complete the historical record more than anything. Still, most Coltrane fans will probably consider it an essential acquisition.
SEE THE Something Else PAGE
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John Coltrane - Blue World makes JazzTimes The Year in Review: Top 50 Albums of 2019 .
Posted At : December 13, 2019 12:00 AM
JazzTimes' critics choose the top 40 new albums and top 10 historical releases of the year.
In 1964, John Coltrane and his Classic Quartet went into Van Gelder Studios and, in an unprecedented move for Coltrane, recorded new versions of some of his most famous works. This never-before-heard recording, Blue World, was released on September 27 in CD, vinyl LP and digital editions via Impulse!/UMe. Early in 1964, the year he recorded A Love Supreme, Coltrane was approached by a Quebecois filmmaker, Gilles Groulx. Groulx was planning his film Le chat dans le sac, a love story set in Montreal with political undertones. A die-hard Coltrane fan, Groulx was fixated on having Coltrane record a soundtrack for his film. Groulx approached Coltrane via a personal connection with bassist Jimmy Garrison, and amazingly, Coltrane agreed.
Blue World was mastered from its original analog tape by Kevin Reeves at Universal Music Mastering in New York. The new vinyl edition's lacquers were cut by Ron McMaster at Capitol Studios.
All but one of the JazzTimes critics including David R. Adler, Ken Franckling, Steve Greenlee, Geoffrey Himes, Larry Appelbaum, Dan Bilawsky, Philip Booth, Thomas Conrad J.D. Considine, Brad Cohan, and Morgan Enos picked Blue World as their top historical release
SEE THE JazzTimes PAGE
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John Coltrane's 'Blue World' makes npr: best reissues and archival albums of 2019'
Posted At : December 11, 2019 12:00 AM
And now, a moment of appreciation for the under-assistant recording engineers and studio gofers who toiled in anonymity in the dimly lit studios of the past. They didn't just get coffee - they were on site, taking notes about who played what instrument on which track, writing down the dates of sessions, and making sure that those dates were clearly marked on the tape boxes. They did this for albums that became classics. And singles that never left the garage. We know what happened on countless sessions that later became "important" because these anonymous workers took the time to notate the details as they happened. They trusted that someday, somebody out there would care.
Through streaming, a curious listener who wouldn't spend $80 on a boxed set can graze through its contents, cherry picking whatever seems interesting - but finding any certain version of any certain track usually involves more than a straightforward search. Scroll through an established artist's list of songs and you encounter "original" versions, live versions, edited-for-radio versions and demo versions of the same tune. Often, the quickest way to distinguish between them is to know who played on a particular version, or when or where it was recorded - the kind of information streaming services don't like to share.
This year, record labels and sleuthing researchers leaned on those scrawled morsels of information on tape boxes to bring out an astonishing array of music from the vaults. These include massive hauls of demo recordings, odd never-released curiosities and well known works that have been restored to the artist's original vision. Here are the best of them from this year.
Blue World, the previously unreleased soundtrack to an experimental Canadian film called Le chat dans le sac and featuring John Coltrane's classic quartet, offers a lesson on the importance of context in jazz. In Coltrane's timeline, it sits between two 1964 landmarks – the saxophonist's inquisitive Crescent and the spiritual meditation A Love Supreme. But the material on Blue World looks back at an earlier period in Coltrane's music - it begins with "Naima," first recorded in 1959 for Giant Steps. Coltrane was not known to look backward or to revisit previous works in the studio, and this "Naima" goes some distance from the well-known version – he's engaged in a full-scale recasting of the theme using more assertive, exploratory gestures. That lithe, beseeching tone brought its own truth to every setting.
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SEE npr PAGE
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John Coltrane - 1963 New Directions selected for 2020 GRAMMY nomination
Posted At : November 20, 2019 12:00 AM
John Coltrane - 1963 New Directions selected for 2019 GRAMMY nomination for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package.
A selection of Coltrane's 1963 Impulse! recordings, derived from the original albums Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, Dear Old Stockholm, Newport ‘63 and Live at Birdland In the brief, bright arc that is the career of John Coltrane, 1963 marks a point of transition between past jazz masterpieces and future work, which would transcend the boundaries of the music itself. That year's recorded output shows movement in many directions: a look back at the past, continued examination of a familiar repertoire, exploration of more traditional formats and a look forward at compositions and approaches that would further extend the reach of jazz.
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KCRW's 'New Album Spotlight' features John Coltrane - Blue World
Posted At : October 23, 2019 12:00 AM
Imagine discovering a long-lost Rembrandt or Van Gogh in an attic or dusty closet. Think of the sensation that would cause in the art world. Well, something similar happened not long ago in the musical universe, when the master tape for a film soundtrack recorded by John Coltrane's famous quartet was found in the National Film Board of Canada vaults, where it had been stored since 1964. Commissioned for the film Le Chat dans le Sac (The Cat in the Bag), the music remained forgotten for so long because Coltrane took on the project as a freelancer, unbeknownst to his label, Impulse! Records. The original tapes were taken to Canada shortly after the session in 1964, and Impulse! never owned a recording of it. The rediscovered Coltrane soundtrack has finally been released as the album Blue World. Credit goes first to Carol Faucher of the National Film Board (NFB), who found the original recordings while putting together a box set of director Gilles Groulx's films in the early 2000's. After that, it was Frédéric Savard, also from the NFB, whose persistence finally helped get the music released. Photo by Jim Marshall
READ THE FULL KCRW: Los Angeles ARTICLE
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John Coltrane's 'Blue World' makes new music & reviews from the Winnipeg Free Press
Posted At : October 17, 2019 12:00 AM
This new release of a 1964 session by saxophone legend John Coltrane and his most famous quartet has been not so much lost as hiding in plain sight. Not only that, but Canada was the prime mover in its creation.
In 1964, Canadian filmmaker Gilles Groulx was filming a movie in Montreal called Le Chat Dans Le Sac. He was a huge Coltrane fan, and somehow was able to convince the musician to agree to a recording session to be used as a soundtrack for the film. Historians totally overlooked this unusual event until a few years ago, but anyone who saw the film heard Coltrane, playing tracks such as Naima, for example, over the opening scene. The session was recorded at the famous Van Gelder studio in New York, and Groulx himself was present.
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'Blue World' review - Rediscovering John Coltrane's only original film soundtrack / Frieze
Posted At : October 8, 2019 12:00 AM
The ‘lost' record captures the saxophonist at a time when he was thinking that albums could aspire to be something grander than a string of loosely woven tunes
In 1964, the Quebec-based film director Gilles Groulx flew into New York to attend the recording sessions for the music he had commissioned for his forthcoming film, Le chat dans le sac (The Cat in the Bag, 1964). At the time, Groulx was attempting to forge a new identity for Canadian cinema. He was interested in the work of Jean-Luc Godard, in the improvisational approach to filmmaking with which John Cassavetes had experimented in Shadows (1959), and in querying the boundaries between artifice and reality by employing non-professional actors who brought something of their own lives to the film. He was also passionate about jazz, and about John Coltrane in particular. Groulx happened to know Coltrane's bass player, Jimmy Garrison, and used him as an intermediary to request music for his film. Coltrane agreed and, on 24 June 1964, took his quartet – with Garrison, Elvin Jones (drums) and McCoy Tyner (piano) – into the Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey to record what would be his only original film soundtrack.
Let's get the disappointing news over with first: Blue World (2019) is no undiscovered jazz masterwork likely to change any hearts and minds about Coltrane. Recorded during a period in the musician's development when he was thinking that albums could aspire to be something grander than a string of loosely woven together tunes, he never meant this music to be released in album form.
All that said, 40 minutes of previously unheard Coltrane is to be celebrated; every note he recorded is of interest. But this material would have been suited more to bonus tracks inside some grander reissue project. It's beautifully recorded and we get to hear the great John Coltrane Quartet in action. Forced into being an album, though, it's too flimsy to hang together. PHOTO: Jim Marshall
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What this New York Times jazz critic hears on Coltrane's 'new' album
Posted At : September 30, 2019 12:00 AM
With a bit of time travel, a writer can understand where a record came from and where it eventually led. A new album entitled "Blue World," comprises music he recorded for a movie soundtrack in 1964, was released last week. John Coltrane's new album entitled "Blue World," comprises music he recorded for a movie soundtrack in 1964, was released last week.
By Giovanni Russonello - Sept. 30, 2019
When I'm reviewing music for The New York Times, my first goal is always to understand an artist's intentions: What are they trying to convey, or to call into question, with this work? Only after I've grasped that can I start to gauge how successfully they've pulled it off.
Music criticism is ultimately a process guided by empathy - and by what the critic David Thomson called "that common but extraordinary thing, noticing." You've got to figure out how an artist sees the world; this, in turn, becomes a way to expand your own way of seeing it.
When I review music that's just been created, you might say I am critiquing from eye-level: The world the performer is speaking to is the one I'm living in, too. But when the assignment is to review music that was recorded decades ago - which I did twice this month, with the release of never-before-heard albums by Miles Davis and John Coltrane - I get to do some time traveling.
I can look at these older albums from both sides, understanding both where the music came from and where it eventually led - or in some cases, where it didn't lead, and why.
Whatever album I'm reviewing, I usually play it on loop as I write, sometimes swapping in others from the same artist or from musicians who have influenced them. I also read my way into the artist's world through interviews, articles and any other writings - by or about them - I can find. When my subject is an album from the archive, full books on the performer's life are usually available, as is a complete discography. For Davis, who died in 1991, the authoritative tome is his autobiography. For Coltrane, who died in 1967, a few great biographies have been written by now, as well as two essential essays collected in Amiri Baraka's book "Black Music."
Davis made the tracks that would eventually be released as "Rubberband" in 1985 and '86, at recording sessions guided by three young musician-producers. This was the midway point of his career's final act, when Davis was combining jazz sensibilities with pop aesthetics, often to thrilling effect.
Critics back then tended to misunderstand and malign this new music. But recent developments, especially in jazz and other forms of black music, have gone a long way toward vindicating his late period. By now, thanks to the work of musicians like Robert Glasper and Esperanza Spalding, it's harder to argue that fusing jazz with pop and funk is inherently some kind of artistic compromise, or that synthesizers connote inauthenticity. In my review of "Rubberband," I hoped to suggest that readers also re-examine the rest of Davis's work from that era, and perhaps place it in higher esteem.
The situation was almost inverted when I reviewed the Coltrane album "Blue World," which had been recorded in 1964 for a Canadian film's soundtrack and was just released last week. This was such an outlier from the rest of what Coltrane had been making at the time, I had to escape the urge to place it neatly into some larger narrative. And I didn't want to suggest that just because this recording had been dug up 50 years later, it necessarily represented a significant moment in his career.
In the end I determined this was a fine album, generously and lovingly crafted, but it felt more like a favor to a young filmmaker than an expression of where Coltrane was creatively in that moment. Later that year he would record "A Love Supreme," his masterpiece, whose furious spiritual abandon puts it oceans away from the more casual-seeming "Blue World."
Still, even a lesser discovery can work as a healthy reminder of just how porous the archive is. After all, history leaves out far more than it captures. Just like listening is always a process of discovery, digging into an older record - whether it's an outlier or a sign of the times - can help us piece together a slightly fuller picture of the past.
PHOTO: Adam Ritchie/Redferns, via Getty Images
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Blue World offers a glimpse of the John Coltrane Quartet in a state of relaxed assurance / Pitchfork
Posted At : September 30, 2019 12:00 AM
Long-lost soundtrack recordings by the saxophonist's powerhouse quartet, made shortly after 1964's Crescent sessions, capture the band at the peak of its cohesion.
Sometimes a thing can be hidden without really hiding. Blue World, a previously unissued cache of studio recordings by the classic John Coltrane Quartet, comes to us in this vein: For the last 55 years, a clue to its existence could clearly be heard in the soundtrack to a well-regarded French-Canadian film, which interpolated portions of three separate tracks. But only in recent years have jazz scholars connected the dots, leading to what we have here: a 37-minute album (of sorts) by one of the most compelling bands in jazz history, at an unmistakable apex of cohesion.
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because of the afterglow of Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, which Impulse! released, to critical acclaim and commercial triumph just last year. The precedent of that album, and what you could call its market validation, surely had something to do with the way that Coltrane's estate and former label have rolled out this one. But it would be foolish to shrug off Blue World as yet more product off the archival assembly line. For any admirer of Coltrane, a saxophonist-composer-bandleader who embodied so much in the 1960s-deep mystery, spiritual fervor, hurtling momentum, searching humility-it's a windfall worth greeting with fresh astonishment, before considering a handful of questions.
So, in that spirit: Blue World offers a glimpse of the John Coltrane Quartet in a state of relaxed assurance, during the same span of time that would yield two landmarks, Crescent and A Love Supreme. Recorded at Van Gelder Studios on June 24, 1964, it's a small assortment of songs from earlier in Coltrane's career, refashioned by the evolving language of the band. And to a man-Coltrane on tenor saxophone, McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, Elvin Jones on drums-these musicians seem almost to luxuriate in the dark modal hum and polyrhythmic pull that had already become their trademark. They sound unburdened, as if they have no agenda to advance, and nothing to prove.
READ THE FULL Pitchfork REVIEW
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John Coltrane's 'Blue World' is a vibrant sampler from the musical giant / The Guardian
Posted At : September 27, 2019 12:00 AM
Commissioned for a film soundtrack, these tracks and takes were not intended for release, but they show a group at the height of its powers
Puzzled eavesdroppers on recent jazz gossip might be forgiven for suspecting that the music was something that only happened decades ago, and enthusiastic reports of its current rude health are fake news. Three weeks after Miles Davis's exhumed and embalmed 1985 Rubberband release comes a previously unknown John Coltrane 1960s-quartet session called Blue World – short tracks and alternate takes on early Coltrane originals, recorded for a Canadian movie soundtrack in summer 1964, and never intended for release.
But unlike Rubberband, Blue World – even if its movie agenda required simpler, and more lyrically explicit delivery than anything else this enthralling band was doing on the road or on record in 1964 – is still Coltrane quartet music to its vibrant core. Commissioned by Canadian director and Coltrane fan Gilles Groulx for a Montreal love story called Le Chat Dans Le Sac, Blue World features two takes of the exquisite 1959 ballad Naima, three of the catchily hooky Village Blues, the Sonny Rollins dedication Like Sonny, a harmonically audacious exploration of the modally stripped-down title track, and a storming ensemble performance on the standout, the mostly-improvised Traneing In. For newcomers to a 20th-century musical giant who transcended genre frontiers, it makes a very attractive sampler. For fans who know that the dark, lamenting Crescent preceded it, and the legendary and hippy-hypnotising A Love Supreme followed, it's a fascinating hybrid of Coltrane's song-based earlier methods, and his incandescently devotional late period. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives
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John Coltrane's 'Blue World' is an absolutely stunning thing to hear / JazzTimes
Posted At : September 27, 2019 12:00 AM
Our brave new digital world has laid waste to the market for physical music media, but a few niche categories are still viable. One is historical jazz packages. Consider, for example, four albums of previously unreleased John Coltrane material. Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (Blue Note, 2005), One Down, One Up (Impulse!, 2005), Offering (Impulse!/Resonance, 2015), and Both Directions at Once (Impulse!, 2018) were all huge sellers. They owned the "Historical" categories of the major jazz polls in their respective years.
Now there is another, Blue World. The backstory: In 1964, Coltrane (surprisingly) agreed to provide music for a Canadian film by Gilles Groulx, Le chat dans le sac. On June 24 of that year, he went into Van Gelder Studios with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones and recorded eight takes of five tunes. Groulx used only 10 minutes of Coltrane's music in his film, which quickly faded into cinematic obscurity.
Because of its short length and small track list, Blue World may not dominate the polls in 2019. But it is an absolutely stunning thing to hear now (in vivid Rudy Van Gelder sound). The opening commanding call of "Naima" stops you cold. Only one tenor saxophonist ever played a slow love ballad so hard. And it is a brand-new Coltrane record. Half a century collapses. You are in the moment with Coltrane's burning fervor.
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Now, after the tapes have finally come to light, we can hear 'Blue World? / UK VIBE
Posted At : September 4, 2019 12:00 AM
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Now, after the tapes have finally come to light, we can hear these performances in their entirety, along with other songs and alternate takes from the session. In all there are three versions of ‘Village Blues', two of ‘Naima', and one each of ‘Like Sonny', ‘Traneing In' and the title tune, ‘Blue World'.
‘Blue World' is described in the liner notes as a "contrafact" of ‘Out Of This World', the Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer song that Trane famously recorded on the ‘Coltrane' album for Impulse! The term "contrafact" is used to describe an original tune that is based on the chord changes of an existing standard tune. So, for instance, Sonny Rollins' ‘Oleo' is based on the changes of the Gershwins' ‘I Got Rhythm', so it's a contrafact of ‘I Got Rhythm'. But in the case of ‘Blue World', this isn't entirely true. When Trane originally recorded ‘Out Of This World' he dispensed with the chord changes and turned it into a modal tune with a bridge. In this newly discovered version we hear the quartet playing the modal arrangement from the ‘Coltrane' album version, but at a slower, deeper pace. But Trane doesn't play Arlen's melody, instead, he plays his own lines, sometimes hinting at parts of the melody as if to tease us, and they don't play the bridge. So we end up with an entirely original piece of music and one worthy of having its own title and composer.
READ THE FULL UK VIBE ARTICLE
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How a Quebecois filmmaker got John Coltrane to record the only soundtrack of his career / CBC News
Posted At : August 24, 2019 12:00 AM
'A little bit of luck and a little bit of chutzpah' made it happen, says music historian. The only soundtrack saxophonist John Coltrane ever recorded was for a 1964 Québécois film called Le chat dans le sac.
1964 was a busy year for for John Coltrane. The saxophonist was in his prime, recording two albums that year with his now-famous Classic Quartet: Crescent and his magnum opus A Love Supreme. That year he also worked on another project of less renown. It was the soundtrack for the Québécois film Le chat dans le sac, which was funded by the National Film Board (NFB). It was written and directed by filmmaker Gilles Groulx, who was one of the first filmmakers in the province to take influence from the French new wave genre.
This forgotten piece of Coltrane's musical repertoire was mostly buried in the memories of those who had seen this underground art house film - until now. Last week, the Coltrane estate announced plans to release the soundtrack as an album titled Blue World. "It has been hiding in plain sight," said Ashley Kahn, a music historian and author who wrote the liner notes for the upcoming album, on CBC Montreal's Homerun. On Sept. 27, the music will be available to a wider audience. But it has always been available in the archives of the National Film Board.
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John Coltrane's 'Blue World' now soon to be available / Atlanta Black Star
Posted At : August 22, 2019 12:00 AM
John Coltrane recorded at least three albums in 1964. Two of them were released and are now considered masterpieces, while one of them never saw the light of day. The LPs that hit store shelves were the late jazz saxophonist's "Crescent" and "A Love Supreme," and the unreleased album called "Blue World" will now be available to consumers for the first time.
John Coltrane's album "Blue World" will be released for the very first time. The album was recorded in June of 1964 in engineer Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio, in between the "Crescent" and "A Love Supreme" sessions. The 37-minute offering was made to be a soundtrack for Canadian filmmaker Gilles Groulx's film "d Le chat dans le sac" "(The Cat in the Bag)." But only 10 minutes of the session was used in the film toward the end, and it's never been put on an album. The new release is said to be mastered directly from the original analog tape as well.
"Blue World" will be released by Coltrane's label Impulse!/UME, and it'll also feature the classic quartet, which consists of Coltrane, McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums and Jimmy Garrison on bass.
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John Coltrane's 'Both Directions & New Directions' makes ft*Meyers Magazine: Lost & Found
Posted At : May 12, 2019 12:00 AM
No icon in the jazz pantheon is revered more than John Coltrane (Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker also occupy that stratosphere) and in recent months we have been blessed to see the release of several newly discovered recordings from 1958 and 1963, two pivital years in his career.
On March 6, 1963, John Coltrane, along with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones, recorded an album at the legendary Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey. Coltrane and his quartet were to perform the last gig in a two-week engagement at iconic jazz club Birdland across the river in New York City that night, and then went into the studio the very next day to record his famous album with Johnny Hartman.
This legendary Lost Album features two remarkable, never-heard-before originals, as well as the only studio version of Trane's ‘One Up, One Down' and a piano-less version of ‘Impressions,' one of his most famous compositions. It also includes new and different versions of his tunes, ‘Nature Boy' and ‘Slow Blues' and tackles ‘Vilia,' from the operetta The Merry Widow. The album features Coltrane's classic quartet at its most intense, experimenting with new arrangements and different instrumentation. Fans will be grateful to hear this session and will gain a fresh appreciation for the band at their peak, mastering bop traditions while exploring post-bop abstractions - going in "both directions at once," as Coltrane explained. And to think that it was all recorded in one afternoon! Sonny Rollins was spot on when he remarked, "This is like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid." The standard release includes seven tracks, chosen by his son, Ravi Coltrane. The deluxe edition includes an additional seven tracks from the session, different takes of four compositions (three takes of ‘Impressions').
Impulse has also released a 3-CD set that includes all 14 tracks of The Lost Album as well as music from other releases from 1963 - John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman, Dear Old Stockholm, Newport ‘63, and Live at Birdland. Among the masterpieces on these classic albums (all recorded in one year!) are ‘My Favorite Things' (an amazing 18-minute ride), ‘I Want to Talk About it,' ‘Lush Life' (with Hartman crooning at his most soulful), ‘Afro Blue' (one of the best performances on record) and ‘Alabama.' The set is a testament to Coltrane's creative genius and incredible output. 1963 was the year he transitioned from familiar sound to a more expanded view of jazz's experimental potential. These recordings are a prelude to the new directions Coltrane was about to embark on, a direction that lead to ‘A Love Supreme' and beyond.
SEE THE ft*Meyers Magazine PAGE
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John Coltrane listening session announced for NYC's lincoln center / udiscovermusic.
Posted At : March 28, 2019 12:00 AM
In honour of the upcoming box set Coltrane '58: The Prestige Recordings, Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City will host a free listening session with a panel of experts on 3 April. This exciting collection chronicles jazz giant John Coltrane's years' worth of sessions for the legendary label Prestige in 1958. Featuring 37 tracks, the forthcoming box will be available on various formats including a 5-CD and digital version due out 29 March and a 8-LP set on 26 April via Craft Recordings.
The evening panel will include Coltrane biographers Lewis Porter and Ashley Kahn as well as surprise special guests who will play tracks from this historical collection and examine how 1958 was a turning point in making Coltrane the legend he is today. There will also be a Q&A and a presentation of archival images.
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John Coltrane's 'Lost Album' is the predictable 2018 Jazz Journal critics poll winner
Posted At : February 19, 2019 12:00 AM
Jazz Journal critics were invited to allot 100 points to 10 choices from the albums reviewed in Jazz Journal in 2018, with a maximum of 20 points per choice. After unhurried, seemly and properly thorough reflection, the results, plus critics' comments on the year (do read those for reflections on their choices and the scene in general), are finally here. Did they arrive at a consensus from the list of 937 CDs from around the world that we reviewed in 2018, with no whittling down or arbitrary filtration through editor or panel "nomination"?
After much collation and number-crunching, the answer is that the "new" Coltrane was a rather predictable winner with a soaraway 70 points, far above anything else. There were a lot of 20s, so discounting those, the decisive winners were those with 21 points and more, as listed below. Now on to the next year, as CDs continue to flood in.
THE TOP 2 SCORERS
John Coltrane Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album (Impulse) … 70
Kurt Elling The Questions (Okeh) … 45
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8 jazz covers of 'My Favorite Things' reinterpreted like a religious experience / stereogum
Posted At : February 6, 2019 12:00 AM
Here's the catch: "My Favorite Things" really is a fun song to hear someone play around with, just as long as it's not pop-hit obvious. And ever since Rodgers & Hammerstein's The Sound Of Music came to Broadway 60 years ago, one thing's become pretty clear: if you want to hear "My Favorite Things" reinterpreted in a way that sounds more like a religious experience than a rich pop star's shopping list, you're better off looking up jazz artists. And this 24 year long cross-section of the best jazz interpretations runs a remarkably wide range - one in which a literal saint of the genre is just the beginning.
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Poncho Sanchez and James Carter to honor John Coltrane at Orchestra Hall / Detroit Metro Times
Posted At : January 16, 2019 12:00 AM
Pioneer and saxophonist John William Coltrane was just 40 years old when he died - and yet, he managed to leave behind an incomparable legacy. He was even adopted as a saint and is actively worshipped at the Yardbird Temple turned Coltrane Church in California. Few are better suited to pay tribute to Coltrane's iconic body of work than the musicians selected for the 1/18 DSO's Music of John Coltrane event. Poncho Sanchez who, for more than three decades, has married traditional, gritty jazz with Latin American and South American influences, will join revered saxophonist and Detroit-native James Carter in celebrating Coltrane's contributions to jazz and music at large.
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John Coltrane - 'Both Directions At Once' makes Something Else: 'Best of the Rest 2018'
Posted At : January 10, 2019 12:00 AM
Looking back at another year of jazz showed there is no let up in the quality of the genre, nor its sense of forward movement (if you're listening to the right artists) so with last year in the can, I present a Best of 2018 list of modern and mainstream jazz releases that I can proudly recommend the most. Limiting the selections to those records I took the time to review leaves out a lot of records that are otherwise worthy, but having only a casual acquaintance with the music isn't good enough to make a list with high confidence. It's not always fair but it sure does simplify the selection process.
John Coltrane – Both Directions at Once, The Lost Album: This long-forgotten set of recordings is nonetheless as gratifying as many other John Coltrane albums from the Impulse! era; indeed, it holds its own against the entire, history-making discography.
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John Coltrane, Sons of Kemet, Bill Frisell, Haden - Mehldau and Kurt Elling make NPR: Jazz Critics Poll - Best Music for 2018
Posted At : January 5, 2019 12:00 AM
Below are the results of NPR Music's 6th Annual Jazz Critics Poll (my 13th annual, going back to its beginnings in the Village Voice). Wayne Shorter's Emanon was voted Album of the Year, and Cecile McLorin Salvant's The Window Best Vocal. Shorter and Salvant have won these categories previously (thrice in Salvant's case), and Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album marks the second victory in Rara Avis (a catch-all term for reissues, vault discoveries, and the like) for John Coltrane.
Both Directions at Once, John Coltrane's posthumous cache of studio recordings from 1963, surprised us once already. Its victory in the historical category will surprise precisely no one - certainly not the 74 critics, just over half the voting body, who included it on their ballot. (Forty-seven of those voters, myself included, made it their No. 1.) That air of inevitability arises not only from the fact that this is unheard studio material from one of our most exalted heroes, leading the band that perfectly defined his sound. It's also a time capsule from a fantastically volatile period in Coltrane's artistic development, and a pivotal moment in his career. That it raises as many questions as it answers is only part of the abiding intrigue. -Nate Chinen
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Also selected as top picks are:
Sons of Kemet, Your Queen Is a Reptile
Bill Frisell, Music IS
Charlie Haden & Brad Mehldau, Long Ago and Far Away
Kurt Elling, The Questions
SEE THE NPR: Jazz Critics Poll - Best Music for 2018 PAGE
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3CD John Coltrane set features choice recordings from 1963 / RTE
Posted At : January 2, 2019 12:00 AM
The perfect introduction - a three CD- set from Verve/ Impulse! features choice recordings from 1963, including the album John Coltrane made with the brilliantly expressive singer Johnny Hartman.
1963 saw some kind of revival in creative fortunes and he was coaxed into sessions. His friends pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones needed the money so producer Bob Thiele knew he could get him into Rudy Van Gelder's famed studio. Roy Haines stepped in at the drum kit when Elvin Jones was obliged to repair to the Lexington Narcotics Hospital & Clinical Research Center from mid-April to late July of 1963.
The music is drawn from a number of sources, namely Newport ‘63 and Live at Birdland and sessions are also drawn from the studio albums Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman and Dear Old Stockholm, which was released posthumously.
These sessions are accompanied by an absorbing essay from David Wild along with an interesting selection of photographs.
READ THE FULL RTE ARTICLE
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John Coltrane - 'Both Directions At Once' makes jazztrail: best 30 jazz albums of 2018
Posted At : December 30, 2018 12:00 AM
On March 6, 1963, John Coltrane and his Classic Quartet - McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones - recorded an entire studio album at the legendary Van Gelder Studios. This music, which features unheard originals, will finally be released 55 years later. This is, in short, the holy grail of jazz. Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album on Impulse! Records is Coltrane's final and most creative label home.
As the legendary saxophonist Sonny Rollins so rightly put it, "This is like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid." The musical implications of this album, the original compositions, the arrangements, the band, the year it was recorded, all amount to a rediscovery and re-contextualization of one of the most important musicians of our time.
John Coltrane - 'Both Directions At Once' makes jazztrail: best 30 jazz albums of 2018.
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John Coltrane, Bill Frisell & The Bad Plus make Philly.com 'Best of 2018'
Posted At : December 11, 2018 12:00 AM
Though it's always been the case to some extent, jazz has increasingly become more an approach to creating music than an easily definable style. Scanning over the year's standout jazz releases, what's most impressive is the divergent paths they take, each boldly different and incorporating a wide range of influences in distinctive ways.
The major story of the year was, all too typically for the genre, about a long-dead artist. Both Directions at Once, the much-touted "lost John Coltrane album," was indeed an exciting find, a thrilling glimpse at a previously unheard session with the iconic saxophonist's classic quartet at the height of their powers. It didn't reveal anything particularly new in the broad strokes, but it did serve as a reminder of Coltrane's relentless push forward. That quality is shared by all the artists on this year's list, all of whom are finding their own ways to reinvent a genre that thrives on continual evolution.
From these 10 albums, perhaps only Walter Smith III's Twio and the Bad Plus' rebirth, Never Stop II, would be recognizable to listeners in Coltrane's era. The former is a tightrope-walking sax-bass-drums trio date in the Sonny Rollins mold, with the imaginative tenor saxophonist Smith unleashing torrents of bracing melody over the roiling rhythms of drummer Eric Harland and bassists Christian McBride and Harish Raghavan. The addition of Philly pianist Orrin Evans to the longstanding Bad Plus gave that impish trio a reinvigorating jolt of raucous power.
Guitar hero Bill Frisell, meanwhile, continues to refine his achingly gorgeous sound with a career-highlight solo outing that is captivating in its shimmering lyricism. Here's the list
Ambrose Akinmusire Origami Harvest (Blue Note)
Henry Threadgill 14 or 15 Kestra: Agg Dirt … And More Dirt (Pi)
Bill Frisell Music IS (OKeh)
Dan Weiss Starebaby (Pi)
Tyshawn Sorey Pillars (Firehouse 12)
Walter Smith III Twio (Whirlwind)
Mary Halvorson Code Girl (Firehouse 12)
The Bad Plus Never Stop II (Legbreaker)
Dave Holland, Evan Parker, Craig Taborn, and Ches Smith Uncharted Territories (Dare2)
Matthew Shipp Zer0 (ESP)
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Coltrane without Coltrane on St. Louis Public Radio's 'Jazz Unlimited'
Posted At : December 10, 2018 12:00 AM
St. Louis Public Radio's Jazz Unlimited for December 9, 2018 will be "Coltrane Tunes Without Coltrane." The great saxophonist John Coltrane left us a number of compositions that are sometimes tricky and difficult to play, sometimes beautiful and sometimes very spiritual, among other attributes. We will play some of these inspiring compositions without Coltrane in big band, piano and small group settings. They will be played by the Buddy Rich Band, our own John Hicks, our own Pee Wee Russell, the Woody Herman band, Sonny Fortune, Karrin Allyson, John McLaughlin, Janice Borla, the Conrad Herwig Latin Side of… group, Kenny Garrett, Vijay Iyer, Kurt Elling, the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Kenny Werner, Doug Raney, the Jim McNeely Tentette, Suzanne Pittson, McCoy Tyner, Kenny Garrett, the Turtle Island String Quartet, the Herbie Hancock/Michael Brecker/Roy Hargrove Directions in Music group, Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition and John's wife Alice and their son Ravi Coltrane.
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Big recording story this year was discovery of John Coltrane's 'lost album' / THE IRISH TIMES
Posted At : December 9, 2018 12:00 AM
Anyone who thought that jazz still involved men in suits playing swing music was put right (again) this year as the improvised music envelope continued to expand in every available direction, both at home and internationally. The discovery of a lost recording by one of the undisputed giants of the music, the continued rise of Ireland's regional jazz festivals, a string of high-quality new releases from both ends of the island, a discussion (finally) about gender balance, and a renaissance at the Cork Jazz Festival were just some of the highlights of a busy year in Irish jazz.
But undoubtedly the year's big recording story was the discovery in New York of a lost album by John Coltrane. Recorded in 1963 and tucked away in a private house ever since, Both Directions at Once was greeted with disbelief by the international jazz community and The Irish Times was among a very select group of industry insiders invited to hear the lost album in the New Jersey studio where it was recorded. It did not disappoint – either the ecstatic jazz critics (ahem) or the record company, who achieved their own kind of ecstasy when the record made a brief appearance in the mainstream pop charts. In a year when the jazz meta-genre continued to expand in every direction, it showed that there is still room for a few men in suits.
READ THE FULL IRISH TIMES ARTICLE
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John Coltrane - 'Both Directions At Once' makes 88.3PPB - Top 10 Favorite Albums of 2018
Posted At : December 4, 2018 12:00 AM
On March 6, 1963, John Coltrane and his Classic Quartet - McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones - recorded an entire studio album at the legendary Van Gelder Studios. This music, which features unheard originals, will finally be released 55 years later. Released on June 29 via Impulse! Records, Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album the holy grail of jazz.
As the legendary saxophonist Sonny Rollins so rightly put it, "This is like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid." The musical implications of this album, the original compositions, the arrangements, the band, the year it was recorded, all amount to a rediscovery and re-contextualization of one of the most important musicians of our time.
On this album, there are two completely unknown and never-before-heard originals. "Untitled Original 11383" and "Untitled Original 11386," both played on soprano sax. "11383" features an arco bass solo by Jimmy Garrison, a relative rarity, and "11386" marks a significant structural change for the quartet, in that they keep returning to the theme between solos, not typical in the quartet's repertoire.
This historic session resulted in 14 tracks in total. On the standard edition, there are 7 takes, chosen by Ravi Coltrane. The rest of the takes exist on the second disc of the deluxe set. There will be a standard CD and LP and a deluxe CD and LP available on June 29 on Impulse! The deluxe edition will exist on all digital streaming platforms as well.
John Coltrane - 'Both Directions At Once' makes 88.3PPB - Top 10 Favorite Albums of 2018. SEE THE PAGE & TOP 10
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Vox explains John Coltrane's 'Giant Steps'
Posted At : December 4, 2018 12:00 AM
John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" is the pinnacle of jazz improvisation. One of jazz's most revered saxophonists, Coltrane released "Giant Steps" in 1959. The chord progression that makes up the entirety of the song came to be called the "Coltrane changes"; it's known across the musical world as one of the most challenging chord progressions to improvise over. It's tough for two reasons: The chord progressions are played fast, and they're in three keys. "Giant Steps" is so challenging that Tommy Flanagan, the pianist on the original recording, could barely get through his solo before Coltrane took over. While this song is one of the most complicated in jazz, it's also the perfect tool to learn a few basic music theory principles that drive Western harmony.
Jazz musician Braxton Cook and music YouTuber Adam Neely gave me a crash course in Western music theory to help me understand this notoriously difficult song, and I bring you along for the ride in the video above. Even if you don't understand a lick of music theory, you'll likely walk away with an appreciation for this musical puzzle.
WATCH THE VIDEOS
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John Coltrane's 1963 sessions reflect a restless spirit / Jazz Weekly
Posted At : November 28, 2018 12:00 AM
This 3 cd set of John Coltrane's 1963 sessions can be purchases separately, or in a 5 cd set along with the essential Both Directions at Once which came out earlier in the year. This compilation features John Coltrane in a variety of settings, at the July 7th Newport Jazz Festival with Roy Haynes sitting in Elvin Jones' drum spot, a at Birdland on October 8 with his quartet of McCoy Tyner/p, Jimmy garrison/b and Elvin Jones, and some March studio work that had him with both his quartet and vocalist Johnny Hartman sitting in for a classic and restrained session. The various sessions and personnel reflect a restless spirit that was searching for not only a sound but a worldview as well.
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John Coltrane - 1963: New Directions set makes WBGO 'Holiday Gift Guide'
Posted At : November 26, 2018 12:00 AM
From Refurbished Classics to Fresh Discoveries, Swing Into the Holidays with NATE CHINEN and the WBGO: Newark NJ. This Holiday Gift Guide edition of Take Five I gathered 15 new releases, from throwback to ultramodern, that are well worth savoring as physical objects.
One intriguing fact about Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album – the archival John Coltrane release that caused a sensation this year - is how clearly it captures an artist in motion. Just one day after recording the music on Both Directions, the Coltrane quartet returned to Rudy Van Gelder's studio to make John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, a simmering classic. Later in the year, there came vital dispatches both from the studio and the bandstand. And now, motivated by the runaway demand for archival Trane, Impulse! has gathered all of this material into one package, with an underlying thesis about a genius at a pivotal moment of transition. The 3-CD called: John Coltrane, 1963: New Directions is available now, while a deluxe vinyl edition is expected on Dec. 7.
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John Coltrane 1963: New Directions makes Forbes 'Holiday Gift Guide'
Posted At : November 19, 2018 12:00 AM
This season's slate of music box sets showcase not only eight of the greatest artists in music history, arguably half of the top 10 artists of the last 60 years, but they often show how they work. The documentary-style processes found in the works here from Bob Dylan, the Beatles and Joni Mitchell, as well as the retrospectives from Tom Petty, Neil Diamond and R.E.M. and the formative eras of David Bowie and John Coltrane, are as invigorating for their educational value as they are for their musical prowess. The detail and thought involved in each one of these sets could allow any fan to happily disappear in the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve, poring over every musical note and lyric, every picture or, in the case of Mitchell, painting, biographical bit of info and interview in these collections. These are the ideal packages for the music lover in your life.
Jazz giant John Coltrane is, to me and artists from U2 and Elvis Costello to Bon Jovi and the Roots, all of whom have name-checked him in song, easily one of the top 10 most influential and important artists of the rock era (post 1955). So any posthumous music from him is significant. Earlier this year Impulse Recordings released the 1963 lost album Both Directions At Once. That is followed by this five-LP set, pairing the lost album with four other 1963 recordings, including John Coltrane And Johnny Hartman, Dear Old Stockholm and two live collections. For the way it compiles and chronicles an important year in the life of a true music legend, this is a very important collection.
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John Coltrane - 1963 'New Directions' set makes JAZZIZ: 'New Release Cheat Sheet'
Posted At : November 16, 2018 12:00 AM
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For jazz fans, Friday is more than just a stepping stone to the weekend. It's the day when new albums are released and new music fills the air. If you're wondering just which albums will catch your ear, we're here to help. We've combed through the list of albums coming out today to bring you some of our absolute favorites. From an instant classic by a Latin jazz master to a box set featuring music from John Coltrane's most pivotal year, here are six albums you can add to your collection right now.
Pivotal year. Pivotal tracks. That's the catchphrase behind this new collection of John Coltrane tracks from Impulse Records. The box set, released today and available in five-LP or three-CD versions (as well as streaming on digital services) collects every take recorded by the legendary tenor saxophonist in 1963, the year he recorded such noteworthy albums as t features material from Coltrane's recordings during that year from the albums John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, Dear Old Stockholm, Newport ‘63 and Live at Birdland. The box set also features tracks from the recently unearthed collection Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album. Buy it here.
SEE ALL JAZZIZ CHEAT SHEET RELEASES FOR 11/16
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Deluxe John Coltrane box compiling five 1963 albums to be released / MIXDOWN
Posted At : November 15, 2018 12:00 AM
JOHN COLTRANE'S 1963 ALBUMS TO RECEIVE DELUXE BOX SET RELEASE Including the Famous "Lost Album" is set for release on November 30 via Impulse! Records. The box set is comprised of Coltrane's prolific output from 1963, which generated three studio albums – Both Directions at Once, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, and Dear Old Stockholm – and two collections of live recordings, Newport '63 and Live at Birdland. Both Directions at Once is an especially notable inclusion, given that it remained undiscovered from its recording in 1963 until its release by Impulse! Records earlier this year. The new box set release also arrives courtesy of Impulse, who signed Coltrane in 1961 where he remained until he passed away in 1967.
SEE THE MIXDOWN PAGE
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It's not particularly difficult to find a record store in Melbourne / beat
Posted At : November 9, 2018 12:00 AM
In 2018, every JB Hi-Fi stocks a range of pop, indie, hip hop and dance and most major streets are dotted with vinyl stores filled with second-hand classics. Quality Records + is a faithful amalgamation of these two concepts. Sitting just off the corner of Glenferrie Road and High Street, Malvern, the store has a familiar feeling to it, left over from its unchanged 1970s architecture from when it was called Pet Sounds. The store's stocked records don't really have a theme either, ranging from classical to opera, all the way to Miles Davis to The Beatles to Kendrick Lamar and Arctic Monkeys.
Kelly Griffiths, who co-manages the store with her husband, Matt, has a key part in what labels and artists Quality Records sell, and she says this is an important draw for the store's resurging community. "It's very different," Griffiths says. "We don't have any Top 40; it's all about that old, jazz, classic, old-school tunes." To this date in 2018, the store's more popular records for the year have been:
1. Kamasi Washington: Heaven and Earth (Deluxe 5xLP)
2. Paul McCartney: Egypt Station (Deluxe 2xLP)
3. John Coltrane: Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album (Deluxe 2xLP)
4. Kamaal Williams: The Return (LP)
5. Simon & Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water (2xLP Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Ultra Disc Special Edition)
6. Chris Bowden: Time Capsule (2xLP)
7. Arctic Monkeys: Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino (LP)
8. Various Artists: Boombox (Early Independent Hip Hop, Electro & Disco Rap)
9. Kiefer: Happysad (LP)
10. Aretha Franklin: Aretha's Gold (2xLP Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Special Edition)
READ THE FULL beat ARTICLE
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John Coltrane's 1963 masters gathered on 'New Directions' set / udiscovermusic.
Posted At : October 19, 2018 12:00 AM
John Coltrane will have his recordings from 1963 collected in one 3-CD set due for release as 1963: New Directions on Impulse! Records on 16 November. A key year in the jazz legend's history. It features material from Coltrane's recordings during that year from the albums Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, Dear Old Stockholm, Newport ‘63 and Live at Birdland. 1963 came to be regarded as a point of transition between his previous jazz masterpieces and the genre-expanding music he went on to create. A five-LP vinyl box set version of the 3-CD collection is also planned for December.
READ THE FULL udiscovermusic. ARTICLE
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Verve's Danny Bennett says the rise of streaming is enormously net positive for for jazz and classical / music:)ally
Posted At : October 18, 2018 12:00 AM
In a recent issue of Sandbox, we spoke to the team behind the release and marketing of the "lost" 1963 John Coltrane album Both Directions At Once. In that campaign focus, Danny Bennett, president & CEO of Verve Label Group, talked about how his label made the album launch "an event" by treating it not as catalogue but rather as a frontline release.
He also spoke to us about the wider market for jazz and classical and how digital is impacting here. He regards the rise of streaming as enormously net positive for the industry as a whole as well as the genres he works with in particular. "With streaming, we have the ability to reach more people than in the history of the music business," he says. "It's not just the music; it's audio and visual. Secondly, music is always on now. It is more about lifestyle and people are less concerned about genre. People are waking up in the morning and they have their music on; they are working out and they have got their music on; they're going to work on the subway and they have their earbuds in."
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READ THE FULL music:)ally ARTICLE
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This week's Public Radio Tulsa - All This Jazz broadcast celebrates John Coltrane's birthday
Posted At : September 22, 2018 12:00 AM
Public Radio Tulsa's third-hour theme this week, running in the 11pm-to-midnight hour and Undoubtedly Worth Staying Up For, will be Trane Songs -- as John Coltrane would have turned 92 this weekend (on September 23rd). Our birthday tribute to Trane will feature the likes of Hilton Ruiz, Chico Freeman, Lee Konitz, and McCoy Tyner, among others -- hope you can join us! And elsewhere in our show, we'll enjoy the music of Charles Lloyd, Shirley Scott, Gerald Wilson, Frank Wess, Bill Carrothers, and many others.
Every Saturday night, both online and over the air, ATJ delivers three hours of recent and classic jazz -- across a wide range of styles -- from 9 o'clock till midnight. SEE THE FULL Public Radio Tulsa PAGE.
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KUVO's 'Trane Tracks' celebrates John Coltrane's poetry and song on his 92nd birth anniversary
Posted At : September 21, 2018 12:00 AM
Join KUVO: Denver on The Nightside with host Andy O' on Sunday, September 23 from 8 to 10 pm as we celebrate John Coltrane's birthday! "Trane Tracks" celebrates Coltrane's poetry and song. John was born in Hamlet North Carolina on September 23, 1926. He would go on to become one of the most influential and beloved figures of the Jazz world. Much poetry has been written about Trane and his own musical output was prodigious.
On Wednesday, March 6 1963, Coltrane and his classic Quartet - McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones - went to Van Gelder Studios in Englewood, NJ and cut a complete album's worth of material, including several original compositions that were never recorded elsewhere. They spent the day committing these to tape, taking time with some, rehearsing them two, three times, playing them in different ways and in different configurations.
The session has now resulted in an entire studio album featuring unheard originals released 55 years later. This is, in short, the holy grail of jazz and was titled - Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album on Impulse! Records.
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John Coltrane 'Both Directions at Once' / The New York City Jazz Record review
Posted At : September 6, 2018 12:00 AM
On March 6, 1963, John Coltrane and his Classic Quartet - McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones - recorded an entire studio album at the legendary Van Gelder Studios. This music, which features unheard originals, was finally released 55 years later. This is, in short, the holy grail of jazz.
As the legendary saxophonist Sonny Rollins so rightly put it, "This is like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid." The musical implications of this album, the original compositions, the arrangements, the band, the year it was recorded, all amount to a rediscovery and re-contextualization of one of the most important musicians of our time.
This historic session resulted in 14 tracks in total. On the standard edition, there are 7 takes, chosen by Ravi Coltrane. The rest of the takes exist on the second disc of the deluxe set. There will be a standard CD and LP and a deluxe CD and LP available on June 29 on Impulse! The deluxe edition will exist on all digital streaming platforms as well.
Attached as our image is the review from The New York City Jazz Record
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'Both Directions at Once' isn't an album and it wasn't really lost / the weekly Standard
Posted At : August 29, 2018 12:00 AM
Impulse Records calls Both Directions at Once a lost album, but it isn't an album and it wasn't really lost. Nor, despite Coltrane's interstellar motifs and spatial excursions, has it fallen from the heavens. It has emerged from the attic of Coltrane's first wife, Naima, as an "audition tape" whose master tape was either lost or destroyed. It was recorded all in one day at the studio of Rudy Van Gelder. In the fifties, Van Gelder had created the Blue Note sound by building a high-ceilinged extension to his house in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, nailing the drums to the floor and running a jazz group through spring-reverb amplifiers the size of refrigerators. Apart from recording Coltrane's only Blue Note album, Blue Train (1958), Van Gelder also recorded several Coltrane albums for Prestige Records, whose less-polished sessions were a notorious source of cash for drugs.
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READ THE FULL weekly Standard REVIEW
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Busta Brown interviews Joe Williams about the 2018 John Coltrane music festival / Winston Salem Chronicle
Posted At : August 25, 2018 12:00 AM
The Friends of John Coltrane is a charitable 501(c) 3 organization in High Point. The group's mission is to preserve and celebrate the life and music of the legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, and they did in a big way. In 2011 the first John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival was held at Oak Hollow Lake Park in High Point.
This Labor Day weekend, Sept. 1-2, the festival celebrates its eighth year at Oak Hollow Lake Park in High Point, with another powerhouse line up, which includes: Sheila E and her father Pete Escovedo, popular jazz vocalist Gregory Porter, John Coltrane's son and daughter Ravi and Michelle, Diane Reeves, multi Grammy award winning jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and more. "I'm looking forward to the crowd's reaction to vocalist Jazzmia Horn. Her sound is different, yet very refreshing is the best way to describe her. I believe the audience will ask us to bring her back next year. She's that good," said Joe Williams Sr., a member of The Friends of John Coltrane and senior partner at Choices Media Group LLC.
READ THE FULL Winston Salem Chronicle ARTICLE
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John Coltrane's Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album is a great find, perhaps best one of the year / AUDIOPHILE AUDITION
Posted At : August 17, 2018 12:00 AM
This release of a 55-year old recording of John Coltrane, one of the century's greatest jazz performers/composers, seems to be a great find, perhaps the best one of the year. Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album was made on a single day in March 1963 but it took this long for it to see the beguiling mists of twilight. However, its title is a bit disingenuous. It's not the lost album. There have been two other John Coltrane finds I know of: Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (which I reviewed on these pages) and Live at the Half Note: One Down, One Up, both released in 2005. Coltrane biographer Ben Ratliff says Verve (Impulse!'s parent company) has eighty-six CDs worth of Coltrane's concert recordings, and it doesn't really matter whether they are "found" or not. There's more in the queue.
READ THE FULL AUDIOPHILE AUDITION REVIEW
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Delayed Trane / JazzTimes
Posted At : August 15, 2018 12:00 AM
It wasn't that the session was unknown, but it seemed a given that it would be forever unheard. Researchers and scholars of John Coltrane had long known that on March 6, 1963, the legendary saxophonist had taken his classic quartet (with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones) into Rudy Van Gelder's recording studio in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. They'd laid down seven tunes, including Coltrane's "Impressions" and four untitled originals, along with two covers.
The existence of the session was documented in the archives of Impulse! Records, Coltrane's label and the date's financier. Around 1978, Michael Cuscuna found producer Bob Thiele's session logbook while working in those archives; musician and discographer David Wild included the information in his 1979 publication The Recordings of John Coltrane. One tune, "Vilia," was issued on a 1965 compilation of Impulse! outtakes. The others were considered lost, probably for all time, in an early-'70s purge of Impulse!'s tape library.
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READ THE FULL JazzTimes ARTICLE
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Christian Science Monitor top picks John Coltrane - Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album
Posted At : August 12, 2018 12:00 AM
Fifty-five years after he recorded it, John Coltrane has a new album out: Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album. Featuring Coltrane's classic quartet, the seven-track album includes five originals (two untitled) and two covers ("Nature Boy" and "Vilia"). Driven by drummer Elvin Jones's rollicking rhythms and Coltrane's unmistakable sound, even the new material feels deeply familiar. The record is mandatory listening for all jazz-heads. This historic session for Impulse!, resulted in 14 total tracks. On the standard edition, there are 7 takes, chosen by Ravi Coltrane. The rest of the takes exist on the second disc of the deluxe set.
SEE ALL Christian Science Monitor top picks
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Remembering John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk - American Routes
Posted At : August 10, 2018 12:00 AM
When John Coltrane finished high school in 1943, the 17 year old moved from North Carolina to Philadelphia, joining his mother, Alice, who worked as a domestic. Soon after his arrival, she bought him an alto sax. In the small apartment on 12th Street, he began a life of intense practice. Coltrane's talents grew in the city's vibrant jazz scene in the 1940s. Young Coltrane took theory classes at a local music school, and then went to night school in the clubs, with professors of jazz like Dizzy Gillespie, R&B sax man Earl Bostic, and alto player Johnny Hodges. Playing in different bands allowed John Coltrane to learn on the job, expanding his abilities both as a soloist and as an improviser. One of the most important stops on Coltrane's path to musical self-awareness was his residency with Thelonious Monk. He got there thanks to Miles Davis. Coltrane biographer Lewis Porter and Thelonious Monk's son, T.S. Monk, tell the story.
To hear the full program, tune in Saturdays at 7 and Sundays at 6 to American Routes
American Routes is a weekly two-hour public radio program produced in New Orleans, presenting a broad range of American music - blues and jazz, gospel and soul, old-time country and rockabilly, Cajun and zydeco, Tejano and Latin, roots rock and pop, avant-garde and classical. Now in our 20th year on the air, American Routes explores the shared musical and cultural threads in these American styles and genres of music - and how they are distinguished.
The program also presents documentary features and artist interviews. Our conversations with artists such as Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, B.B. King, Dr. John, Dave Brubeck, Elvis Costello, Ray Charles, Randy Newman, McCoy Tyner, Lucinda Williams, Rufus Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis and many others. Join us as we ride legendary trains, or visit street parades, instrument-makers, roadside attractions and juke joints, and meet tap dancers, fishermen, fortunetellers and more.
In New Orleans, the show airs on WWNO
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John Coltrane 'Both Directions at Once' featured on TMR's Bentley Bandstand for August
Posted At : August 9, 2018 12:00 AM
Sometimes a surprise arrives from so far out of left field that at first it feels too good to be true. Yet it is. By March 1963 John Coltrane had made several different types of album, but there was no question he resided at the pinnacle of jazz. The musician was exploring new sounds, and the way he did felt like a whole different force of nature lived on the planet. These recordings were recorded, put away and then-nothing. Today it clearly sounds like it was meant to be a new album then, but so much else in Coltrane's career was happening they have been overlooked for 55 years. Music being the gift that keeps on giving, the music's loss is now our gain. Coltrane's inimitable saxophone sounds like a feral cat chasing a mouse around the studio floor as it pursues the rhythm section. Drummer Elvin Jones is building walls with his kit, an unstoppable presence not to be denied. Pianist McCoy Tyner and bassist Jimmy Garrison give such a melodic support it borders on mesmerizing. John Coltrane would only live four more years, but no one knew that then. Instead, it sounds like he would live forever, showing the world a new vista of energetic beauty every time he picked up his horn. A love supreme.
SEE ALL TMR REVIEWS
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Tune in to CapRadio's - Excellence in Jazz for your chance to win - John Coltrane 'Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album'
Posted At : August 7, 2018 12:00 AM
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On March 6, 1963, John Coltrane and his Classic Quartet - McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones - recorded an entire studio album at the legendary Van Gelder Studios. This music, which features unheard originals, was finally released in June 2018, 55 years later. This is, in short, the holy grail of jazz.
Titled; Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, this Impulse! Records session produced two completely unknown and never-before-heard originals. "Untitled Original 11383" and "Untitled Original 11386," both played on soprano sax. "11383" features an arco bass solo by Jimmy Garrison, a relative rarity, and "11386" marks a significant structural change for the quartet, in that they keep returning to the theme between solos, not typical in the quartet's repertoire. In addition "One Up, One Down" – released previously only on a bootleg recording from Birdland – is heard here as a studio recording for the first and only time. It contains a fascinating exchange between Elvin Jones and Coltrane. "Impressions," one of Coltrane's most famous and oft-recorded compositions, is played here in a piano-less trio. In fact, McCoy Tyner lays out a number of times during this recording session. It's one of the more interesting aspects of this session and reflects the harmonic possibilities that Coltrane was known to be discussing regularly with Ornette Coleman around this time. This studio session also yielded Coltrane's first recording of "Nature Boy," which he would record again in 1965, and the two versions differ greatly.
Tune in tonight to Capital Public Radio's - Excellence in Jazz, hosted By Gary G. Vercelli, Dennis Newhall, and Devan Kortan, for your chance to win a copy of the deluxe edition of John Coltrane's Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album!
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Win Tickets to the 8th Annual John Coltrane Jazz & Blues Festival compliments of FOX8
Posted At : August 1, 2018 12:00 AM
Enter today for your chance to win a pair of tickets to the 8th Annual John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival at Oak Hollow Festival Park NC on September 1st-2nd, 2018, valued at $280.00! This contest will be open for entries until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, August 5, 2018. Five lucky winners will be randomly selected and announced after 10 a.m. on Monday, August 6, 2018. To enter for your chance to win, fill out the registration form below. Good luck! If you would like more information about the 8th Annual John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival, or to get tickets of your own, visit the Coltrane Jazz Fest's website.
SEE FOX8 - High Point NC PAGE
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John Coltrane: Both Directions at Once - The Lost Album / JazzdaGama
Posted At : July 31, 2018 12:00 AM
Since the advent of the 1960's, one of the iconic images of Jazz has been that of John Coltrane the tenor-turned-soprano saxophonist, eyes squeezed tightly shut in the throes of a musical epiphany, the riveting visual counterpart of a keening wail as he exploded as in a spiritual awakening. Somehow the same image is conjured up each time the music of Mr Coltrane bursts forth from the speakers in a listening room. A by word for commitment, conviction and relentless intensity more than fifty years after his passing nothing much has changed. Even musicians elevated to the rarefied realm already, such as Sonny Rollins and Wayne Shorter continue to marvel at the musical force that he unleashed. Meanwhile a host of lesser mortals continue to turn to ‘Trane as if to seek advice from his ever-present spirit when stuck.
The unstoppable juggernaut of Mr Coltrane and his iconic quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones is now front and centre again with the surprising release of another double album, which eminently appropriate for ‘Trane, is entitled Both Directions at Once – The Lost Album.
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John Coltrane hangs like a pendulum between ages on 'Both Directions At Once' / Goldenplec
Posted At : July 23, 2018 12:00 AM
On ‘Both Directions At Once,' John Coltrane hangs like a pendulum between ages, swinging from his past to his future and back again. Ahead of him there was avant-garde jazz – ‘A Love Supreme' and ‘Ascension.' Behind him was bebop – ‘Blue Train' and ‘Giant Steps.' And, lost for decades, there was this record. The missing link between the two generations.
All the spontaneity of great jazz is present on ‘Both Directions At Once.' Coltrane turns on pennies during his solos, moving from the past to the future and back again in a breath. The dissonant techniques adopted by future free jazz players like Albert Ayler make occasional appearances. And are followed by phrases of the past's bebop mastery. On Impressions, pianist McCoy Tyner lays out, letting Coltrane explore the outer realms of Ornette Coleman's harmolodics. But Coltrane's playing in the opening bars, far from sounding inaccessible or inscrutable, stands up as great bebop. Then he turns on his heel and frees up his playing, flying for the heavens on his saxophone.
READ THE FULL Goldenplec REVIEW
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Both Directions at Once: The Lost album is almost a holy relic, blessed with sensational music / The Sydney Morning Herald
Posted At : July 20, 2018 12:00 AM
Fifty-five years ago the most explosive band in jazz history trooped into their favourite studio and recorded an album that was never released. Until now. Both Directions at Once – The Lost album is almost a holy relic, blessed with some sensational music, sound quality to match, and even four previously unheard compositions by the towering saxophonist that was John Coltrane.
On March 6, 1963, his "classic quartet" with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones, was coming to the end of a two-week residency at New York's Birdland. They drove out to Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio for a five-hour session, before having to race back to Manhattan for their evening gig. If there was any pressure in the air you don't hear it. You hear a band at home in its own skin; one already acclaimed for its crushing potency, yet still 21 months away from recording its ultimate masterpiece, A Love Supreme.
READ THE FULL Sydney Morning Herald ARTICLE
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John Coltrane 'Both Directions at Once' goes #1 on JazzWeek
Posted At : July 19, 2018 12:00 AM
On March 6, 1963, John Coltrane and his Classic Quartet - McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones - recorded an entire studio album at the legendary Van Gelder Studios. This music, which features unheard originals, will finally be released 55 years later. This is, in short, the holy grail of jazz. Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album was released on Impulse! Records, Coltrane's final and most creative label home. On Wednesday, March 6, Coltrane and the quartet went to Van Gelder Studios in Englewood, NJ and cut a complete album's worth of material, including several original compositions that were never recorded elsewhere. They spent the day committing these to tape, taking time with some, rehearsing them two, three times, playing them in different ways and in different configurations.
Happy to announce that Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album goes #1 on JazzWeek for reporting week July 23, 2018.
VIEW THE JazzWeek Chart
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John Coltrane 'Both Directions at Once' hints at explorations to come / jazz & blues report
Posted At : July 19, 2018 12:00 AM
Recorded one day before his legendary collaboration with singer Johnny Hartman, the tapes of these sessions remained unreleased and in John Coltrane's family's possession until now. Seemingly a reference session for the leader, with several performances generically titled, they display music certainly of release-worthy caliber by one of the most notable ensembles in jazz. These tracks further hint at the master saxophonist's explorations to come.
The classic quartet: Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones is in top-notch form. The leadoff rack, "Untitled Original 11383", features soprano sax, Trane maintaining a barely-bridled energy through theme and solo and followed up by the first of a number of delightful choruses from McCoy Tyner. The pianist's play throughout makes this set worth the trip on its own. That said, Jimmy Garrison's ostinato bass grounds a piano-less run through of "Nature Boy"; the first of three border-stretching tenor statements, peaking on the first half of "Slow Blues" (Tyner joining in mid-flight).
Drummer Elvin Jones' signature fire and fury is on full display in dialogue with the leader on the set closer, "One Up, One Down". The degree to which this release is critical to filling out Mr. Coltrane's creative portrait will quite likely ignite animated conversation. What's more assured is that this is a captivating, well-timed snapshot of a giant of the genre- and of a jazz quartet that stands with the finest ever assembled.
This release is offered in both as a single-disc and deluxe two-disc versions, the second disc offering alternate takes of the fare featured on Disc One.
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John Coltrane 'Both Directions at Once' shouldn't be thought of as lost / the arts fuse
Posted At : July 18, 2018 12:00 AM
Already dubbed "the holy grail of jazz" by publicists with a shaky grasp of theology, Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album is a two-disc set of music recorded by the John Coltrane Quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones on March 6, 1963. It was then (mostly) put away by producer Bob Thiele. One number, the fifth take of "Vilia," was issued on the third of a valuable series of recordings from Impulse called The Definitive Jazz Scene. The track has been reissued since. The rest of the music on Both Directions at Once is being made available for the first time. Some of it was repressed for obvious musical reasons; the rest perhaps because the recording date was elbowed aside by the dozens of other Coltrane sessions recorded by Impulse. (Coltrane made what I consider to be a masterpiece, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, the day after this Lost Album session.)
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John Coltrane 'Both Directions at Once' featured on 89.1KMUW: Musical Space
Posted At : July 17, 2018 12:00 AM
I try not to live in the past, but when an album of music by John Coltrane is discovered and released decades after it was recorded, I'm justified in getting a little maudlin.
Coltrane recorded this in 1963, but Impulse Records never got around to releasing it, probably because they were concentrating on more commercial aspects of Coltrane's output; the master tapes were eventually destroyed to make space. Luckily some reference tapes were found in the attic of his ex-wife's family. The record features Coltrane's classic band: McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and Jimmy Garrison on bass - the same quartet that would record A Love Supreme, the album that would change the face of jazz.
This one was finally released June 29 under the name "Both Directions at Once: the Lost Album," a title that well describes its place in jazz history. Some of the standards in the collection reaffirm Coltrane as a master of the older bebop style. But as much as it looks backward, everyone in the band is looking forward, urgently testing the limits of form, harmony and style. Check out Coltrane's use of the novel soprano sax and and Tyner's futuristic piano chords; this is an essential point on the graph of Coltrane's stratospheric rise.
There are a lot of other newly discovered albums now coming out by very high profile artists. It's a lot cheaper to release an album now than back in the vinyl days, so being nostalgic is easier than ever. Art: Paul King
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John Coltrane 'Both Directions at Once' makes STUPIDDOPE - 5 albums you must have in rotation
Posted At : July 16, 2018 12:00 AM
It's Monday, a day none of us look forward to. Today we are aiming to change all of that by providing you with a look at some new albums that you need in your collection. While Friday brings all new material for our listening enjoyment, today we take a look at five albums that you should have in steady rotation. Below you will find five of our favorite albums right now, which are definitely worth checking out. Not only are each of these albums packed with incredibly dope new material, but they are also packed with addictive tracks, smooth vibes, and depth. John Coltrane 'Both Directions at Once' makes STUPIDDOPE - 5 albums you must have in rotation
Check out the other STUPIDDOPE albums you need in your rotation
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Lost recordings uncover John Coltrane's timeless talent / PBS: Newshour
Posted At : July 13, 2018 12:00 AM
On March 6, 1963, John Coltrane and his Classic Quartet - McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones - recorded an entire studio album at the legendary Van Gelder Studios. This music, lost recordings from one of the greats of jazz have now been found and released 55 years later on Impulse! Records. Titled Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, this is in short, the holy grail of jazz. Now rediscovered and shared with the world, the recently discovered music gives Coltrane, more than 50 years after his death, his highest ever debut on worldwide charts and in sales.
PBS: Newshour - Jeffrey Brown visits the jazz great's recording studio where the mystery began to take a listen to "Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album," which features Coltrane at the height of his powers. Read the Full Transcript & Watch the Video.
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John Coltrane earns first billboard top 40 entry with 'The Lost Album' / Forbes
Posted At : July 11, 2018 12:00 AM
Jazz fans got a monumental treat last week in the form of John Coltrane's posthumously released Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, which the virtuosic saxophonist recorded with his Classic Quartet in 1963. Those fans responded by giving Coltrane his first Top 40 album on the Billboard 200, 51 years after his death.
Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album debuted at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 this week with 22,000 equivalent units, of which 21,000 were traditional album sales. That marks Coltrane's best showing on the chart by far; he previously reached No. 107 with 2008's Opus Collection: A Man Called Trane and 2005's At Carnegie Hall, which he recorded with the Thelonious Monk Quartet in 1957. The Lost Album also marks Coltrane's biggest solo sales week in Nielsen Music's 27-year history, though At Carnegie Hall still sold more during Christmas week in 2005, when it moved 28,000 copies.
The 90-minute collection also earns Coltrane his fourth No. 1 album on both the Traditional Jazz Albums and overall Jazz Albums charts, as well as a No. 5 debut on the Top Album Sales chart. Those figures are a testament to the jazz luminary's enduring legacy; tenor saxophonist and one-time Coltrane collaborator Sonny Rollins likened The Lost Album's discovery to "finding a new room in the Great Pyramid." (Photo by Archive Photos/Getty Images)
READ THE FULL Forbes ARTICLE
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John Coltrane - The Lost Album is now FOUND, and is the WRTI 'Jazz Album of the Week'
Posted At : July 9, 2018 12:00 AM
New music from John Coltrane! I bet you thought you'd never hear that again-until this recording from 1963 surfaced. Trane and his classic quartet with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones were on the cusp of a transformation. In John Coltrane: Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album you can hear it from the first notes.
You might this think this record was "lost" on purpose because it was made in a quick five-hour session before a gig at Birdland. But that's not the case. These guys were at their peak, and ready. The session at Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey was pushed back an hour so the guys could get to Manhattan on time.
Coltrane: Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album became Coltrane's highest-grossing record. This was an exclusive Thank-You Gift during our recent Marathon for Music, and it's still available. Give Now to find out how.
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Full scream ahead: John Coltrane's Both Directions at Once / The Guardian
Posted At : July 8, 2018 12:00 AM
Missing presumed lost, Both Directions at Once is a newly discovered session recorded on 6 March 1963 by John Coltrane with Elvin Jones (drums), McCoy Tyner (piano) and Jimmy Garrison on bass. The tape has survived in good condition but the way we hear it now has changed significantly in the 55 years spent in limbo (in care of the family of Coltrane's first wife, Naima, apparently). Back then, what was to come, musically, was only a possibility, partly contained by what was already there. Now we also hear what was destined to be left behind. That which had not existed is now dated: literally in the sense that we know the date, but also because it has been made to sound older by virtue of what Coltrane went on to do.
In the liner notes Sonny Rollins likens the discovery of this session to 'finding a new room in the great pyramid'
The week's crowded schedule also highlights how much was happening for Coltrane and, by extension, in jazz generally, at this period. The timescale on which his career as a leader can be charted is painfully concentrated. In tandem with – and right after – his work with Miles Davis in the late 1950s, Coltrane recorded several albums under his own name but he did not settle on a definitive line-up for the quartet until late 1961. A Love Supreme was recorded in December 1964. Seven months later came Ascension, a clamorous declaration of freedom featuring an extended ensemble that still commands awe even if listening to it is no longer the essential rite of agonised passage it once was.
Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album by John Coltrane is out now on Impulse!. Geoff Dyer's book about jazz, But Beautiful, is published by Canongate.
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Both Directions at Once, The Lost Album strikes a balance between commercial success and breaking free from the jazz mainstream / SOMETHING ELSE
Posted At : July 5, 2018 12:00 AM
Both Directions at Once, The Lost Album is accurately titled, an album that captures McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, Elvin Jones and their visionary leader trying to strike a balance between accommodating the label's desire for converting Coltrane's talent stardom into commercial success and probing for paths that would eventually break him free from jazz's mainstream (and by the end of his time on Earth, from jazz itself).
Better than demo quality, falling maybe just short of the typical Bob Thiele production standard, Both Directions at Once, The Lost Album is nonetheless as gratifying as many other John Coltrane albums from the Impulse! era; indeed, it holds its own against the entire, history-making discography. To understand the magnitude of this meaningful new addition to such an influential repertoire, Sonny Rollins may have put it best: "This is like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid."
READ THE FULL SOMETHING ELSE REVIEW
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The fascination in John Coltrane's 'LostAlbum' lies in its incompleteness / FRIEZE.com
Posted At : July 5, 2018 12:00 AM
‘Lost', or previously unheard, albums by the great saxophonist John Coltrane show up relatively often. In 2005, a set recorded by the John Coltrane Quartet at a downtown Manhattan jazz club in 1965 was released as Live at the Half Note: One Down, One Up; in 2014 one of Coltrane's final concert performances was served up as Offering: Live At Temple University; and in 2015 a definitive reissue of his masterwork A Love Supreme incorporated a rarely heard live performance alongside a bunch of previously unreleased studio outtakes. Such albums are invariably released to tremendous fanfare, only for Coltrane obsessives to claim on internet jazz forums that they are hearing nothing new – this supposedly ‘new' Coltrane has, in fact, been circulating for years in various unofficial versions of dubious legal provenance.
But Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album (2018) is different. Freshly released last week on Impulse! Records, the set makes available nearly 90 minutes's worth of hitherto unheard music recorded by the John Coltrane Quartet on 6 March 1963 at the Englewood Cliffs studio in New Jersey. Englewood Cliffs, owned by the legendary record engineer Rudy Van Gelder, was where Coltrane recorded a string of albums that have proved central to the development of modern jazz: Africa/Brass (1961), A Love Supreme (1965) and Ascension (1966), and his quartet in 1963 included McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass) and Elvin Jones (drums), a meeting of profound musical minds and a group of unparalleled visceral force and enduring influence. Little wonder jazz fans have been salivating at the prospect.
READ THE FULL FRIEZE.com ARTICLE
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John Coltrane - Both Directions at Once is an unearthed goldmine / Jazz Weekly
Posted At : July 2, 2018 12:00 AM
As Sonny Rollins states in the liner notes, "This is like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid."
This two disc set finds completely hidden tracks from a "lost" album that John Coltrane and his classic quartet of McCoy Tyner/p, Elvin Jones/dr and Jimmy Garrison/b recorded back in March 6, 1963. To put it into time perspective, it was the same time (to the exact day?) of his album Crescent, his Live at Birdland recording (from a gig that night) and the day before his seminal meeting with Johnny Hartman. Not exactly a nadir of creativity, eh, with these recordings catching him halfway between his seminal Village Vanguard and Love Supreme albums.
Musically, this is a feast for the ears, with ‘Trane and company working out the themes and variations with excitement and inspiration. The longest piece at over 11 minutes, "Slow Blues" has a hip R&B solo by Tyner as well as giving Garrison a chance to take the spotlight.
READ THE FULL Jazz Weekly REVIEW
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John Coltrane's newly discovered album from 1963 - 'Both Directions At Once' / Pitchfork
Posted At : July 1, 2018 12:00 AM
From April 1962 to September 1965, while under contract to the record label Impulse!, John Coltrane led a more or less consistent working group with the same four musicians. After his death in 1967, this group-Coltrane on tenor and soprano saxophone, McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, Elvin Jones on drums-became known as Coltrane's "classic quartet." The group was powerful, elegant, and scarily deep. It was also a well-proportioned framing device. It made an artist with great ambitions easier to understand.
A fair amount of Coltrane's music has been released after the fact, but nothing that would seem, from a distance, quite so canonical as Both Directions At Once, which is 90 minutes worth of (mostly) previously unheard recordings made at Rudy Van Gelder's studio on March 6, 1963-the middle of the classic-quartet period. The Van Gelder studio, in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, can be considered part of the framing device. It was where the group did nearly all its studio work. For reasons of acoustics, it had a 39-foot-high, cathedral-like, vaulted wooden ceiling, fabricated by the same Oregon lumber company that made blimp hangars during World War II. Coltrane's music during that period, possibly encouraged by the cathedral-like room, became blimpier and churchier.
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Celebrate John Coltrane on Jazz88.3San Diego
Posted At : June 29, 2018 12:00 AM
Tune in to Jazz88.3 San Diego - THIS FRIDAY June 29, as we celebrate John Coltrane. On March 6, 1963, John Coltrane and his quartet arrived at Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey to record an album. It was a busy time for the group, which featured pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones. But the recordings from that March afternoon session never saw the light of day - until now. Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album is being released THIS FRIDAY but you can hear it in its entirety at 3pm pacific on The Drive (as well as classic Coltrane cuts ALL DAY). Ron Dhanifu will have saxophonist Robert Dove and other special guests. John Coltrane Day, only Jazz 88.3.
Tw - You want it? We got it! Tune in to @Jazz88 all day Friday June 29 as we?ll be giving away Deluxe Editions of the new #JohnColtrane album: Both Directions at Once (The Lost Album). PLUS, we?ll be debuting the new album in its ENTIRETY at 3pm with special guests.
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'Both Directions at Once' is topnotch Coltrane Quartet in the midpoint of the group's career / WBGO
Posted At : June 28, 2018 12:00 AM
You've surely seen reports about the newly discovered studio session by the John Coltrane Quartet, recorded on March 6, 1963. I've devoted a significant portion of my professional life to studying this band - as a jazz performer, a Coltrane biographer and researcher, and an educator - and discoveries of this scale are few and far between. It's been known for many years that the session occurred, but the master tapes were gone and it was not known that any copies existed. The new release, Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album, is a truly significant event. First and foremost, of course, the music is topnotch Coltrane Quartet in the midpoint of the group's career.
READ THE FULL WBGO: Newark NJ ARTICLE
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It's a fine time to be the ghost of John Coltrane / Denver Post
Posted At : June 26, 2018 12:00 AM
Whether it's his spiritual attack being echoed in the solos of one of the biggest stars of current jazz, saxophonist Kamasi Washington, or on laptops in the guise of the warm documentary about his life, "Chasing Trane" (currently streaming on Netflix,) or even the recently released "bootleg" collection documenting his 1960 tour with Miles Davis, there's a lot of John Coltrane to take in, more than 50 years after his death. Now, the Impulse! label, where the saxophonist created some of the most earth-shaking music in his short career, is releasing "Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album," on June 29.
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'The Lost Album' by the John Coltrane Quartet lies between youthful style and later exploration / newser
Posted At : June 10, 2018 12:00 AM
One of America's most acclaimed musical artists has a new record coming out more than 50 years after he died, the New York Times reports. The newly revived label Impulse! says it will release Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album by the John Coltrane Quartet, a 1963 recording that lies between his youthful style and the exploratory jazz he later embraced. "Coltrane was looking back at bebop ... and the song-based lyricism of jazz he had recently explored with Duke Ellington," jazz critic John Fordham tells the Guardian. "But he was also looking forward to imagining the more intense, mantra-like, spiritually-driven music."
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Lost 1963 John Coltrane album discovered, is like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid / The Guardian
Posted At : June 8, 2018 12:00 AM
A lost album of originals by John Coltrane, the American saxophonist who took jazz to new heights of freedom and expression, has been unearthed. The album, being released on 29 June as Both Directions at Once: the Lost Album, was recorded in a session on 6 March 1963, at the Van Gelder studios in New Jersey. Joining Coltrane in the quartet that also recorded classic albums such as A Love Supreme, Coltrane, and Ballads, are Jimmy Garrison on double bass, Elvin Jones on drums, and McCoy Tyner on piano.
The master tape left in the studio was lost, and it's likely it was destroyed in the early 70s when the label, Impulse!, was trying to reduce storage fees. But Coltrane gave his own reference tape of the recording to his wife Naima, despite their then disintegrating relationship – the pair divorced in 1966, and the tape has stayed in her family's possession ever since.
Sonny Rollins, a peer of Coltrane's and also regarded as one of the greatest jazz saxophonists of all time, described the discovery as "Like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid".
Among the seven tracks are two completely unheard original compositions, called Untitled Original 11383 and Untitled Original 11386, both of which are played on soprano saxophone. Another composition, One Up, One Down, has been heard only in a live bootleg from the Birdland jazz club, and never before in this studio version.
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Newly discovered John Coltrane Quartet session to be released / Independent
Posted At : June 8, 2018 12:00 AM
A newly discovered studio session featuring previously unheard original compositions by US Jazz saxophonist John Coltrane and his quartet will be released at the end of June – 55 years after it was originally taped. The album, titled Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album, was recorded by Coltrane and his quartet on March 6 1963 at Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey. It features the playing of pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones. Acclaimed American saxophonist Sonny Rollins has described the discovery of the album as "like finding a new room in the Great Pyramid". Included on the album are two completely unknown and never-before-heard originals, both played on soprano saxophone. They are referred to as Untitled Original 11383 and Untitled Original 11386 on the album's tracklist.
"My music is the spiritual expression of what I am – my faith, my knowledge, my being… When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups … I want to speak to their souls."
Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album will be released on June 29. READ THE FULL Independent ARTICLE
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After more than 50 years, Impulse records releases new music from John Coltrane / Paste
Posted At : June 8, 2018 12:00 AM
More than 50 years after John Coltrane's death, Impulse! Records is releasing new music from the jazz legend John Coltrane. Long-Lost record to be released, featuring Classic Quartet. The record label had long thought the album to be lost after the tapes it was recorded on were destroyed to create additional storage space at the company. However, the family of Coltrane's first wife Juanita Naima Coltrane recently found a personal recording that Coltrane had given her, and they alerted the record company. The tapes will be released as the album Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album.
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Lost John Coltrane recording from 1963 will be released at last / The New York Times
Posted At : June 7, 2018 12:00 AM
If you heard the John Coltrane Quartet live in the early-to-mid-1960s, you were at risk of having your entire understanding of performance rewired. This was a ground-shaking band, an almost physical being, bearing a promise that seemed to reach far beyond music.
The quartet's relationship to the studio, however, was something different. In the years leading up to "A Love Supreme," his explosive 1965 magnum opus, Coltrane produced eight albums for Impulse! Records featuring the members of his so-called classic quartet - the bassist Jimmy Garrison, the drummer Elvin Jones and the pianist McCoy Tyner - but only two of those, "Coltrane" and "Crescent," were earnest studio efforts aimed at distilling the band's live ethic.
But now that story needs a major footnote.
On Friday, Impulse! will announce the June 29 release of "Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album," a full set of material recorded by the quartet on a single day in March 1963, then eventually stashed away and lost. The family of Coltrane's first wife, Juanita Naima Coltrane, recently discovered his personal copy of the recordings, which she had saved, and brought it to the label's attention.
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