The John Coltrane Quartette* – Coltrane

This is one of john best recording! This quartet is on fire 🔥

Took a Jazz history class in college and it changed my life forever. The older I get the more I appreciate the genre and THIS album is, by far, my favorite (at the moment). Coltrane was genius and The Inch Worm does it for me on this album. Great, great record!

A Love Supreme will always remain my personal favorite work of our genius brother, a teacher of love, of soul itself.

Giant Steps is not far behind, and with the many Coltrane outputs of brilliance I have been fortune to either have in my collection or have heard over and over, this one I believe is tied with Giant Steps, and in some ways does sur.

For some reason this recording by Coltrane has been wildly under looked, and gone without widespread critical examination that brilliance fused into art rendered into recording deserves.

Bob Thiele was in some ways presicent, writing in the gatefold linear notes were unnecessary, that this speaks for itself, and others would hear this, see glimmers of Coltrane's vision, and deliver thoughtful commentaries.

At the time they were forthcoming of course, but it did not take long for this to be neglected in the wider Coltrane canon, the canon of jazz, the canon of music recording brilliance as a whole.

It is simply inconceivable this will remain the status quo, for when evaluations of Coltrane go beyond the name-checked well-deserved, it seems outside the very realm of possibility that one could listen to this in entirety and not come away stunned, shaken, moved into the stream of eternity.

By this time Coltrane had established his musical "voice", and had found his brothers that not only saw his vision, but contributed to transcend the whole.

McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones fused their virtuosity, their gifts, with Trane's in the merging of soul craft.

How thoughtful in selecting Out Of This World to begin, because it takes one into spaces, dimensions far out of the world as we know, and into world's of creation to inform our own of such beauty, splendor, devotion, and soul power.

This is movement music, moving you in ways you couldn't conceive before undertaking this trip into acoustic space.

To me this was an important part of Coltrane's Gift, and why A Love Supreme remains my personal favorite. I believe Giant Steps begins to accomplish this, as well as showing the sheer dynamic virtuosity of Trane.

Coltrane, the self-titled for me is placed right next to A Love Supreme, because no matter how many times I put them on the player, They find ways to move me in the unpredictable, the non-repetitive, a new glimpse each time, seeing into the mosaic of genius tied to fortitude tied to humility come forth from the soul, the spirit, the being of the inimitable John Coltrane.

Never in my life have I encountered an artist who has enthralled me so consistently and completely, as John Coltrane.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard one of his albums for the first time and said "This has got to be his greatest work". Of course it happened with Blue Train, but it also happened with Impressions, Giant Steps, My Favorite Things, Plays The Blues, and Olé.
At my current state of comprehension and taste, I think that THIS ALBUM, as well as the stunning (and also criminally overlooked) Coltrane's Sound [Atlantic 1419] are my true favorites — though that's obviously liable to change at a moment's notice. The sheer power of The Quartet simply cannot be denied.

I stand in awe and disbelief at the beauty and intensity with which this band played, during these magic years. Some of McCoy Tyner's finest soloing can be heard on this record, and of course Elvin never slips up once. Jimmy holds it all together, and then there's Trane, out in front, playing at the ideal middle point between his buttoned-up early years and the urgency of his late period.

Heavy, heartfelt; simply earth-shaking.