John Coltrane "Kulu Se Mama" Impulse Japan UHQCD
Obviously I wanted more cowbell.
As time goes by it occurs to me that this album is sort of a hidden influential time machine in the Coltrane catalog. The large ensemble pieces seem like a window into the 'seventies. I honestly could be convinced that Miles Davis listened to this intently and it shaped his electric period. And even the other numbers could conceivably have inspired explorations like "Go Ahead John" and "Lonely Fire" and '73 to '75 concerts, and perhaps even the mic'ing and mixing and collage of Miles and Teo Macero. Certainly there was a lot of "spiritual jazz" of the next decade that sprang from this soil. A case could perhaps be made that this album is another reason John Coltrane cast such a huge and long shadow.
This new mastering is very good. Certainly I have never heard this sound this good.