Coltrane's work on Prestige

[Joe]

[Dan Gould]

Finally! A thousand

[JohnS]

Essential

[Peter Friedman]

The Coltrane Box on Prestige is the one I have had for a long time. it includes everything he recorded on Prestige except for the material with Miles.

I don't recall seeing anyone mentioning the Chamber's Music album from 1956 with Coltrane as a sideman. It is on Blue Note, but originally was on a Jazz West LP that I owned at one time. some of the material was on A Transition LP. I always liked the hard swing feel on the first of the two dates.

[Bluesnik]

I always have liked his Prestiges (or everything previous to the great quartet) at least as much as his Impulses. Like has been mentioned here he wasn't an identifiable icon already, but was developing his own style and that's what I like him for.

I particularly like Soultrane and Traneing In, and all his participation in the Miles quintet an don't forget his wonderful Quintet in Chicago, mentioned elsewhere, on Mercury with Cannonball Adderley as leader. That alone is fantastic.

[Joe]

Another vote for LUSH LIFE, too. Love the piano-less tracks on that one.

The STANDARD COLTRANE / STARDUST / BAHIA stuff is great too... though I have to express a slight preference for the Savoy dates with Wilbur Harden.

[mjzee]

I never warmed up to Cannonball in Chicago. Besides the short running time (barely 30 minutes), I thought many of the songs selected were corny. I understand it was probably an impromptu recording session during a Miles engagement, but still, not one of the strongest dates for all concerned. YMMV.

The Savoy Wilbur Harden dates are hot and substantial. Recommended.

Edited December 21, 2013 by mjzee

[Jim R]

I always kind of assumed that everybody acquired this music (all of it) as soon as they had access to it (in my case, some used original vinyl, some reissue vinyl, and some original CD's). Why? Because it's Coltrane.

[mjzee]

I always kind of assumed that everybody acquired this music (all of it) as soon as they had access to it (in my case, some used original vinyl, some reissue vinyl, and some original CD's). Why? Because it's Coltrane.

I know I held back on this material for many years because the word was 1) Coltrane here was early and unformed, "not really Coltrane"; 2) the material was too traditional and boring compared to the later, more revolutionary Coltrane; and 3) the only "true" Coltrane was found in his Impulse explorations (though everyone also loved The Gentle Side of JC). Obviously, actually hearing the Prestige material shows otherwise.

[JSngry]

With he benefit of hindsight, "early and unformed" really means "still strung out". Trane had already been playing a good long while by the time he hit with Miles, and as the live recordings of him with Dizzy & Hodges show, was already quite proficient when in good (or at least not too bad) shape. Very good player in a conventionally (at the time) "modern" style, with just a very little hint in his sound that this was THE John Coltrane. But hey, the cat could play a gig, for sure.

That's another reason why the Prestige material as a whole is so rewarding, you can hear when he's on, hear when he's off, and (in both cases) hear him struggling to get past the conventional bebop "bob and weave" phraseology until finally, BAM, he gets there, the so-called "sheets of sound" phase, which of course continued to evolve up until the end.

So..."unformed"...maybe, in terms of what was to come, but in terms of what was really going on, not so much "unformed" as "re-forming", although nobody except the real insiders who had been knowing the guy would have realized that. I love Benny Golson's comment (in Cadence, maybe?) to the effect that nobody saw that coming, that for years, Trane was considered by his peers (mostly in Philly) as somebody who was just trying to work it all out, same as the rest of us, and then all of a sudden, WHOA.

[Joe]

I always kind of assumed that everybody acquired this music (all of it) as soon as they had access to it (in my case, some used original vinyl, some reissue vinyl, and some original CD's). Why? Because it's Coltrane.

I know I held back on this material for many years because the word was 1) Coltrane here was early and unformed, "not really Coltrane"; 2) the material was too traditional and boring compared to the later, more revolutionary Coltrane; and 3) the only "true" Coltrane was found in his Impulse explorations (though everyone also loved The Gentle Side of JC). Obviously, actually hearing the Prestige material shows otherwise.

That was pretty much my experience. My first Coltrane purchase was AFRICA / BRASS, thanks to a mention in a Lester Bangs essay (don't recall which one). I think I acquired GIANT STEPS after that, and only really worked my way back to the Prestige dates after acquiring all the Atlantics, A LOVE SUPREME, LIVE AT BIRDLAND, INTERSTELLAR SPACE and, IIRC, LIVE IN JAPAN (it was new at the time).

Glad I finally did looked into SOULTRANE and LUSH LIFE. In addition to offering pleasures all their own, they helped me understand even better what makes that latter music so... titanic.

Edited December 22, 2013 by Joe

[xybert]

I always kind of assumed that everybody acquired this music (all of it) as soon as they had access to it (in my case, some used original vinyl, some reissue vinyl, and some original CD's). Why? Because it's Coltrane.

I know I held back on this material for many years because the word was 1) Coltrane here was early and unformed, "not really Coltrane"; 2) the material was too traditional and boring compared to the later, more revolutionary Coltrane; and 3) the only "true" Coltrane was found in his Impulse explorations (though everyone also loved The Gentle Side of JC). Obviously, actually hearing the Prestige material shows otherwise.

Yeah, similar points to what mjzee is saying for me. I've definitely enjoyed Coltrane's music in the past but i never went crazy for him or other Tenor Sax Heroes like i did Monk, Mingus, Ellington etc and when it comes to sax i tend to gravitate towards alto players for whatever reason. I think only getting in to This Music in the last 8 years or so, it's arguable that Coltrane's impact on my ears was lessened by all the players who he's directly influenced, whereas by comparison to this day there is NO ONE that sounds like Monk, for example (and you can site Herbie Nichols, Andrew Hill, Don Pullen or whoever else until the cows come home but they all have their own thing to my ears, which is great!).

I know that it's arguable that no one sounds quite like Coltrane, but he really is the sound of modern tenor sax; it's all pervasive. Anyway, that's my half baked, ass pulled reasoning; all bullshit aside although enjoyable i just never found Coltrane exciting in the same way as Monk, Ornette, Threadgill and on and on...

So, i've enjoyed Coltrane but haven't gone crazy for him and therefore never felt a huge need to get in to the Prestige stuff, which i definitely perceived as being inessential.

This thread has changed my mind. I don't have it anymore but i used to really enjoy the Burrell/Coltrane album. I probably don't need all the Prestige stuff at this stage, but as i literally have none of it in my collection, there'll be no double ups for me and it makes economic sense to get the boxed sets (if i just wanted to get 4 leader dates they would pretty much costs the same as a box set = may as well get the box set).

I should have really checked here first whether it was a good idea rather than getting Fearless Leader but i went ahead and ordered this:

Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/His-Prestige-Albums-John-Coltrane/dp/B004XPM3LC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387690484&sr=8-1&keywords=coltrane+prestige+box

Discogs http://www.discogs.com/John-Coltrane-His-Prestige-Albums/release/4739522

12 albums, just the leader dates, no bonus tracks, 12 CDs in 3 CD double jewel cases. It doesn't really make much difference but i like that each album is on it's own CD. I am really looking forward to chilling with this over the holiday season. Should keep me going for a while, and if i feel the need i'll follow it up with the Side Steps and Interplay boxes.

Edit to fix picture.

Edited December 22, 2013 by xybert

[GA Russell]

You may recall that ca. 1968 the record companies switched over to stereo LPs which played on monaural record players. In the spring of '69, I found a few old mono jazz albums in the shops, I think for $1.99 each. One which I bought was Gerry Mulligan's Historically Speaking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historically_Speaking_%28Gerry_Mulligan_album%29

This was a re-named with a new cover Prestige album called Mulligan Plays Mulligan.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/mulligan-plays-mulligan-mw0000653532

So when I get home and open it up, what do I find but a copy of Soultrane!

I could have gone back to the store and returned it for my money back, but I was still new to jazz and learning, so I figured, What the heck?

I have never really liked Soultrane. He's just too leather-lunged on that album for me.

But a few months later in the fall, I was given a copy of the new Atlantic release The Best of John Coltrane. I loved that one, and that set me on my way to looking for more Coltrane.

I have always liked the Prestige recordings, and I have always felt that they have received short shrift from the writers. My recollection of the Downbeat writers of the '60s is that they considered both Coltrane and Miles to be continually improving; so they always favored whatever was new (except for Miles' work with Gil Evans, which they continued to love years later).

[David Ayers]

The Impulses were first for me and I worked through them all. I wanted him to go *on* but instead *I* had to go back, Atlantics then Prestiges. When I did it it felt more like an excavation. I think Jim's way of outlining how we should think about what we are listening to is pretty good. You *have* to hear them really in terms of where they are eventually going. But you have to hear them. I think it was Elvin Jones in an interview who said that if people have any John Coltrane albums they have them all. Like Jim R says - you just go for it, don't you?

[BillF]

Well, at least I learned about Coltrane in the right order! The first Coltrane I heard was a Prestige track, "Bakai", played on the radio in the Spring of 1959. Then I heard the Atlantics - I got a report on what to expect from "My Favorite Things" from someone who went to a London concert - and the Impulse albums were heard as they came along. I particularly remember the arrival of Love Supreme.

[mjzee]

My personal opinion is that Coltrane, especially later Coltrane, was a little too influential on a whole host of latter-day tenorists. That sheet-of-sound/ernest/urgent sound, in the hands of other players, sounded (again, my personal opinion) too oppressive and humorless, leaving no room for the music to breathe. I don't fault Coltrane for that, whose development was hard earned; perhaps it's the fault of the schools, or what the market demanded at the time. Who knows. But I do think it was a wrong turn for the evolution of jazz.

Which, for me, is one of the main joys of the Prestige Coltranes. You get his sound, that glorious, immediately identifiable sound, but in a lighter context, where he shares the space with other horn players, both of his generation and older, playing standards that allows all to play within the same context. Just a joy to listen to.

[xybert]

_{Yeah... I have a lot of thoughts on Coltrane that i feel like thinking aloud but i feel like i won't be able to get the tone right in a forum post (hasn't stopped me before, but anyway). Coltrane has always come off as a bit humourless and po faced to me, and hey not everybody has to be Jokey McJoke Joke, there's definitely a place for humourless, po faced artists especially when they can back it up like, of all people, COLTRANE but... yeah... I love a lot of his music, i really do (nyaaaargh). I'm getting better and better at throwing out the extraneous crap... Zorn's Spy Vs. Spy greatly aided me in getting in to Ornette, by comparison i can't think of a single Coltrane tribute off the top of my head (and there's probably hundreds if not thousands) that has added to my enjoyment of Coltrane. If anything they slightly chip away at my enjoyment. And then there's the legions of imitators. There's a point in there somewhere.}

_{All the extraneous crap around Coltrane... I'm really, really looking forward to getting in to these Prestige albums. Just what i feel like at the moment and i feel like it's going to cast Coltrane in a new light for me. In hindsight not getting in to Coltrane's early years was a major oversight on my part. Will get to hear the foundation, before he was literally deified.}

_{Edit to try and fix the weird spacing, failed.}

Edited December 22, 2013 by xybert

[king ubu]

Just in case - and to get back to mere profane facts - this one is a much better option than the 12 albums set depicted above:

http://jpc.de/jpcng/mobile/detail/-/art/John-Coltrane-1926-1967-The-Prestige-Recordings/hnum/1988951

It comes with a thick booklet, whilst the albums box probably has none whatsoever (I have the three thematic sets and kept some OJCCDs I had before ... but I've seen the 16 CD set and it looks good).

I'm a little bit amazed by some of the statements here ... how can you go into jazz for a while without hearing Coltrane at least on Miles' Prestige albums or "Blue Train"? And why should the later be an undisputed classic when it's from the midst of the period when Coltrane wasn't *there* yet?

[Joe]

Leave us not neglect that some of the most "there" Coltrane of the 50s is to be found in the company of Thelonious Monk...

[mjzee]

With he benefit of hindsight, "early and unformed" really means "still strung out". Trane had already been playing a good long while by the time he hit with Miles, and as the live recordings of him with Dizzy & Hodges show, was already quite proficient when in good (or at least not too bad) shape. Very good player in a conventionally (at the time) "modern" style, with just a very little hint in his sound that this was THE John Coltrane. But hey, the cat could play a gig, for sure.

That's another reason why the Prestige material as a whole is so rewarding, you can hear when he's on, hear when he's off, and (in both cases) hear him struggling to get past the conventional bebop "bob and weave" phraseology until finally, BAM, he gets there, the so-called "sheets of sound" phase, which of course continued to evolve up until the end.

So..."unformed"...maybe, in terms of what was to come, but in terms of what was really going on, not so much "unformed" as "re-forming", although nobody except the real insiders who had been knowing the guy would have realized that. I love Benny Golson's comment (in Cadence, maybe?) to the effect that nobody saw that coming, that for years, Trane was considered by his peers (mostly in Philly) as somebody who was just trying to work it all out, same as the rest of us, and then all of a sudden, WHOA.

Jim, I'd like to ask of your point of view...looking at Coltrane's recording career chronologically, is there a session you can pinpoint where you'd say there's a clear depiction of the mature Trane sound, where if you look at the session before, you'd find him still searching? In other words, which is the session where you'd say that, sometime between the prior session and this one, Coltrane had that "eureka" moment that led to his full development?

[xybert]

Just in case - and to get back to mere profane facts - this one is a much better option than the 12 albums set depicted above:

http://jpc.de/jpcng/mobile/detail/-/art/John-Coltrane-1926-1967-The-Prestige-Recordings/hnum/1988951

It comes with a thick booklet, whilst the albums box probably has none whatsoever (I have the three thematic sets and kept some OJCCDs I had before ... but I've seen the 16 CD set and it looks good).

I'm a little bit amazed by some of the statements here ... how can you go into jazz for a while without hearing Coltrane at least on Miles' Prestige albums or "Blue Train"? And why should the later be an undisputed classic when it's from the midst of the period when Coltrane wasn't *there* yet?

Ha ha, like i said, i definitely should have checked here first before making my purchase. I definitely won't fight you on this, as objectively the 16 disc set is probably going to suit most people better and at this stage i don't have either set to compare. The booklet will definitely be a plus for some, i prefer jewel cases to cardboard sleeves but cardboard sleeves definitely aren't a deal breaker for me. Other than that i can't comment on the sound (i'm actually quietly hoping that they are the same) and it's worth noting that the 12 disc set only covers the leader dates, one album per disc, as opposed to the complete 16 CD set that covers all the side man stuff too.

I figured the 12 CD set would be seen as a less favourable option but i think it's good to have it documented in this thread for the sake of future searchers, even if they it's just as a warning not to get it!

I have and dig the Miles prestige stuff with Coltrane, bringing up Blue Train reminded me of another reason why i previously never explored Coltrane's Prestige leader discs = Blue Train has never been a favourite of mine.

[paul secor]

Milestones has received many good recommendations. The bottom line with Trane's music is to listen to as much of it as you can. You can't fully understand his later recordings without knowing his early ones. And vice versa. We should be grateful that so much of his music is available for us to listen to.

[king ubu]

Just in case - and to get back to mere profane facts - this one is a much better option than the 12 albums set depicted above:

http://jpc.de/jpcng/mobile/detail/-/art/John-Coltrane-1926-1967-The-Prestige-Recordings/hnum/1988951

It comes with a thick booklet, whilst the albums box probably has none whatsoever (I have the three thematic sets and kept some OJCCDs I had before ... but I've seen the 16 CD set and it looks good).

I'm a little bit amazed by some of the statements here ... how can you go into jazz for a while without hearing Coltrane at least on Miles' Prestige albums or "Blue Train"? And why should the later be an undisputed classic when it's from the midst of the period when Coltrane wasn't *there* yet?

Ha ha, like i said, i definitely should have checked here first before making my purchase. I definitely won't fight you on this, as objectively the 16 disc set is probably going to suit most people better and at this stage i don't have either set to compare. The booklet will definitely be a plus for some, i prefer jewel cases to cardboard sleeves but cardboard sleeves definitely aren't a deal breaker for me. Other than that i can't comment on the sound (i'm actually quietly hoping that they are the same) and it's worth noting that the 12 disc set only covers the leader dates, one album per disc, as opposed to the complete 16 CD set that covers all the side man stuff too.

I figured the 12 CD set would be seen as a less favourable option but i think it's good to have it documented in this thread for the sake of future searchers, even if they it's just as a warning not to get it!

I have and dig the Miles prestige stuff with Coltrane, bringing up Blue Train reminded me of another reason why i previously never explored Coltrane's Prestige leader discs = Blue Train has never been a favourite of mine.

My guess is they both use the old versions (assuming the ones on the OJCCDs and the old huge 16 CD box were one and the same). Not a problem in my ears, never thought any old Fantasy CD sounded bad, really!

And having the album configuration is defintely a good thing, too ... but I very much like the three thematic sets, they're very nicely done, good notes, nice design and all ... and I do like to have the music in chronological order, too! So I am tempted to get the 12 disc set, too ... but then I did own those old OJCCDs for many years and mostly passed them on when I got the three box sets, so I kinda feel like I know the albums, too, having played many of them countless times!

I started Coltrane with Miles (Workin') and "Blue Trane" and some of the Atlantic albums ("My Favourite Things", "Ole" - the Heavyweight box then was my first jazz box set when it was out brand new) ... and then went in both directions from there ... the album with Tadd Dameron, "The Cats", "Traneing In", "Soultrane" and "Settin' the Pace" were early acquisitions, probably had them before getting many of the Impulse albums (and there I opted for the 8CD set with the collected studio recordings of the classic quartet ... later on went for the Deluxe Editions, too, and got some more releases, too, wherever there was any bonus material to find). Anyway, to me the notion of Trane not being "there" may fit some of his solos on those long Miles dates for Prestige, but after that, it's all good ... and even with Miles, where he's struggling, it's fascinating to witness since you do get an idea of what he wants to do, where he wants to go (he's, uhm, just not "there" yet - at least not all the time, but often he is).

[JSngry]

With he benefit of hindsight, "early and unformed" really means "still strung out". Trane had already been playing a good long while by the time he hit with Miles, and as the live recordings of him with Dizzy & Hodges show, was already quite proficient when in good (or at least not too bad) shape. Very good player in a conventionally (at the time) "modern" style, with just a very little hint in his sound that this was THE John Coltrane. But hey, the cat could play a gig, for sure.

That's another reason why the Prestige material as a whole is so rewarding, you can hear when he's on, hear when he's off, and (in both cases) hear him struggling to get past the conventional bebop "bob and weave" phraseology until finally, BAM, he gets there, the so-called "sheets of sound" phase, which of course continued to evolve up until the end.

So..."unformed"...maybe, in terms of what was to come, but in terms of what was really going on, not so much "unformed" as "re-forming", although nobody except the real insiders who had been knowing the guy would have realized that. I love Benny Golson's comment (in Cadence, maybe?) to the effect that nobody saw that coming, that for years, Trane was considered by his peers (mostly in Philly) as somebody who was just trying to work it all out, same as the rest of us, and then all of a sudden, WHOA.

Jim, I'd like to ask of your point of view...looking at Coltrane's recording career chronologically, is there a session you can pinpoint where you'd say there's a clear depiction of the mature Trane sound, where if you look at the session before, you'd find him still searching? In other words, which is the session where you'd say that, sometime between the prior session and this one, Coltrane had that "eureka" moment that led to his full development?

I don't/can't really look at it exactly like that, because the quitting of drugs and the heightened musical focus seem to occur at more or less the same time, as did the Five Spot gig with Monk, and who's to really say what drove what, or if it was all of a piece. But by all accounts, Trane really, really started catching fire/locking in/whatever during that gig with Monk in the summer of '57. Blue Train is a good indication that he was pulling it together, especially compositionally, but I think the first record where it's kinda "no turning back now, couldn't even if you wanted to" in terms of his leader dates is Soultrane, from early 1958. But the Red Garland dates with Donald Byrd from 11/57 are pretty hard to ignore as well. It's really a jam, but Trane is really taking charge there, as much as the format allows. Soultrane, though, that's still pretty much a jawdropper of a date, imo. The vision and confidence are all in place there, as is the execution.

With those times, and this guy in particular, records only tell a part of the story. There was so much going on live, and record dates were so often not the "projects" they are today. Guys would just get in the car, go record a session, leave, and get back to their lives, whatever those were (and whatever else might have been going on, it was a time when playing as often as you wanted for as long as you wanted was not a dream, it was a way of life). But whatever was happening before Soultrane that might have been partially captured on record was fully captured there, that was where the new bar was set afaic.

The chronology here http://www.jazzdisco.org/john-coltrane/discography/ is fascinating to follow, not least of all because you can see how Trane was still making records for different leaders in a variety of contexts for a variety of labels under a variety of conditions. The contrast between what happens on the 12/57 (so soon after the Byrd/Garland session) Blakey Bethlehem big band date (kind of a mess, I think) & the 9/58 George Russell big band date is amazing. Both "studio big band dates", not working groups, and/but/yet with totally different results.

The Blakey date has been released with all the alternates, and frankly, it sounds like Blakey is just not ready for the charts, and the players seem to grow weary of waiting for him to get it together. Trane is relative reserved on this, and I don't think it has anything to do with anything other than the date was not really going well in general. So if you look at that date at the end of 1957, as where Trane had "progressed to"...uh...no.

The Russell date, otoh, was full of chart-reading pros who were also fine jazz players. Trane only had one spot, and the story is that he asked for time to go off by himself to "get his changes together". It took a while, and people were wondering wtf was going on with this cat. Well, they found out when it was time, because that solo is full-on Trane of the time. So much music in that solo, just the first four bars, the lead-in alone, there's more meat there than most guys would play all night combined, but it just keeps building and opening up. No walking any of that back, none of it. (btw, that's another thing that Trane was really getting devastating at then, opening a solo with a phrase or two that was just like WHOA...."Wabash" from the Cannonball date is like that too, the opening phrase is killer, I actually need to...recover from it to get to the rest of the solo).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoVrPH-gL9g

And then a few months later, there's a Ray Draper date on Jubilee that has Trane being there and playing "well", but if you've never heard it, you might as well have heard it, if you know what i mean. Yet, I consider that a "money" gig (or maybe a favor?), and if you use that to look for any kind of "charting progress" goes, well....maybe that would not be the best idea.

So it went, but by early 1958 he was back with Miles (he had been fired before, remember, the Monk gig was kinda a "rehab" gig for him in many ways, musically and personally a "new beginning") and once that happened, the BOOM kept on BOOM-ing.

Now if you really want to hear Trane creating the future in real time, literally getting there before anybody else , that's Paris w/Miles in 1960. that's some scary shit in terms of how unambiguously...over the then-present is being made, right there in front of itself. But that's what I mean about records not really being the whole story,. That concert was not a recording date, and if a few things happened differently, it would be just another rumor/story/whatever. As it turns out, it survived, and now we know. And although there are many outstanding recordings of that tour that have survived, Trane does not unleash on any of them what he unleashed in Paris, at least not in as much quantity, duration, and intensity.

But as to the original question, Soultrane, although as you can see, that's a very qualified answer.

[jazzbo]

!

I have and dig the Miles prestige stuff with Coltrane, bringing up Blue Train reminded me of another reason why i previously never explored Coltrane's Prestige leader discs = Blue Train has never been a favourite of mine.

Blue Train has never been a favorite of mine either.

Listened to Dakar earlier today, I really like that session and I like the RVG.