The Very Best of John Coltrane

With his inexhaustible technique, trademark sound, and limitless imagination, tenor and soprano saxophonist John Coltrane was one of jazz's most dominant musicians. This collection covers his important Atlantic Records sessions recorded from 1959 to 1960 (chronicled in their entirety on Heavyweight Champion). The tunes signal an important transitional phase from Trane's stints with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk to his emergence as a leader in his own right. "Giant Steps" "Naima," and "Cousin Mary"--featuring pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Art Taylor--crystallized Trane's supersonic "sheets of sound" style. "Like Sonny," an Afro-Latin dedication to his friend and contemporary Sonny Rollins with Wynton Kelly on piano, reveals Trane's stylistic debts to Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins. His historic renditions of "My Shining Hour," "Body and Soul," "Summertime," and "My Favorite Things" highlight Coltrane's ability to remake a song into his own image, as well as introduce his influential sound on the soprano sax. These landmark recordings show the development of Coltrane's "great" quartet as well as forecast his iconoclastic excursions into the outer limits of rhythm and tonality, which grew during until his death in 1967. --Eugene Holley, Jr.  more