John Coltrane: Ascension (2LP, Edition I & II) [VERVE]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set gathers both takes from the June 1965 session, Edition I and Edition II, on 180g vinyl in a matte gatefold jacket. AllMusic called Ascension the recording that placed Coltrane firmly in the avant-garde, and it marked his move beyond the quartet format.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Edition I and Edition II
• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Remastered
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Coming off A Love Supreme, Coltrane was the modern jazz star of the 1960s, and he used that standing to bring the younger avant-garde players he admired into the room. On June 28, 1965, he walked into Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs with ten other musicians, no rehearsal, and lead sheets he'd largely written out in the room.

Around the classic quartet of McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones he gathered trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Dewey Johnson, bassist Art Davis, and saxophonists Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, John Tchicai and Pharoah Sanders, making five horns counting Coltrane. The plan was simple to say and wild to hear, with massed ensemble passages, then a solo with the rhythm section, a swell and a fade after each. Shepp had recorded his first Impulse! album on Coltrane's recommendation, and Sanders joined the band that September. The group cut two takes of roughly equal length, and this set gives you both, one per disc.

Marion Brown said the session got people in the studio screaming and that the record could heat your apartment on a cold winter day. We've tested this in the shop in February, and he wasn't wrong.

Also at Kops: more John Coltrane on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Impulse! / Verve (cat# A-95), a reissue of the 1966 album.